yomomma wrote:Tribble wrote:
It's not a 'pyramid scheme.' Keynesian economics (primarily) rely on TWO factors to regulate the economy:
1. Manipulation of Interest rates.
2. When interest rate manipulation can no longer function, (zero lower-boundary effect) debt-financed public works to be repaid during times of surplus through taxation. Nothing pyramid about that.
Also, Keynesian economic models work just as well in tiny Iceland as they do in the huge US.
It's a pyramid scheme in the way that it transfers wealth from some individuals to others in a much drastic way than we do currently. I believe it also influences inflation by determining how much money people are allowed to keep.
And in tiny Iceland, austerity measures have also been put in place.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/ ... 2O20120612
Tribble wrote:It was South America. Not South Africa. And the point is true. Friedman (and the Gang of Eight) got free reign to impliment their economic ideologies and destroyed Chile's economy. Their complete failure is one of the reasons I got away from the economic fairy-tales of my youth.
Oops, my bad. Yes, South America. Maybe that's why I had a hard time finding the articles I was looking for. Honestly, I don't know a lot about this and can't really speak intelligently on it. I don't know how similar it is to the Libertarian theories I admire today. I'd want to read an unbiased critique before I make a comment.
That's not a pyramid scheme. This is a pyramid scheme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme Repeating the ignorant talking points of ignoramuses, no matter how it soothes the confirmation bias, isn't going to win you points.
So, just for the record, under Clinton and his Neo-Keynesian-influenced economic policies we were paying off our national debt.
I will also point out that Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter all ran Neo-Keynesian polices. The national debt (as a percentage of GDP) also fell (or barely rose despite some nasty economic situations) under them as-well.
So, since Keynes influenced our debt and economic policies, not only did we enjoy the greatest stability and wealth in our country, but every President in America (except for a brief bump-up during the very short Ford administration)
until Ronald Reagan, made progress on that debt. And every one of them, until Reagan, was a Keynesian or Neo-Keynesian.
http://pollycle.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/debt2.gif
Further, had we continued his (Clinton's) tax and economic polices and paid-as-we-went on our wars, we'd be close to debt-free today. Under Clinton's last four years, we were running surpluses of up to $230+ billion and they were projected to get larger.
But Gore lost and we went back to people who prefer the failure economics/polices (Bush/Obama) that Reaganites, Libertarians and Conservatives tend to favor and we're pretty fucked on the debt issue. (Yes, Obama is quite the austerian/monetist at heart and he's definitely not any kind of Keynesian or Neo-Keynesian despite the Conservative/Libertarian hand-wringing.)
What I find strange is how people can consider themselves 'skeptical' and look at the data and polices and still endorse Libertarist/Conservative economic polices. I grew up in believing in them, as well as Jesus. I got over both because, clearly, both were wrong. And being a data/fact driven kind of guy, I've got to with the facts and data.
I'll be the first to admit Keynesian and Neo-Keynesian economics are not perfect. But at least they're mostly right and they do self-correct when the models break down. While the economics you seem to favor has a long and broad history of failure, in the west, in the second world, in the third world, for well over a hundred years. It's destroyed the economies of the US (the Great Depression which also effected Europe), Chile, Greece, Brazil, Spain, Ireland, and a host of other countries.
And despite this record of abject failure in the real-world, it's the same song-and dance for every situation -- tax cuts for the rich/austerity for the proles. Isn't 100+ years of failure of 'classic/Austrian/austerian' economics enough? If not, how many more decades of 'failure' can you accept until you can't put it (the failures) on ignore? Will it have to be personal and you have to watch your grandchildren live three-families to a house and aspire to be peons/pool boys, like what happened in Chile, before you can accept it? Because that's where your policies lead for significant swaths of a population, while only truly benefiting the top 1% of the same.