Sheldon Richman
Krugman Watch, cont'd.
[I]t’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public [taxpayer] spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts — and therefore costs less per job created … — because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved.
And saving has absolutely nothing to do with job creation. John Maynard Keynes said so. (Here’s an alternative view.)
As the Wall Street Journal editorializes today, “There’s little evidence to support this theory [of the multiplier], but you have to admire its beauty because it assumes the government can create wealth out of thin air. If it were true, the government should spend $10 trillion and we’d all live in paradise.”
Comment by MC-Shalom on 26 January 2009:
You Bail Them Out, We Opt Out.We Want Some TARPDear, or should I say Expensive Ben S. Bernanke,All of Our Economic Problems Find They Root in the Existence of Credit.Out of the $5,000,000,000,000 bail out money for the banks, that is $1,000 for every inhabitant of this planet, what is it exactly that WE, The People, got?If my bank doesn’t pay back its credits, how come I still must pay mines?If my bank gets 0% Loans, how come I don’t?At the same time, everyday, some of us are losing our home or even our jobs.Credit discriminates against people of lower economic classes, as such it is unconstitutional, isn’t it? It is an supra national stealth weapon of class struggle.Credit is a predatory practice. When the predator finishes up the preys he starves to death. What did you expect?Where are you exactly in that food chain? Credit gets in the way of All the Principles of Equal Opportunity and Free Market.Credit is a Stealth Weapon of Mass Destruction.Credit is Mathematically Inept, Morally Unacceptable.You Bail Them Out, We Opt OutOpting Out Is Both Free and Strictly Anonymous.My Solution: The Credit Free, Free Market Economy.Is Both Dynamic on the Short Run & Stable on the Long Run, The Only Available Short Run Solution.I Am, Hence, Leading The Exit Out of Credit:Let me Outline for You my Proposed Strategy:? My Prescription to Preserve Our Belongings.? Our Property Title: Our Free, Strictly Anonymous Right to Opt Out of Credit.? Our Credit Free Money: The Dinar-Shekel AKA The DaSh, Symbol: - .? Assets Transfer – Our Right Grant Operation – Our Wealth Multiplier.? A Specific Application of Employment, Interest and Money.
[A Tract Intended For my Fellows Economists].If Risk Free Interest Rates Are at 0.00% Doesn’t That Mean That Credit is Already Worthless?Since credit based currencies are managed by setting short-term interest rates, on which you have lost all control, can we still say that you are still managing anything?We Need, Hence, Cancel All Interest Bearing Debt and Abolish Interest Bearing Credit.In This Age of Turbulence The People Wants an Exit Out of Credit: An Adventure in a New World Economic Order.The only other option would be to wait till most of the productive assets of the economy get physically destroyed either by war or by rust.It will be either awfully deadly or dramatically long.A price none of us can afford to pay.“The current crisis can be overcome only by developing a sense of common purpose. The alternative to a new international order is chaos.” – Henry A. KissingerWhat Else?Until We Succeed the Economy Will Necessarily Keep Sinking Into a Deeper and Deeper DepressionYou Bail Them Out, Let’s Opt Out!Check Out How Many of Us Are Already on Their Way to Opt Out of Credit.Let me provide you with a link to my press release for my open letter to you:
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Quantitative [Ooops! I Meant Credit] Easing Can’t Work!I am, Mr Chairman, Yours Sincerely [Do I really have the choice?],Shalom P. Hamou AKA ‘MC-Shalom’
Chief Economist – Master Conductor
1 7 7 6 – Annuit Cœptis
Tel: +972 54 441-7640
Fax: +972 3 741-0824
http://edsk.org/
Comment by Steve Hogan on 26 January 2009:
I’m not sure I have the stomach to read a full Krugman article. Simply reading the excerpts from you and others is a challenge to my sanity. That said, I wonder if he has ever commented on Japan’s experiment of the last 18 years. If any country swallowed whole the Keynesian concept of government spending to spur aggregate demand, it would be the Japanese, who pushed interest rates to zero percent (Bernanke, call your office!) and spent Yen like drunken sailors. Isn’t this precisely what Krugman is prescribing?Other than paving the entire island on Honshu, what did this get them? From what I can tell, they got a stagnant economy and lots of make-work jobs that squandered resources.