Conservatives have no ideas what to do about recessions
POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Monday, March 9, 2026 17:30
VIEWED: 29022
PAGE 13 of 25
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Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I'm not.
No answer on what to do about recessions, just lots of attack on Keynesian economics.
I never claimed to have an answer.
Just asking if anyone had examples where recessions during conservative administrations took longer to end than those during liberal administrations.
You provided just such examples yourself, way back on the first page of this thread. You listed four recessions (three under Republican administrations, one under a Republican and Democratic admin), and showed that the recession ended much more quickly once the Democrat took office.
I know you haven't faced that reality yet (you've been ignoring it ever since I pointed it out the first time), but it really is right there in your own data.
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"Guess I'm as agnostic about economic theories as religion, since I can see as little proof for one as the other."
Not true. You have a religious fervor for libertarian-capitalist dogma.
"... if I'm forced to choose, I'd choose the one that offers the least chance of harm if it doesn't work ..."
So you're in favor of continuing doing the EXACT same thing that caused the problem in the first place. And you assume that it will fix itself in the end. That's like running on a flat tire and assuming it will fix itself. Sounds like you're looking for a miracle from your religion.
BTW, YOUR economic school assumes people are +rational +independent +economic entities looking +only to +maximize their +economic standing. All of those +assumptions built in to YOUR economic model have been proven false. YOUR economic school of thought doesn't hold up in the face of facts and logic (and history).
As evidence of "rape mentality"
Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:11 PM
MAL4PREZ
And just remember, according to Rappy, the term befitting a women who wants the insurance she pays for to cover medications affecting her reproductive organs is
whore
Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:23 PM
little rappy
The term applies
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Quote:GEEZER, is it possible, do you suppose, to address the point of the discussion without resorting to emotional personal attacks?
I understand why you like Keynes. He gives you permission to go out and take from every class and group you hate.
Here's a start: Please explain IN YOUR OWN WORDS how economies function, and HOW libertarianism is supposed to make them work better. USE REAL DATA. Don't quote Mises and Hayek, who are fantasists who simply repeat the same mantra over and over again. Refer to the real world.
As far as classes that I "hate": How do you know WHAT "class" I belong to??? Oh, that's right- you don't, do you?
Do rich people really think they are superior?
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Consider Congress. Members’ median net worth, in 2011, was $966,000. “They’re quite wealthy individuals,” Kraus says. “And because they’re wealthy they’re likely to engage in not only these essentialistic [mental] processes, but these people actually have power to enact laws to maintain inequality.”
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/do-rich-peopl
e-really-think-they-are-superior-20140106-30cu0.html
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Quote:By THAT logic, let's just shut down our observational and logic capabilities, and stop thinking about how we much change things. In fact, let's all just stop talking. Because change is bad, yanno.
But we live with the way the government is run, not your reasoning. If you propose solutions that will never be implemented, they do what good?
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Quote:
But we live with the way the government is run, not your reasoning. If you propose solutions that will never be implemented, they do what good?
Aren't you someone who votes for third-party candidates and advocates for "libertarianism"?
It's ironic of you to bring up "solutions that will never be implemented" in light of those facts.
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Interesting in that per the graph on the cite below, federal spending, as a percent of GDP, pretty much tripled between 1929(<4%) and 1936(11%).
This ignores sizeable revenues increases in the corresponding period.
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If you use the controls on this site to look at Gross Public Debt for the 1920-1940 period as a percent of GDP, it goes from about 18% in 1929 to 44% in 1938.
This matches my graph.
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Or you can pick the Federal Deficit as a percent of GDP and see it went from a 1% surplus in 1930 to a 4.5% deficit in 1936.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to show. We've already established that FDR ran deficits. The debt grew, but not faster than the economy grew. That's why debt/GDP stayed level.
And I don't know why you picked those two specific years, but they are quite illustrative. In 1930 the US ran a budget SURPLUS, the economy SHRANK, and the debt burden GREW. In 1936 the US ran a sizeable budget deficit, the economy GREW and the debt burden SHRANK. Everywhere we turn in this debate, we find more evidence proving Keynes right!
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Not sure how these reconcile with your "flat line".
Either accept the graph, or accept that you're in over your head. Because you're not going to disprove it.
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So we're back to only a war, or spending at a rate that you can't sell to the country, can end a depression.
This whole, 'you can never sell Keynesian spending on the size that's needed, so you may as well not do any of it at all' argument, I just find truly bizarre. "We can't spend enough to end the depression overnight, so we shouldn't bother with a smaller stimulus package that will only shorten the depression, and make its effects less severe..." Idiotic fatalism.
What you still haven't answered:
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The non-partisan CBO crafted Obama's stimulus package? The IMF crafted Japanese economic policy? Got any cites to back this up?
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Got any answer to the mountain of evidence of governments cutting back on spending during downturns, and hurting growth?
It's not personal. It's just war.
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It does not encourage faith in any particular economic school. Guess I'm as agnostic about economic theories as religion, since I can see as little proof for one as the other.
Given that I have little faith in any economic school, if I'm forced to choose, I'd choose the one that offers the least chance of harm if it doesn't work, and reject the one that offers the most harm if it doesn't work. Keynesian economics, particularly its response to recession/depression, seems to offer the most harm if it fails, what with high taxes, high spending, massive deficits, unresolved problems of the original recession, and the cries from its proponents that it'll eventually work if we just spend a lot more.
Guess I just don't have the faith to be a Keynesian.
Massive parallels here with how Auraptor argues against the science of climate change. "The picture is complex, some of the evidence is murky, the scientists don't know everything perfectly - so let's just ignore everything they say." More abject fatalism.
Yes economics is complex and murky, and not everything is understood. But to dismiss all efforts to understand it as 'schools of religion', just because it suits your own laissez-faire ideology, is lazy and douchish.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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Quote:
Originally posted by m52nickerson:
The way government runs can be changed, it is not a static thing. You turning this in to "well the government doesn't do this" is a massive cop out because conservatives and libertarians have no idea how to deal with recessions or how to prevent them.
Increasing deficits since 1957 seems to indicate that while governments can be changed, we haven't seen such a change so far, and have no idea how to accomplish it. If you have such an idea, that has a chance to work, please elucidate.
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You just ignore that larger picture and only focus on the parts you don't like. You also ignore the much greater harm recessions and depressions do to everyday people than government deficits ever do.
I focus on things I question. For example, I have grave doubts about SignyM and KPO's massive infrastructure projects, since they are going to take years to ramp up, what with developing the highly trained workers now needed for such projects and building the equipment needed to build the infrastructure. If you factor in SignyM's tariff idea, it gets even harder, since much constriction machinery is currently imported.
"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."
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Quote:
Originally posted by ElvisChrist:
You provided just such examples yourself, way back on the first page of this thread. You listed four recessions (three under Republican administrations, one under a Republican and Democratic admin), and showed that the recession ended much more quickly once the Democrat took office.
Or else Bush had already taken actions to end it and Obama reaped the benefit of those actions.
Or you could note that the 'recovery' has been called the weakest since the Great Depression.
Or that the U.S. continued in an 'economic malaise' through at least the second quarter of 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%93present_recession_in_the_Uni
ted_States
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I know you haven't faced that reality yet (you've been ignoring it ever since I pointed it out the first time), but it really is right there in your own data.
That's what's both interesting and troubling about this subject. You can propose most anything, and back it up with data spun by your particular economic theory, but there's no actual proof as to what caused what.
"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."
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Quote:First of all, there are prolly dozens of ways to inject money into the bottom quintile of the economy in the form of jobs w/o being "infrastructural", starting with health and education (i.e. investments in future society)
I focus on things I question. For example, I have grave doubts about SignyM and KPO's massive infrastructure projects, since they are going to take years to ramp up, what with developing the highly trained workers now needed for such projects and building the equipment needed to build the infrastructure. If you factor in SignyM's tariff idea, it gets even harder, since much constriction machinery is currently imported.
Quote:A hypothesis isn't just about correlation of facts, but also about developing a clear cause-effect relationship, and explicating the mechanisms by which a particular event leads to a particular outcome. That's how it works in ANY complex science.
That's what's both interesting and troubling about this subject. You can propose most anything, and back it up with data spun by your particular economic theory, but there's no actual proof as to what caused what.
When economics purports to be a science; it has to go through the same process of hypothesis formation and testing as ANY science.
I have written reams, it seems like, not only the the facts but also on the mechanisms... aggregate demand as a driver of economies. What about you? Aside from wringing your hands about the unknowableness of it all.
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