Janice:
Keynsian economics was still being touted into the 1970s.
>>So why is what Friedman says perforce the Truth, and what Keynes and Galbraith (who don't have exactly the same views, to say the the least) is the Government Line. What Government, for God's sake? In the case of Keynes, Britain in the twenties? The States in the Roosevelt years? In the case of Galbraith, the Kennedy administration?<<
In the so-called "mixed-economy" abortion of the U.S. economic system: yes, to all of the above. Pure capitalism is what we need to institute. A system that has NEVER been fully unleashed by ANY government, including our own. Get the government out of economics -- get the government out of the affairs of free men.
>>Sorry, Ter, this is absolute idiocy. What say you of Friedman's own Government Line of the Reagan years? (A GREAT success: that, you'll recall, was when the national debt went out of control because some silly people thought it was possible to cut taxes and increase defense spending, a concept whose fallacy could have been detected by the average five-year-old.)<<
It wasn't a fallacy. Government coffers shot upward and it created the biggest peacetime expansion in the economy since WWII. The problem lies in two areas: 1. The government should not be involved in the economy to any great extent, and 2. the cause of the debt is directly tied to socialist programs and entitlement programs -- throwing money (the wealth created by individuals who had it forcibly robbed from them by government edict, unlawful "laws" and coercion at the point of a gun or threat of prison.
The government role is to protect the United States from foreign threat. That is one of the roles outlined in the Constitution. What is not outlined is multi-trillion dollar, generational give-away programs.
>>You're a funny kinda "individualist", Terry. Your heroes and heroines are always absolutely Right, aren't they? And the people they rail against are absolutely Wrong. An extremely simplistic view, and not very individualist. Hey, WE think for ourselves.<<
You can try to rationalize away my points, but that will not decrease their validity. History is the greatest barometer of philosophical views. The height of Christianity was the Dark Ages. The summit of fascist-socialism was Nazi Germany. The peak of Imperialism was 1940 Japan. The depths of communist-socialism was Stalinist Russia.
Your damn right I think for myself. Your analogy doesn't hold water -- applied to an automobile, if I was to design a new one would I have to reinvent everything? -- even the wheels?
Father Terrence |
