Sumner: The Leader of the Great Anti-Keynesian Flip-Out

       He daily invents new ways of trying to push his anti-Keynesian agenda. We here again and again about the fiscal multiplier is "roughly zero." He peevishly declares he "hates Keynesian talk." He comes with absurd definitions for savings-spending on capital goods. Right there's spending on the one hand and the opposite of that is spending on capital goods.

      In a novel approach the other day cited Britain as a country that had a major fiscal stimulus-the weakness of the British economy according to this spin is not the fruits of David Cameron's austerity but rather Gordon Brown's alleged stimulus. Here is discusses American compared with other countries in coming out of the recession:

       "We are certainly further along than the periphery of Europe, but I don’t see what that shows.  We are less far along than northern European members of the eurozone like German, Austria and Netherlands.  But the US has its own currency, so we really ought to be compared to other developed countries with their own currency.  How about Japan, Australia, Canada, Britain, Sweden, Poland, etc?  Japan’s a special case that looks really good with unemployment and really bad in terms of growth.  We aren’t doing as well as Canada, Australia, Poland and Sweden.  We are doing better than Britain, but then Britain is one of the few countries that actually did even more fiscal stimulus than the US.  Indeed more than just about anyone.  So I don’t see how Britain’s poor performance strengthens the Keynesian case."

      This is Sumner at his revisionist, caustic best. Britain did more fiscal stimulus? For a long time David Cameron was the Great White Hope of Right wing economists like Sumner. Now he pretends Cameron's austerity never happened. I called him on this in the comments section. This is what he comes up with:

     "I meant that the UK has run bigger budget deficits. I recall Krugman praising Gordon Brown’s fiscal stimulus. I did a post on Britain a few days ago, check it out."

      I actually had read that piece that was also problematic. Notice the way he proves there was a stimulus-he "seems to remember" Krugman praising Brown's fiscal stimulus. Might help to have a link or some proof that this Krugman praise ever happened.

      But this idea that the UK has run bigger deficits than the US and so has "even bigger fiscal stimulus" is very problematic. A budget deficit doesn't necessarily prove that there was a large fiscal stimulus. There are a five ways you can get there. Fiscal stimulus is just one way. In the case of Britain it's the combination of the British recession that has been deeper and worse than the US and yes, Cameron's austerity.

      One can cause a deficit? One way could be fiscal stimulus. Another way could be deep budget cuts and a bad recession. The last two are the prime movers for the British deficit. Yet Sumner tries to cheat by making it sound as if a budget deficit is one and the same thing as fiscal stimulus. This is what I mean when I say that he is disingenuous and misleading.

     As Krugman says,

     "some anti-Keynesians have tried to save their dignity, or something, by attacking supposed Keynesian propositions that nobody actually, you know, proposed. The usual one is to claim that Keynesians predicted great results from the Obama stimulus (which I very noisily did not). But Tyler Cowen has come up with something truly strange. He seems to believe that any good news anywhere somehow refutes Keynes. Hints of recovery in Ireland (which proved a false dawn)? Keynesianism is wrong! A relatively encouraging month on the jobs front? Keynesianism is wrong!"

     No one seems more concerned with his own "dignity" and the dignity of his fellow freshwater economists than Sumner-he upbraided me in that same comments section mentioned above as acting like a second-grader and that if I think he's a freshwater economist I'm "way over my head in reading his blog." Oh Scott! Don't  you know that flattery will get you everywhere with me?

     Sumner tries to rescue his "dignity" by bringing back every reactionary economic argument known to man. This he does by his favorite move-old wine, new bottles. Yet he has many formidable gifts. I should write a post solely on his impressive aptitude for concern trolling.