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I suspect the essentials of Keynesian economic theory were scribbled as a faculty prank on a monogrammed napkin in the Harvard Business School cafeteria. After a few laughs, the discarded joke was left on the table with empty coffee cups and a half-eaten bagel; only to be discovered minutes later by an opportunistic work-study sophomore clearing the table. The crumpled napkin was auctioned as the hottest & newest economic pop-theory to a fast-talking tabloid freelancer (who had been to Vegas with his columnist-buddy at The Globe, and had the goods on him). After some hard-nosed and expensive negotiations, the freelancer...

There’s no question that America’s recovery from the financial crisis has been disappointing. In fact, I’ve been arguing that the era since 2007 is best viewed as a “depression,” an extended period of economic weakness and high unemployment that, like the Great Depression of the 1930s, persists despite episodes during which the economy grows. And Republicans are, of course, trying — with considerable success — to turn this dismal state of affairs to their political advantage. They love, in particular, to contrast President Obama’s record with that of Ronald Reagan, who, by this point in his presidency, was indeed presiding...

CAMP DAVID, Md. — Leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations opened the door Saturday to more government spending in Europe as way to revive the continent’s struggling economy, shifting away from the idea that the surest way to recovery was through strict fiscal austerity. Meeting at the Group of Eight summit at Camp David, President Obama and his fellow leaders said they were committed foremost to creating jobs and growth, a shift, at least in emphasis, from previous gatherings dominated by German efforts to reduce high government debt through drastic fiscal reform. In a joint statement, the leaders of eight...

Stimulus: We've come to expect the worst from unduly influential New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. But this week he hit a new low by claiming President Reagan, not Obama, is the true big-government Keynesian.

According to Michael Kinsley, a gaffe is when a politician accidently tells the truth. That’s certainly what happened to Mitt Romney on Tuesday, when in a rare moment of candor — and, in his case, such moments are really, really rare — he gave away the game. Speaking in Michigan, Mr. Romney was asked about deficit reduction, and he absent-mindedly said something completely reasonable: “If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy.” A-ha. So he believes that cutting government spending hurts growth, other things equal. The...

As we watch the Eurozone struggle with its financial challenges Keynesians keep telling us the solution to our economic problems is to spend more money, to pile up bigger debts. A week and a half ago, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the debt of more than half of the Eurozone's countries, and the failure of those policies should be very obvious by now. Solving the Greek debt crisis hit yet another snag on Sunday afternoon. New aid for Greece from the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank would have relied on private bondholders “voluntarily” agreeing to a 50...

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

“The U.S. can pay any debt because we can always print more money.”–Alan Greenspan Meet the Press August 7, 2011 Last week, Nouriel Roubini released a paper, “A Radical Policy Response to the Rising Risks of a Depression and Financial Crisis.” He writes: “Data suggest that developed and emerging markets alike are heading for a massive slowdown in growth, with advanced economies already slumping to stall speed.” Roubini is right, but for the wrong reasons. Government intervention is the root cause of the financial crisis and the maladies identified by Roubini. Many of his proposals, such as debt restructuring and...

Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian might like what he sees in President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs package but not Marc Faber, the author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, who is not happy about the President’s plan. The package is “another complete failure of Keynesian economics and corrupt interventions,” Faber

There are two facts about our current economic situation that can no longer be denied: Our economy is in desperate need of government stimulus, and our political system won’t abide any increase in our national deficit. Taken together, the two points seem to bode poorly for the United States. But we shouldn’t be too quick to assume a contradiction. Just because stimulus has traditionally been understood as a function of deficit-spending doesn’t mean that’s how it has to work. We first have to come to grips with the fact that we need stimulus because we’re facing a problem of inadequate...

Stocks rose in afternoon trading Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. is on track for long-term economic growth. Bernanke left open the possibility of more action by the Fed if another recession looks likely. But he announced no new economic stimulus measures during his speech at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Amid bleak economic growth and unemployment, the stock market swoon, and the downgrade of the credit rating of the federal government, the fear of a dreaded double-dip recession--or even of a 21st-century Great Depression--has been taking hold. But a rough consensus among economists may be starting to emerge. According to this line of thinking, although a double-dip is certainly possible, a long period of stagnation--that is, frustratingly low growth--is more likely, much like what we've seen since the recession officially ended two years ago. That would be preferable to another recession, of course. But it would mean that ordinary Americans--especially...

It’s been many years since I’ve read The New York Times. Like most readers, I got discouraged by the shrinking page size, the self-confident erroneousness that becomes apparent whenever America's newspaper of record covers a topic I’m familiar with, and the lack of a comics page. Sure there are occasions when you can’t avoid it—usually when enough people are complaining about an article or when somebody I know is in the paper—but on a daily basis I follow the golden rule that life is just too short for The New York Times. So imagine my surprise the other day when,...

PLAYING CLIP OF RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: John Maynard Keynes. If you want to know what Keynesian economics is, you`re living it, Barack Obama, massive government spending, massive debt, massive redistribution of wealth, the lie that government spending, deficit spending can propel economic growth.They had no intention of saving capitalism. They wanted to destroy it and replace it with socialism or Marxism or fascism or whatever you want to call it. (END VIDEO CLIP) I think that is the heart of the Tea Party, Michael, this fear of government massive spending, hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging. CROWLEY: Yes. MATTHEWS: That stimulus...

After three-plus years of floundering around, a consensus has finally arrived that we are back in recession. Growth is not happening. The meager statistical growth of the past few years — no one dared claim it amounted to full recovery — was probably illusory. There is real growth, and there are government statistics. The statistics have misled every gullible person, but now the truth is obvious to everyone. Not only that: we face an impossible debt calamity, the banking industry is zombied, labor markets are static, the system is flooded with mispriced resources, housing is still a mess, and there...

Some refreshing words from the Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner this morning on Meet the Press. He had this to say: (15:20 into this clip) Note: An 8 second clip of Tim's words: Link We don’t have the ability (because of the overhang in housing and the problems in the financial sector) to engineer artificially a stronger recovery. Imagine that! Geithner acknowledges what I (and many others) have felt all along. The structural issues in the economy trump the government’s ability to engineer a recovery. The Fed has taken extraordinary measures on the monetary front. Since 2009 we have had $1.2...

The President quipped last week that part of the reason why his stimulus plan didn’t work was “the shovel ready jobs weren’t as shovel ready as we thought.” Since Obama has no business experience and hasn’t ever created a free market job, he’s totally befuddled why none of his economic plans are working. Even the President knows we are slipping into a double dip recession. He’s doing his best to still blame George Bush but even Debbie Wasserman Schultz admitted that the Democrats now own the economy. The root causes of the economy continuing to swoon are the Progressive and...

Obama’s Keynesian Economic Plan WILL End in a Great Depression and a One Term Presidency The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And by that definition, the entire Obama Administration and the Progressive movement have proven themselves quite insane. Keynesian Economics has a perfect track record: 100% failure. Worse, the Obama Administration has twisted and convoluted the Keynesian Economic model to fit their ideological social agenda which is far more radical than any previous attempt to make this failed theory work. The recession has not ended. We are not in...

Do more on jobs, Dems tell ObamaBy Alexander Bolton - 06/10/11 06:00 AM ET Senior Senate Democrats are growing frustrated by what they see as President Obama’s passivity on the economy, and are beginning to discuss a large infrastructure package funded by tax increases. Some Democrats, such as Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who serves as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, think such a package could lower the unemployment rate by as much as two percentage points. But the plan is not without political risk — Republicans would be quick to slap Democrats with the old “tax-and-spend...

New economics research suggests that President Obama's stimulus plan may have destroyed or forestalled employment, including more than 1 million private-sector jobs. Economists Timothy Conley, University of Western Ontario, and Bill Dupor of Ohio State University found that the stimulus resulted in a net loss of 595,000 jobs from April 2009 to September 2010. That counters research by the Congressional Budget Office, the Council of Economic Advisors, and many other economists.