What is your position on gov't....??????

What is your view????

  • Total voters
    0
#126
#126
volinbham said:
I'll ask again - how much more money could he have pumped into the system than BB did? Would interest rates go negative?
Click to expand...

Don't be silly. Interest rates are going to go away. Krugman's guest lectures are much simply when nominal and real rates converge, so inflation is out too.

Krugmanian Utopia will be future history book material, noted for gov't spending, funded via personal income tax, as lone remaining recession fix.
 
#127
#127
bam15 said:
Probably not much more, but I believe he is more knowledgeable about economic policies.

Paul Krugman is an expert on monetary policy – he wrote the classic paper on balance of payments crises, his work on Japan in the 1990s has helped develop everyone’s thinking of how to handle potential deflation, and his assessment of the crisis and needed response during the recession was extremely accurate.

Interest rates go negative.. :eek:lol:
Click to expand...

Saying he would be amazing as Fed Chair and big improvement over BB suggest that you can see different Fed policies he would pursue.

Being smart (I'm sure BB is smart) doesn't mean anything here. BB flooded the system with money (something you advocate). Hard to see how PK could have added any more.

So WWPKD?

Plenty of economists have written great papers and even won the ole Nobel like PK. Art Laffer is one and he couldn't disagree more with PK. What makes PK right and Laffer wrong other than your love of Keynes?

Can you accept the notion that Keynes may have been wrong? Or at least too simplistic?
 
#128
#128
bam15 said:
I am young yes, a senior in high school, if that still qualifies as young, but that doesn't stop me from believing in the Keynesian theories. Raw idealism is what this country needs more of.
Click to expand...

Methinks someone's teacher is Chris Matthews or David Axelrod
 
#129
#129
volinbham said:
His budget is raising taxes by 1 trillion over the next few years - hardly Keynesian (it is a net tax increase regardless of the cuts). Before you tell me that's post recession; review your comments that we must be Keynesian until the recession is over in it's entirety. Technically it is over based on the definition using GDP growth. In the broadest sense it won't be over until we return to full employment - the tax increases will kick in long before then thus delaying the recovery. Not very Keynesian.

As for the bank taxes? He came up with the idea. There would have been no political downside if he didn't do something that didn't exist until he suggested it. He did it to gain some populist favor. Hmmmm, wonder if any of his other policies could have that motivation? Nope - just that one. The rest are pure Keynesian goodness and the perfect solution to our troubled times.
Click to expand...

What do you do for a profession? Just wondering? Economics related?

Defining when the recession is over is a fine line, however once employment dips back down and both GDP and employment values are manageable with consumer sales going back up; then of course the recession will be over, then and only then should I believe taxes should be raised and spending cut.

Everyone hates the banks, when I say everyone I mean everyone, politically speaking it would be dumb. And I fear that it may have repercussions in the long run economically speaking.
 
#130
#130
volinbham said:
Saying he would be amazing as Fed Chair and big improvement over BB suggest that you can see different Fed policies he would pursue.

Being smart (I'm sure BB is smart) doesn't mean anything here. BB flooded the system with money (something you advocate). Hard to see how PK could have added any more.

So WWPKD?

Plenty of economists have written great papers and even won the ole Nobel like PK. Art Laffer is one and he couldn't disagree more with PK. What makes PK right and Laffer wrong other than your love of Keynes?

Can you accept the notion that Keynes may have been wrong? Or at least too simplistic?
Click to expand...

WWJMKD? With a twist of WWPKD added in.

Friedman/Hayek/Laffer/etc. would be running Herbert Hoover 2.0.

I haven't found him to be wrong yet, the beauty of it all is the simplicity.
 
#131
#131
bam15 said:
What do you do for a profession? Just wondering? Economics related?

Defining when the recession is over is a fine line, however once employment dips back down and both GDP and employment values are manageable with consumer sales going back up; then of course the recession will be over, then and only then should I believe taxes should be raised and spending cut.

Everyone hates the banks, when I say everyone I mean everyone, politically speaking it would be dumb. And I fear that it may have repercussions in the long run economically speaking.
Click to expand...

Defining the conclusion of a recession is not a fine line. Same as the start. Both are trailing indicators, however. Real info sits in the bond markets.
 
#132
#132
volinbham said:
Methinks someone's teacher is Chris Matthews or David Axelrod
Click to expand...

Nope, heavy republican, I argue all the time. In fact 95% of my family is republican. Would be nice to have David Axelrod as a teacher, Chris Matthews.. not so much.
 
#134
#134
bam15 said:
WWJMKD? With a twist of WWPKD added in.

Friedman/Hayek/Laffer/etc. would be running Herbert Hoover 2.0.

I haven't found him to be wrong yet, the beauty of it all is the simplicity.
Click to expand...

I still haven't seen an answer to how PK as head of the Fed would be different? He can't do fiscal policy as head of the Fed.

What's the story on Keynes and the economies of the 70s - inflation, stagflation, etc. How did his theories explain that?
 
#136
#136
volinbham said:
I still haven't seen an answer to how PK as head of the Fed would be different? He can't do fiscal policy as head of the Fed.

What's the story on Keynes and the economies of the 70s - inflation, stagflation, etc. How did his theories explain that?
Click to expand...
Stop. You're just deflating someone's statue.
 
#137
#137
bam15 said:
Everyone hates the banks, when I say everyone I mean everyone, politically speaking it would be dumb. And I fear that it may have repercussions in the long run economically speaking.
Click to expand...

My point here is that he's already "getting" the banks via regulatory change. The public was not clamoring for tax on banks. He came up with it himself. Had he not come up with it he would not have suffered politically.
 
#139
#139
volinbham said:
I still haven't seen an answer to how PK as head of the Fed would be different? He can't do fiscal policy as head of the Fed.

What's the story on Keynes and the economies of the 70s - inflation, stagflation, etc. How did his theories explain that?
Click to expand...

I think BB has too many connections and ideas still from Greenspan. AIG, Merrill Lynch Merger/BOA.

Not having control over fiscal policy is given, wish he could have some job giving input on fiscal policy and monetary, that would be nice.

To quote PK on the 1970s

One argument you often hear from anti-Keynesians — it pops up in comments here — is that the experience of stagflation in the 1970s proved Keynesian wrong. It didn’t; what it did disprove was the naive Phillips curve, which said that there’s a stable tradeoff between unemployment and inflation. By the end of the 70s most macroeconomists had accepted some version of the Friedman/Phelps natural rate hypothesis, which says that sustained inflation gets built into price-setting, so that inflation can persist for a while even in the face of high unemployment. But that’s very far from rejecting the basic Keynesian insight that demand matters.


Here’s what happened: the Fed decided to squeeze inflation out of the system through a monetary contraction. If you believed in Lucas-type rational expectations, this should have caused a rise in unemployment only to the extent that people didn’t realize what the Fed was doing; once the policy shift was clear, inflation should have subsided and the economy should have returned to the natural rate. If you believed in real business cycle theory, the Fed’s policies should have had no real effect at all.
 
#140
#140
volinbham said:
My point here is that he's already "getting" the banks via regulatory change. The public was not clamoring for tax on banks. He came up with it himself. Had he not come up with it he would not have suffered politically.
Click to expand...

But it is a intelligent move politically speaking. The American public at times knows very little about what happens, but when they hear the Populist message many start running to the banner, especially that all important Independent vote.
 
#143
#143
volinbham said:
You mean Fear such as "if we don't pass this massive stimulus bill full of give aways and unfocused spending/tax cuts we will go off the financial cliff?"
Click to expand...

With hope that we will recover because Keynes theories are correct. I will admit that there was too much pork in the bill, even Obama will agree to that, but it was needed, Keynes would tell you that.
 
#144
#144
bam15 said:
I think BB has too many connections and ideas still from Greenspan. AIG, Merrill Lynch Merger/BOA.

Not having control over fiscal policy is given, wish he could have some job giving input on fiscal policy and monetary, that would be nice.

To quote PK on the 1970s

One argument you often hear from anti-Keynesians — it pops up in comments here — is that the experience of stagflation in the 1970s proved Keynesian wrong. It didn’t; what it did disprove was the naive Phillips curve, which said that there’s a stable tradeoff between unemployment and inflation. By the end of the 70s most macroeconomists had accepted some version of the Friedman/Phelps natural rate hypothesis, which says that sustained inflation gets built into price-setting, so that inflation can persist for a while even in the face of high unemployment. But that’s very far from rejecting the basic Keynesian insight that demand matters.


Here’s what happened: the Fed decided to squeeze inflation out of the system through a monetary contraction. If you believed in Lucas-type rational expectations, this should have caused a rise in unemployment only to the extent that people didn’t realize what the Fed was doing; once the policy shift was clear, inflation should have subsided and the economy should have returned to the natural rate. If you believed in real business cycle theory, the Fed’s policies should have had no real effect at all.
Click to expand...

I give up on asking what PK would do differently as Fed.

If you don't think he's indirectly advising fiscal policy you aren't paying attention.
 
#145
#145
volinbham said:
I give up on asking what PK would do differently as Fed.

If you don't think he's indirectly advising fiscal policy you aren't paying attention.
Click to expand...

It's not that he would do anything drastically differently, it is just that I believe Paul Krugman has more knowledge and is better equipped for the job.

Real interest rates are too high, short-term nominal rates are as low as they go and Krugman couldn't have done anything different there.

But to answer your question I believe PK would Either buy long-term assets, driving down the wedge between short and long rates — the Joseph Gagnon proposal, which comes out of BB's own work — or raise expected inflation. Or could possibly do both.

BB is indirectly advising, no direct role though, that is Summer/Geithner. And secondly, Obama wouldn't listen to PK, he has criticized the Obama administration too much.
 
#146
#146
The textbook economics being regurgitated here would work great in a vacuum. Unfortunately, we are enacting policy in the real world where people making independent decisions drives outcomes and the set of facts is littered with enormous numbers of varied inputs that differ from the base assumptions that drive curves.
 
Last edited:
#147
#147
bam15 said:
It's not that he would do anything drastically differently, it is just that I believe Paul Krugman has more knowledge and is better equipped for the job.

based upon a paper he wrote? That's absurd. Krugman is a professor for a reason.

Real interest rates are too high, short-term nominal rates are as low as they go and Krugman couldn't have done anything different there.

so if he couldn't attack it with rate adjustments, he could have done it with money supply. To VBH's point, Bernanke has done both very aggressively. What more could Krugman have done, besides bemoan that the wealthy are screwing the world.

But to answer your question I believe PK would Either buy long-term assets, driving down the wedge between short and long rates — the Joseph Gagnon proposal, which comes out of BB's own work — or raise expected inflation. Or could possibly do both.

Buying long term assets in amounts enough to matter would mean enormous additional borrowing, which isn't happening in the real world. And what makes you believe that government held LTA's would dampen the spread between short and long rates. Expectations of inflation are driven by the business world and not by bureaucrats. He borrows a big pile of money to rid the open market of long bonds and he potentially increases short term rates, which hurts your earlier point that rates are too high. I don't get the point here. He only has so many levers. At some point, the private business world and consumers have to make it work. In fact, they are the only thing that has ever made it work, despite all of your classroom commentary to the contrary.

BB is indirectly advising, no direct role though, that is Summer/Geithner. And secondly, Obama wouldn't listen to PK, he has criticized the Obama administration too much.
Click to expand...

Obama doesn't need to listen to Krugman. He has plenty of people as well or better qualified telling him exactly what Krugman would.
 
#148
#148
Here's the summary:

I really like Keynes. His ideas are great in part because they are so simple. He's never been wrong. His critics are wrong because whenever Keynesian theory doesn't match reality it's because real Keynesian theory wasn't used (by corollary - when an administration uses deficit spending in a recession and the economy gets better it is because they are using real Keynesian theory).

I really like Paul Krugman (who really likes Keynes). Things would be way better if he ran the Fed - somehow.

Every bit of spending done by Obama is him trying to implement Keynesian economics. When (if) he cuts spending or raises taxes it is not him violating Keynesian policies; rather it is him realizing the recession is over and as a result he actually IS furthering the use of Keynesian policies.

Any deficit spending is Keynesian and not a sign of fiscal irresponsibility.

The only way to avoid deficit spending is to reduce military spending. Interest payments on debt and entitlements are not a problem.

I heart JMK and PK
 
#149
#149
TennTradition said:
Yeah..horrible people. Our troops, those that support them in the pentagon and the intelligence agencies, and researchers at our military labs, not to mention the contractors in the the NWC and various research labs...they're all devils.
Click to expand...
Not to run to his defense, but I read it as droski just taking a swipe at OE.
 
#150
#150
you left out Reagan the Keynesian military spender.

Was Keynes even in the military?
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top