Back to the gold standard

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RolandL

Member
It's not the same as welfare, either in function or in its affect on economic growth. Propping up the banks wasn't Keynesian.

Who said anything about raising taxes? I certainly didn't.

You can't use Greece as an example against Keynesian stimulus because their economy has collapsed, they can't borrow and they are tied into a currency that they have no control over, so they can't even attempt a stimulus. It is so far from the US's situation that you might as well be comparing the US economy to the economy of Oz (as in the yellow brick road).

Keynesian stimulus spending has worked repeatedly in the past. In fact, I can't think of a time when it has been attempted with conviction and subsequently failed to trigger a major recovery following a recession in a developed economy.
 
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PsycoCycles

New member
Quote
"Who said anything about raising taxes? I certainly didn't."
How else are you going to pay for "major infrastructure improvement projects"?

how do you pay these people Does the money just appear magically? and what is the good of infrastructure improvement projects? if as you say America has to compete with Chinese manufacturing.

did you know that the Wizard of Oz was about the Gold standard?

The Secret of Oz (by Mr Bill Still) - YouTube

also
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And we have an example of such Keynesian expenditure policy before us, if anyone would care to look. Japan has suffered under the effects of Keynesian demand stimulation for almost a decade now. The effect has been to take the relatively mild slowdown experienced internationally at the beginning of the 1990s and turn it into an ongoing, ever-deepening recession that shows not the slightest sign of retreat.

Japan is the paramount example of what happens through public-sector spending. There have been no end of pseudo-explanations for what has been an unexampled disaster. The rise in public-sector spending and the rise in the level of public debt have left the Japanese economy floundering. There will be no escape until the Japanese recognize the nature of the problem and bring their budget back into surplus and start to wind the level of public spending back.

Such a profound demonstration of the incapacity of Keynesian theory to provide useful policy guidance ought to have kindled somewhere a recognition that the theories now propagated in one textbook after another leave something to be desired. That this is not so only presents yet one more instance of how beliefs will persist even in the face of no evidence that they describe reality.

Source
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/the-failure-of-keynesian-economics/
 
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jimmbobb

New member
Thanks for that link jorvik!

So the solution would seem to be create a fiat money introduce it into circulation by building infrastructure that we so desperately need. Pay off the national debt. We then could very well compete with China in manufacturing and put America back to work. So we would have the massive spending needed to spur economic growth and we would be able to help those in need by having a surplus instead of negative cash flow. We would be able to fund any government health care system, and it would provide social justice that many long for. I don't really see the negative in all that. It would certainly bring Americans together as a country again. What are we waiting for?
 
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CandaceW

New member
Here's an excellent (and fun) econ lesson describing the differences between Keynesian and Austrian/Chicago schools. (BTW, don't let the slick production fool you, it was written by an econ prof. and the viewpoints espoused are very good descriptions of the viewpoints. )

I also happen to agree with the implication as well. I think it's a pretty good analogy.

"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem - YouTube

Been a good discussion so far, I should have time in the next few days to respond to some of the excellent comments. (I'd especially like to get back to Bear's economic thought experiment.)


(EDIT: BTW: When 'Hayek' uses the words, 'mechanics of change', that's what I've been calling 'second-order effects')

(EDIT II: Be sure to check out the name tags on the bartenders. Genius!)
 
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makaylam

New member
Ref Keynsian Stimulus:

I think its immportant to distinguish between short boost in infrastructure for Long term benefits.
The confusion here about infrastructure spending versus Keynesian stimulus needs to be simplified.

If farmers in say for example Utah cannot get their wheat to market in Maryland (my non existant USA geography showing through here)
without excess costs of transport etc, due to lack of efficient transportation infrastructure, then building good highways will have a long-term positive effect on economic growth.

However, building those highways is not "stimulative" in the Keynesian sense, because the jobs "created" by the highway project will not materialize within a single business cycle.

Moreover, the money needed to fund those projects must be taxed or borrowed away from the private sector, which reduces private-sector economic activity in the short term.

Infrastructure is a good thing, up to a point. But it's not Keynesian.

Up to a point? Fact is, we have adequate infrastructure already. So the "Keynesian" infrastructure spending we now indulge in comes in the form of beautifying highway medians or building bicycle paths for metrosexual Presidents in mom jeans.


I don't find it could work under current circumstances for America that is, you could point to the 1980's recovery but look at the difference between the trade deficit's now and then.

Also Carter made an effort to remove the shackles of Washington from business, furthermore he reduced taxes which is not what Obama wants to do.

(As a Brit, I don't actually mind Obama I think he has done a lot of good, so im not coming in with a bias, talking economics only)

Raz
 
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PinkPrincess531

New member
I don't like Keynes at all, and the image portrayed of him on the film is completely different from his real life persona.I mean for a start he was a homosexual.
 
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AtiqueS

New member
Hmmm...I meant that the way that they explained the economic theories they are each known for is accurate. I think the personality and settings of the two is supposed to be less historical fact and more a metaphor for how their respective economic theories are viewed.
 
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RoseM

Member
Yeah, I just think that Keynes is always given some slack, which IMHO he doesn't deserve. As a person I don't think that he was very nice, and I don't like his ideas.
 
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8Ace

New member
What I meant was in the film he is portrayed as some kind of good looking playboy womanizer, out for fun. In reality he was completely different.I was actually thinking about this article about Keynes
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Keynes was characterized by his male sweetheart, Lytton Strachey, as “A liberal and a sodomite, an atheist and a statistician.” His particular depravity was the sexual abuse of little boys. In communications to his homosexual friends, Keynes advised that they go to Tunis, “where bed and boy were also not expensive.” As a sodomistic pedophiliac, he ranged throughout the Mediterranean area in search of boys for himself and his fellow socialists. Taking full advantage of the bitter poverty and abysmal ignorance in North Africa, the Middle East, and Italy, he purchased the bodies of children prostituted for English shillings[See Lytton Strachey, A Critical Biography, Michael Holyroyd, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, two volumes].

Such Leftist hypocrites then, as now, issued loud denunciations against poverty, imperialism, and capitalist immorality. However, for their own degenerate purposes, they eagerly sought out the worst pockets of destitution and backwardness to satisfy their perverted purposes through sexual enslavement of youngsters. While traveling in France and the United States they complained among themselves of the harassment by the police of practicing homosexuals. In degenerate areas of the Mediterranean, on the other hand, they found a pervert’s Utopia where the bodies of children could be purchased as part of a cultured socialist’s holiday.

Source
http://www.brotherjohnf.com/archives/17622
 
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JHD

New member
jorvic, I would caution about painting the entire demographics of liberals as degenerates. For one that is definitely not accurate. If one particular individual is evil that doesn't mean all are.
 
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stash

New member
One can only assume however that the use of a quote, unless used as the object of a rebuke or critique, implies agreement with the content, otherwise why use that quote or why not only use it partially?
 
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SarahSugarbutt

New member
Ah, good to see that you read conservopedia. Such a reliable source.

Can't really seem to find much in the way of reference to him being a pedophile anywhere else though. Definitely a pederast, but of course we all know that's a different thing entirely, don't we?
 
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