DescentBB

‘The fascinating thing to me is that the widespread faith in the potency of fiscal policy…rests on no evidence whatsoever. It’s based on pure assumption. It’s based on a priori reasoning.’”

…some Keynesians who supported Barack Obama’s $862 billion stimulus now claim it fell short of their goals not because the idea was flawed, but because the spending package was too small. Christina Romer, the departing chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, has become a minor cult hero to the Keynesians, thanks to news reports that said her analysis in 2009 suggested the stimulus should be in the range of $1.2 trillion, or 40 percent larger than it turned out to be. The notion that a much-larger U.S. stimulus would have been more successful isn’t backed up by evidence. Maybe there would be an argument if some countries were now booming because their stimulus packages were larger. Or if some previous U.S. administration had tried a bigger stimulus and had better luck. The fact is, the U.S. stimulus was the largest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the biggest ever tried in the U.S. Nor does the academic literature support what we might call these Not-Enough Keynesians. A 2002 study by economists Richard Hemming, Selma Mahfouz and Axel Schimmelpfennig of recessions in 27 developed economies from 1971 to 1998 found that increased spending by government had, in almost all cases, a barely noticeable impact, and sometimes a negative one. Heavily indebted countries that spent more in recessions grew about 0.5 percent less, relative to trend, than countries that didn’t, the study found. …Supporters of this type of stimulus are either unfamiliar with the literature or willing to ignore it. The result is policy that is harmful to our country and inconsistent with modern economic science. If the Obama economic team were medical doctors, they would be pushing the use of medicine not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. As the economic data again head south, it will be much harder to devise successful economic policies because of the budgetary hole that the Keynesians have dug for us. In all likelihood, the data will soon be so convincingly bad that we’ll again debate the need for an economic stimulus. Let’s hope that when that begins, all will finally concede that the ideas of John Maynard Keynes are as dead as the man himself, and that Keynesianism is the real voodoo economics.

The result is policy that is harmful to our country and inconsistent with modern economic science.

tunnelcat wrote:...........because it's never worked as advertized.

CUDA wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:...........because it's never worked as advertized.

ya tha'ts why America is the poorest country on the planet

CUDA wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:...........because it's never worked as advertized.

ya tha'ts why America is the poorest country on the planet

Spidey wrote:I don’t know if you are speaking about stock or not, but Carter’s Stock Market rating was 8 compared to Reagan’s 5 with Clinton having the best at 1. So if you did worse under Reagan than Carter, and went down from there, you should fire your broker.

Spidey wrote:But, actually I was trying to make a point, I think it’s about time we stop blaming this person or that party for the current state of the economy, and start to look at the much bigger picture…

The largest factor for why we are where we are is globalization, and other factors such as energy costs and the fact that the American consumer is too cheap to buy goods made by other Americans.

But, of course it’s much easier to blame some president you didn’t like or some evil corporation than to look in the mirror and accept some of the blame.

We have met the enemy…and he is us.

In my opinion

Obama wrote:Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!