<<<< We didn't even try to go on a diet as we instead started eating cupcakes with both hands - and Krugman was standing there handing out the cupcakes.>>>
Good analogy. If you are starving to death, eating cupcakes with both hands is a good idea. There is nothing wrong with eating cupcakes when you are starving but once you are back on your feet, there are better food choices for a healthy outcome. Just like in Keynesian economics. When you are out of a job, with no access to health care, and you have to put food on the table to feed your family - you beg and borrow to stay alive and healthy enough to get back on your feet. Austerity in such circumstances is stupid.
Back to Keynsian economics, when millions of people are unemployed, have no access to health care, government has to step in, borrow or print money to artificially create jobs and inflate the economy. When unemployment goes down, demand for goods and services go up, creating more jobs. Creating jobs is one of the Feds most important mandates. That is the reason for their existence. Once unemployment gets to a healthy low level, when more people are working and paying taxes, it is then time to repair the blance sheet. This is accomplished by balancing the budget.
Balance the budget when there is near full employment . Inevitably however, when jerks take over the government and hand out money to friends in the miltary industrial complex, fight wars that do not have to be fought and giving taxbreaks to the super wealthy will create the kind of mess we are in. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The process wil be repeated, again an again.
Keynesian economics is all about doing the math. It has nothing to do with religion or individual notions of morality and virtue.
If you want to learn about economics, go to school and take some courses in mathematics.
If you want to be a better person, go to church.
Going to school and getting up to speed in mathematics and going to church are not mutually exclusive.
But getting up to speed in mathematics should be mandatory. |
