Conservatives have no ideas what to do about recessions

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Monday, March 9, 2026 17:30
VIEWED: 29022
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GEEZER

Friday, December 20, 2013 11:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Its like he deliberately missed the whole point.

I get the point. For liberals, it's always "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING NOW!!!! THROW MONEY AT IT!!!!".

Conservatives figure that if you have a working system, it'll self-correct. Apparently, the recessions during the conservative administrations shown above did self-correct - generally in less than a year.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

GEEZER

Friday, December 20, 2013 11:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
GEEZER, this past recession wasn't just "a recession", it was the WORST recession since the Great Depression.

And per Wiki it ended in 18 months. Or, per the author of the article KPO cited, it's still going on despite the liberal's active measures to stop it.

Quote:
Libertarians today had no more notion of what to do with it than fiscal conservatives of 1929 knew what to do with the Great Depression.

Conservatives never had to deal with the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover was a Progressive Republican, and his response to the Depression was (guess what) to throw money at it. http://thoughtsonliberty.com/a-very-brief-history-of-herbert-hoover FDR continued to do so until WWII came along and finally boosted the economy out of the Depression. Unemployment was still at 15% in 1940.

Quote:
The whole point of studying the Great Depression was because it was different from recessions of the past, it didn't fit into anyone's theories (even Marx') where bust is followed by boom, but showed every evidence going on forever at a new equilibrium of deeply suppressed economic activity. Libertarian theory STILL hasn't taken it into account, and you personally look like you refuse to take it into account as well. Since you are a student of history, it seems to me that you should look into this economic phenomenon more deeply, and develop something more than a "passive (ie non-)response".

If you look even shallowly into analysis of the Great Depression, you'll find out that pretty much every economist has his pet theory for the causes and solutions, and that they differ in many ways. Which one would you base your reaction on?

As for "Libertarian theory still hasn't taken it into account", here's a sample.

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Great_Depression

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1607961105/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&am
p;tag=advocforselfg-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1607961105

http://www.lp.org/blogs/andrew-davis/obamas-new-raw-deal

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

STORYMARK

Saturday, December 21, 2013 1:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Its like he deliberately missed the whole point.

I get the point. For liberals, it's always "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING NOW!!!! THROW MONEY AT IT!!!!".

Conservatives figure that if you have a working system, it'll self-correct. Apparently, the recessions during the conservative administrations shown above did self-correct - generally in less than a year.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

And by self-correct, you mean pad the pockets of the already wealthy, while decimating the working class.

And you call that working....

Case. In. Point.

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

KPO

Saturday, December 21, 2013 2:19 AM

Quote:
Now if you could show that recessions didn't go away during conservative administrations, and did go away during liberal administrations, that might support the point of the cited article. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Look, it's conventional wisdom that economic performance is cyclical - it goes up and down all on its own. So please stop making this point about recessions going away under conservatives. The question is, can government ease the pain of the downturns, and speed recovery? And should it? Liberals have answers, and ideas, to these questions. Do conservatives, or libertarians?

Quote:
FDR continued to do so until WWII came along and finally boosted the economy out of the Depression.

Ha! What was this if not massive government spending?? And it was for economically useless things like bombs that would explode on the other side of the world. But you admit, it stimulated the economy. Pretty much the definition of Keynesian spending!

It's not personal. It's just war.

M52NICKERSON

Saturday, December 21, 2013 2:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
But as noted above, recessions ended when conservatives were in power, in about the same length of time as when liberals were. Something ended these recessions. If not the conservative administrations, then tell me what?

Having conservatives in power does not mean they went with conservative ideals. Just look at Reagan in the begining he cut taxes and spending but truned right around started to raise taxes as well as increase spending which grew the national debt. The only differnce between Reagan's policies and liberal ones what what he threw money at.

GW Bush had a very light recession but as the unemployment rates went up he increases benifits for the unemployed...again not very conservative.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

GEEZER

Saturday, December 21, 2013 2:43 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
And by self-correct, you mean pad the pockets of the already wealthy, while decimating the working class.

I'd ask for a cite for that, but that'd be pretty pointless.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 21, 2013 2:54 AM

Quote:
Ha! What was this if not massive government spending?? And it was for economically useless things like bombs that would explode on the other side of the world. But you admit, it stimulated the economy. Pretty much the definition of Keynesian spending!

Exactly. It's not that FDR wasn't doing the right things pre-WWII, it's just that he didn't do ENOUGH.

BTW GEEZER, there was a huge recovery under FDR from 1930-1936. By the spring of 1937, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels. But in 1936, the Federal Reserve had tightened the money supply, and the US Treasury had insisted in budget cuts and increased taxes to "balance the budget". As a result, the economy took a swift downturn in 1937. Your reading of the Great Depression, and the lessons to be learned from it, is superficial at best.

We can also look at the current EU versus the USA approach. The EU followed a tight money supply/ balanced budget approach, with the taxes of ordinary people going to refill private bank coffers and - as a result- the economies of all of southern Europe, Ireland, rural England and Scotland took a drastic downturn, the likes of which hasn't been seen since... well, since the Great Depression. Riots, 70% youth unemployment, the works. Hardly a picture of a recovering economy.

And you will probably shut your eyes and stuff your ears to the painfully obvious lessons of reality.

GEEZER

Saturday, December 21, 2013 3:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Look, it's conventional wisdom that economic performance is cyclical - it goes up and down all on its own. So please stop making this point about recessions going away under conservatives. The question is, can government ease the pain of the downturns, and speed recovery? And should it? Liberals have answers, and ideas, to these questions.

But do their ideas actually work? The article you cited still has the latest recession going on after five years of the liberals answers and ideas. Can you show and example of liberals' activist ideas ending a recession any faster than conservatives' leaving it to self-correct?

Quote:
Do conservatives, or libertarians?

Some conservatives and libertarians believe that with less government involved in business, recessions wouldn't occur, or would be weaker. If you don't break it, you don't need to fix it. Supply-siders favor tax cuts to promote capital investment.

Some blame the "Great" recession partly or wholly on the government monopoly given to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, allowing them to create the housing bubble. http://austrianschoolwarrior.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/the-next-recessi
on-ever-thought-about-it/

Quote:
Ha! What was this if not massive government spending?? And it was for economically useless things like bombs that would explode on the other side of the world. But you admit, it stimulated the economy. Pretty much the definition of Keynesian spending!

And it only took ten years of liberal ideas and a world war that left 50 to 80 million people dead to work. Not what I'd call a success story.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

STORYMARK

Saturday, December 21, 2013 3:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
And by self-correct, you mean pad the pockets of the already wealthy, while decimating the working class.

I'd ask for a cite for that, but that'd be pretty pointless.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

Only pointless because you choose not to deal with information that doesn't fit your pre-conceived notions, maybe - but sorry, Grampa, its not ME who dissapears when asked for cites.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/the-rich-get-richer-throu
gh-the-recovery/?_r=0

http://tcf.org/work/workers_economic_inequality/detail/a-tale-of-two-r
ecoveries/

https://www.stanford.edu/group/recessiontrends-dev/cgi-bin/web/resourc
es/research-project/wealth-after-great-recession-who-lost-who-recovered-and-why

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24065108/wealth-gap-widens-rich
est-1-percent-earn-biggest

And seriously - are you pretending that it didn't happen?

Are you fucking serious?

Now I know you're just being a dishonest shill. What a punk.

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 21, 2013 3:29 AM

Quote:
Some conservatives and libertarians believe that with less government involved in business, recessions wouldn't occur, or would be weaker. If you don't break it, you don't need to fix it. Supply-siders favor tax cuts to promote capital investment.

Some blame the "Great" recession partly or wholly on the government monopoly given to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, allowing them to create the housing bubble.

Some believe the world is flat. And some say that Geezer is a dick.

There, you see how easy it is to use that phrase, to argue a point while rhetorically distancing yourself? Let's not use that phrase, OK? If you're going to make a point, stand with it.

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