[neverdem]

It hardly worked in the 1930s. Look up unemployment in the late 1930s.

[Maine Mariner]

True-we had a recession from 1937 to 1938.
The reasons: a contraction in the money supply but other reasons as well.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Thomas Sowell has written persuasive essays regarding how the New Deal *prolonged* the Great Depression.

IOW, it didn’t work then either.

[Alex Murphy]

John Maynard Keynes ping for later

[Carbonsteel]

I noted last week that there was an article on one of the leftist websites that was titled “Keynes proven Right” or something along those lines.

They actually still advocate big spending and massive debt to get us out of tough economic times, in spite of over whelming evidence to the contrary.

There is all the evidence it failed in the early 20th century, the late 20th century, in the early 21st century, in Europe, and especially in Japan.

Yet the left still deosn’t learn!!!

[Seaplaner]

Considering this, some economists urge more "stimulus." In a paper, Christina Romer -- former head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers -- argued that scholarly studies support the administration's view that its $787 billion stimulus in 2009 cushioned the recession. Another big stimulus "would be very helpful ... to really create a lot of jobs."

I recall Ms. Romer defending her Keynesian-based economic failures once by saying (I'm paraphrasing)..."It's accepted economic theory, it's in all our textbooks, and it's what we teach our freshmen students."

There you have it. Since the Keynesian nonsense is in the textbooks that she and her contemporaries write, it must be gospel.

And, I have never met a liberal that did not believe to the very core that going into debt to do public works projects would get any economy roaring in no time.

Every last one of them cites the Hoover Dam and most will talk of the magic "multiplier effects".

.

[AndyTheBear]

Why would Mr Samuelson or anybody else still be taking Keynesian economic models seriously?

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1936

Now that quote is ironic!

[Lmo56]

Governments have ceded power to bond markets by decades of shortsighted behavior. The political bias is to favor short-term stimulus (by lowering taxes and raising spending), which is popular, and to ignore long-term deficits (by cutting spending and raising taxes), which is unpopular. Debt has risen to hazardous levels, undermining Keynesian economics as taught in standard texts.

"The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy."

Milton Friedman

[cowtowney]

He’ll be back

[jonrick46]

I wrote this to Jim Robinson on another post and I believe it is appropriate here:

This election will play out the century long battle between the economic theories of Friedrich August von Hayek and John Maynard Keynes. We who know the truth, know that Keynesian economics is a failed economic theory. We know because it has played a big role in the undermining of America’s economic prosperity throughout the century. It certainly was so with FDR’s inept application of it to bring America out of the Depression. It is the lie, that those who promote it, that says that if they could pump out enough money through government run projects and programs, people who received the benefits of these projects would spend the money and the economy would come roaring back to life. If spending has not brought the economy back, then more spending is needed. The idea that Central Planners can bring the economy back to life is a false hope that only serves the Big Government bureaucrats. Keynesian economics only benefits the Big Government bureaucrats and they will lie about it to preserve their Big Government.

Increasing government spending only directs resources away from those best equipped to create new wealth: The rich who have created wealth before and ironically who they demonize because they are the rich. This false hope, that spending will bring economic success, only leads to disaster. It is also a tool by America’s enemies to cause disaster to America’s status as a world power.

Our truth that we need to make perfectly clear to the electorate is that only markets, free of government involvement find the answers to create new wealth.

[csmusaret]

Two points
1. If Government spending were the answer to our economic woes, our $15 Trillion debt would have produced paradise.
2. Government borrowing sucks money out of the private economy, rakes off some bureaucratic overhead and interest, then pours the remainder back into the private economy. Spending to stimulate the economy is like trying to fill a pool by dipping water out of one end and pouring it back into the pool at the other end.

[KSCITYBOY]

btt

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

“If history is any guide, this scenario will develop not gradually but abruptly.”

But we can put some bounds on it. I’m sure, Gingrich, as a historian, knows that governments must default when the debt to GDP ratio gets between 90% and 120%. We are at about 74% now and adding about 10% a year. Growth is stagnant. So the crisis could hit the US in middle to late 2013, just as the fist budget is passed after the election, and definitely by 2016.

[ripley]

Progressives love to spend money and will continue to laud Keynesian economics. (Hopefully, they will not have access to the levers of power, anymore, very soon.)

IMHO