Reply With Quote
"market-oriented policies"
let us in on your suggestions, Cato (member in good standing of Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, yelling its noise into the Repug echo chamber)
Is Keynesian Stimulus Working?
from Cato @ Liberty by Chris Edwards
By Chris Edwards
In his Brookings Ins ution speech yesterday, President Obama called for more Keynesian-style spending stimulus for the economy, including increased investment on government projects and expanded subsidy payments to the unemployed and state governments. The package might cost $150 billion or more.
The president said that we’ve had to “spend our way out of this recession.” We’ve certainly had massive spending, but it doesn’t seemed to have helped the economy, as the 10 percent unemployment rate attests to.
It’s not just that the Obama “stimulus” package from February has apparently failed. The total Keynesian stimulus is not measured by the spending in that bill only, but by the total size of federal government deficits.
The chart shows that while the federal deficit (the total ”stimulus” amount) has skyrocketed over the last three years, the unemployment rate has more than doubled. (The unemployment rate is the fiscal year average. Two months are included for FY2010)
The total Keynesian stimulus of recent years has included the Bush stimulus bill in early 2008, TARP, large increases in regular appropriations, soaring en lement spending, the Obama stimulus package from February, rising unemployment benefits, and falling revenues, which are “automatic stabilizers” according to Keynesian theory.
The deficit-fueled Keynesian approach to recovery is not working. The time is long overdue for the Democrats in Congress and advisors in the White House to reconsider their Keynesian beliefs and to start entertaining some market-oriented policies to get the economy moving again.
"market-oriented policies"
let us in on your suggestions, Cato (member in good standing of Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, yelling its noise into the Repug echo chamber)
I have an idea for improving unemployment. Reduce the federal minimum wage to its 2007 level.
The minimum wage has risen 40% since 2007.
Great start. Let's get rid of it all together.
I don't like Obama
but 8 years of putrid business practices and leadership brought us to this mess. Won't be fixed in 1 year.
I want a monetarist economist in charge of the Fed.
Helicopter Bernake is about as monetarist as they get..
He might of been. I don't think so anymore though. No way could someone who was for flooding the money supply, in any situation.
Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is pretty much where it was in 1983, and nowhere near any historical high.
Cato and the board noise chamber have NO recommendations better than govt stimulus to offset private retreat?
This is true.
But I think MW would be more effective if it was enforced for everyone, including illegal immigrants.
How exactlly do we go about enforcing minimum wage laws for people on whom we can't even enforce immigration laws? If we were capable of enforcing anything, they wouldn't be illegal.
OK. But that's not really my point.
Do you think it was a good idea for Congress to do nothing when the federal minimum wage was slated to rise from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour in July? The timing was horrible, IMO.
I thought we established that people who merit working for MW aren't worth the effort by the employer.
MW is just another right-wing red-herring.
Where are Cato's alternatives to govt stimulus.
What is he supposed to do once the interest rates went all the way down to virtually zero? The problem with monetarism is that once you hit that rock bottom they don't tell you what to do...
Minimum wage isn't the problem, our government is. Always wanting to raise taxes and looking the other way when problems are foreseen. Money and power. If the politicians cannot use policy to control us lower beings more, then why be in government?
And yet it's still lower than it was before Reagan's conservative revolution of class warfare.
^ So what? I'm not sure I understand your point.
Do you think it was a good idea to raise the minimum wage in the midst of a rising unemployment?
Apparently Reagan and GHW Bush allowed it to happen.
"Always wanting to raise taxes"
link? we had 2 Repugs admins of cutting taxes, and nobody but the super rich benefitted, and their excess money into the (unregulated) mortgage markets fueled lending boom./
You'r so full of check-box conservative fantasies, it's not even interesting anymore.
So what? Can't we just discuss the issue?
I am -- try to follow. Historically, the minimum wage has been made to or allowed to rise in periods of rising unemployment. The world didn't end, and the economy did recover. It is much less of a big deal than you are making it.
You seem to acknowledge that it slows recovery. Thanks for that. Now what is the rationale for raising it during a period increasing unemployment?
And I never said the world would end. I just think the minimum wage, to the extent that it is even justified, should only be raised when both inflation and unemployment aren't present concerns. Do you have an opinion on this? Or do you think "the world didn't end" is all that matters?
Does it?
Prove it.
Nobody benefits from the minimum wage. Economic growth doesn't change that. Price controls never work in any kind of economy.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
