(GS) Now Shorting the Market

[dummass]

Were we set-up? :mad: Again! :mad:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1389...d?source=email

[Starving Steve]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

The U.S. economy might be growing in nominal terms in late 2009, but in real terms, it may well be sinking deeper into depression. In other words: stagflation will be back. The Fed learned absolutely nothing from the stagflation of the 1970s.

As we sink deeper into the toilet, it has to be apparent, even to the dummies in the class, that Keynsian economics is a complete joke. Inflation fools no-one.

[marvenger]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

I think keynesian economics was about promoting investment and jobs not bailouts and inflation

[ASH]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

I think keynesian economics was about promoting investment and jobs not bailouts and inflation

Cue long, heated discussion of what Keynesian economics says in theory versus how it has been implemented in practice, the probable ancestry and moral vices of various worthy forum participants, and other hooda.

[Starving Steve]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

I think keynesian economics was about promoting investment and jobs not bailouts and inflation

Yes, when I thought of Keynsian economics formerly, I had thought of public investment in badly needed infrastructure that would create both jobs and great benefit to society. Things like the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the California Water Project, the Nelson River Project in Manitoba, and the provincial investment in the tar sands project in Alberta came to my mind.

I had never thought of Keynsian economics as government going out of its way to de-value the currency, to create inflation, to waste money on nonsense like solar energy, to bail-out the rich, to funnel money to corrupt CEOs, and to steal the public's retirement savings thru inflation and outright bond default. I had never thought of Keynsian economics as compounding deficits, just for the sake of deficit spending, and just for the sake of impoverishing the next generation. But that is what Keynsian economics has amounted to, and that is why Keynsian economics can not work. That is why we are still sinking deeper into this morass and haven't hit bottom even yet.

Heads should roll in the universities. Let's begin the re-writing of economics there.

[marvenger]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

Yeah its a can of worms, don't know if i've got the stomach to start on that thread. Keynes' own confusion had a lot to do with it, but really all he wanted was progress and near full employment, not too much to ask. Different strategies suit different times and when a strategy keynes may have suggested, among many, fails in a circumstance he gets pretty hammered. It s a bit unfair I think. He was probably the first most prominant economist to try to bring to attention how to create near full employment and recognised that lack of productive investment was generaly the problem. There's no one strategy to achieve the goals.

[marvenger]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

yeah I agree, a lot of rather marginal economists like Steve Keen say the post or neo Keynesians as the call themselves are poor immitations of keynes and have synthesised too much comparative statistics micro economics into their Keynes. All I know is that Keynes called for the end of the rentier so I assume that means he didn't like FIRE.

[Munger]

Re: (GS) Now Shorting the Market

I really think the simplest way to think about it is to forget about deficits, savings, inflation, investment, monetary policy, spending, trade, etc and try to figure out how it makes sense to have 20% of the population sitting around idle.

They could be digging ditches and filling them in and the country would be no worse off than if they sat around. If they did anything that even marginally contributed to wealth it is a net plus.

Keynes himself advocated the govt. acting as a moderating force to the business cycle - save money during booms, create jobs during downturns. They way it has been implemented has been less than perfect, to say the least. But the idea has merit.