Ok, at least he asked for something undemanding.
”And don’t call it fiscal stimulus either. Tax cuts are fiscal stimulus, and as you might have noticed almost all the Keynesians favored the tax increases Obama adopted a year ago. You don’t favor fiscal stimulus; you favor more government spending. And not transfers, those are tax cuts too. You favor more government OUTPUT. You’ve rejected neoliberalism, so say so.”
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25886&cpage=2#comment-313381
He's come up with yet another gloss to attack fiscal policy with. Fiscal policy is not the alternative of monetary policy it turns out. Those who want fiscal policy just have a political agenda.
"So please don’t waste my time with silly arguments about the advantage of fiscal policy over monetary policy, unless you are advocating barter. Say you want fiscal policy because you think the economy needs more socialism and less capitalism. That a perfectly respectable argument, so make it. Don’t beat around the bush."
Just like he didn't beat around the bush here and said something really weird. So now there is a fiscal multiplier in a barter economy-what? He also made all kinds of baseless digs that I got him back on. Here is my comment I just left for him here
"If your demands are that easy I’m just going to have to go ahead and oblige them. I’ve rejected neoliberalism. What real Keynesian should be ashamed to admit that?This hypothetical socialist Monetarist hasn’t rejected it I’m guessing?"
”And don’t call it fiscal stimulus either. Tax cuts are fiscal stimulus, and as you might have noticed almost all the Keynesians favored the tax increases Obama adopted a year ago. You don’t favor fiscal stimulus; you favor more government spending. And not transfers, those are tax cuts too. You favor more government OUTPUT. You’ve rejected neoliberalism, so say so.”
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=25886&cpage=2#comment-313381
He's come up with yet another gloss to attack fiscal policy with. Fiscal policy is not the alternative of monetary policy it turns out. Those who want fiscal policy just have a political agenda.
"So please don’t waste my time with silly arguments about the advantage of fiscal policy over monetary policy, unless you are advocating barter. Say you want fiscal policy because you think the economy needs more socialism and less capitalism. That a perfectly respectable argument, so make it. Don’t beat around the bush."
Just like he didn't beat around the bush here and said something really weird. So now there is a fiscal multiplier in a barter economy-what? He also made all kinds of baseless digs that I got him back on. Here is my comment I just left for him here
"If your demands are that easy I’m just going to have to go ahead and oblige them. I’ve rejected neoliberalism. What real Keynesian should be ashamed to admit that?This hypothetical socialist Monetarist hasn’t rejected it I’m guessing?"
"Also it’s not true that Keynesians are always for tax hikes just for the rich. Last year Keynesians supported the end of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. However, most wanted the payroll tax holiday to continue.
"Of course, God’s party-and yours-didn’t want that. It’s not that Keynesians hate tax cuts and conservatives love them but that both like certain types of tax cuts and certain types of tax hikes.
Conservatives-or Neoliberals if you prefer-like to cut taxes for the rich and raise them for the poor-the consumption tax, value-added tax, et. al."
He also seems to have left a rather broad definition of socialism-if you ever seek to increase government output for any reason or duration at any time you're a socialist. There's a competition between capitalists and socialists-capitalists want a 100% private market-socialists want a 100% government run economy.
In reality I'm not a socialist, Keynes certainly isn't and neither or most Keynesians. If you are a socialist you probably won't be pleased with Keynes for obvious reasons.
Part of the problem here I think is that many of the Keynesians of today are only Keynesian by name, so called "new" Keynesians......which are really monetarists in keynesian clothing. Outside of the heterodox school of PKE virtually every other school works form a loanable funds type model where all govt spending must be "paid for" by issuing debt or increasing taxes somewhere.
ReplyDeleteScotts just arguing with the other brand of monetarists, the less conservative ones. PKEers advocate for tax cuts especially for workers (Scott supports consumption taxes and other ways to make the other guy pay for things) in the form of no SS taxes.
Scott is really worried about govt debt too, for all the wrong reasons.
He's really losing it of late. Playing silly "I told you so" games with his enemies based on very limited data sets. One uptick in a stock market...... "Seee I told you market monetarism was right!!!!!!" One tenth of a decrease in unemployment in a country scraping the bottom like Britain or Ireland..... "Look, look.... austerity works!!"
Neoliberlism as the political philosophy that supports privatization of everything, advocates complete removal of a "state". Of course the state gets replaced with the "firm" which then acts exactly like a state, making rules (not laws), plans and evens provides security for its people. The only difference between the firm and the state is that the firm is not elected by people, it just buys its position. You rightly reject it. Its not remotely democratic. Can we have, or have we ever had, true total democracy.........no, but we don't need to completely eliminate it either. Neoliberalism is 180 degrees form democracy, theres not a shred of democratic ideas in neoliberalism. People don't matter, only money does. The new Pope understands this quite well.
I agree that he's baiscally just arguing with slightly more liberal Monetarists-the NKers.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that he admits to being a Neoliberal. One typical tactic of Neoliberals is to deny there is any such thing as Neoliberalism.
Will he admit he's a Neoclassical economist?
ReplyDeleteOf course not. They don't exist. Just like income doesn't exist
Delete