Milton Friedman quote

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
It's just a graph showing that "fiscal wrecklessness (sic)" didn't begin with LBJ but with Reagan, hardly an adherent to Keynesian policies.

LBJ did such things as privatize Fannie Mae in order to balance the books. Although we may look back on these attempts to balance a budget as funny, especially in an age where they don't even pass budgets, it shows how different they were back then. In addition, Medicare/Medicaid has always been one of the largest expenditures of the US government. So LBJ started it all by passing his programs.

As for Reagan, he would never have been able to spend like this had it not been for fiat currency.

Originally posted by whodey
LBJ did such things as privatize Fannie Mae in order to balance the books. Although we may look back on these attempts to balance a budget as funny, especially in an age where they don't even pass budgets, it shows how different they were back then. In addition, Medicare/Medicaid has always been one of the largest expenditures of the US government. So LBJ ...[text shortened]... for Reagan, he would never have been able to spend like this had it not been for fiat currency.

Even though your juvenile obsession with a fiat currency is mildly amusing, I think you are a little confused. Friedman specifically advocated an active central bank policy to control the amount of money in his quantity theory of money. This is obviously much easier to do with fiat currency, because a currency tied to real assets is much less flexible.

Originally posted by whodey
Like I said, they could care nothing about Keynes, other than taking certain aspects of his theory and applying them to make it appear that they have legitimacy.

So if you agree with Keynes in regards to government inflating money so as to steal our wealth, then why do you support the nanny state? This is just another angle to promote their theft.

Did I say I agreed with Keynes or with that quote from Keynes? No. I said that what Keynes said was similar to stuff you have said and implied that I am surprised you think you disagree with Keynes.

I do not believe that Keynes was an advocate of irresponsibly spending without the revenue to cover the bills. He argued instead that there are good reasons for public spending to be used as an implement to influence the economy. There might be periods when it is prudent to take money out of the economy, and other periods when it is prudent to pump money into the economy, which can both be achieved by spending more or by spending less than the available revenues. However, over a time period of perhaps a number of years rather than one budget cycle, I think he envisaged that things would return to balance. So he was not an advocate of the kind of deficit which has been seen in the Republican administrations of Reagan and Bush, where the deficits reflected unfunded wars and a tax break for the rich.

Whether what is happening in the US since the 2008 crash is properly Keynesian or not I can't say for sure but it is a different scenario altogether to the crazy Republican project. In the UK I think we can say it is certainly not Keynesian, since we have watched a right wing coalition trying to sharply reduce public spending in the face of a massive recession. Where they have spent immense amounts is in protecting their pals in the banks and the financial sector but the evidence of corresponding benefits in the real economy is slight (especially in relation to the amount spent). Of course they have not managed to reduce the deficit in the way they promised, because their approach has contributed to the drying up of public revenues which are the other side of the equation when we discuss deficits. People in the low wage, casual economy are not paying the taxes they might directly or indirectly while the corporations and the rich are evading taxes with continuing bravado.

As regards the nanny state, I wonder are you mixing up Keynes for someone else (maybe Beveridge)? Indeed I wonder if it would be a good idea for you to let Keynes RIP.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Even though your juvenile obsession with a fiat currency is mildly amusing, I think you are a little confused. Friedman specifically advocated an active central bank policy to control the amount of money in his quantity theory of money. This is obviously much easier to do with fiat currency, because a currency tied to real assets is much less flexible.

Who said I am a Friedman fan?

Originally posted by finnegan
Did I say I agreed with Keynes or with that quote from Keynes? No. I said that what Keynes said was similar to stuff you have said and implied that I am surprised you think you disagree with Keynes.

I do not believe that Keynes was an advocate of irresponsibly spending without the revenue to cover the bills. He argued instead that there are good reaso ...[text shortened]... ne else (maybe Beveridge)? Indeed I wonder if it would be a good idea for you to let Keynes RIP.

I bring up Keynes because he is the economist that progressives purport to follow.

As I said, progressives care as much about Keynes as they do Marx. Essentially progressives do as they please but do so citing those that they think will bring them legitimacy or support. Keynes is useful because he was a central planner. They can then take his musings and do as they please with them.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
I hope you stocked up your bunker well enough.

What good would that do? A well stocked bunker just invites attack by those who figure it is their collective right to use what you've earned and saved.

Originally posted by JS357
I disagree. I think we underestimate the ability of humans to find happiness in circumstances we would find intolerable (and we would find them intolerable due to our having adjusted to our own circumstances).

Without question, people can and have been happy with subsistence, under tyrannical rule. That isn't the point of Milty's quote.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Yeah, you would think that, because people "on the left" are "fans" of Keynes, while true patriots and conservatives are "fans" of Friedman. Unfortunately, the world is a little more complex than just picking between Keynes and Friedman. I'm not a "fan" of any economist and economics as a science can hardly be taken seriously even today, let alone in the time of Keynes or Friedman.

In the sense that economic theories can't be laboratory tested, or given clinical trials, the "science" is limited. Economic theory can take decades, or centuries to unfold, and then apologists for failed ideas can make excuses for the failures.

The obvious reason that most collectivists don't like economics is that overall it tends to prove the folly of Statist coercive collectivism when compared to voluntary cooperation, consentual trade, and contracting, and free markets.

I don't think any economist has it all right, just as no physicist or chemist knows all there ever will be to know.

Originally posted by normbenign
In the sense that economic theories can't be laboratory tested, or given clinical trials, the "science" is limited. Economic theory can take decades, or centuries to unfold, and then apologists for failed ideas can make excuses for the failures.

The obvious reason that most collectivists don't like economics is that overall it tends to prove the folly ...[text shortened]... conomist has it all right, just as no physicist or chemist knows all there ever will be to know.

Nonsense. Central planners know what is right for everyone all the time. We would all be dying in the streets without them.

Originally posted by normbenign
In the sense that economic theories can't be laboratory tested, or given clinical trials, the "science" is limited. Economic theory can take decades, or centuries to unfold, and then apologists for failed ideas can make excuses for the failures.

The obvious reason that most collectivists don't like economics is that overall it tends to prove the folly ...[text shortened]... conomist has it all right, just as no physicist or chemist knows all there ever will be to know.

In the sense that economic theories can't be laboratory tested, or given clinical trials, the "science" is limited. Economic theory can take decades, or centuries to unfold, and then apologists for failed ideas can make excuses for the failures.

Indeed. Fortunately things are improving now, with much better available statistics and empirical data as well as the advent of computing modeling.

The obvious reason that most collectivists don't like economics is that overall it tends to prove the folly of Statist coercive collectivism when compared to voluntary cooperation, consentual trade, and contracting, and free markets.

I don't know about that. How have you determined that "collectivists" (who?) "don't like" economics (in what sense?).

I don't think any economist has it all right, just as no physicist or chemist knows all there ever will be to know.

No one knows all there ever will be to know, so this observation seems rather trivial.

Originally posted by normbenign
I don't think any economist has it all right, just as no physicist or chemist knows all there ever will be to know.

Oh you wait just a second. Climate scientists know all there is to know, about their "science" anyway. Debate is over. They have decreed. Climate science is the first science in history to have eliminated frontiers in knowledge.