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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Quote:
I'm still looking for an answer to whether conservative or liberal response to recession, as proposed in the article KPO cited, has worked better in the recent past.
I would define conservative response as spending cuts, and liberal response as deficit spending. Is that ok? From there answering the question is easy.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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Quote:And you have been answered. More. Than. Once. You just refuse to accept the results.
I'm still looking for an answer to whether conservative or liberal response to recession, as proposed in the article KPO cited, has worked better in the recent past.
Quote:And I'll bet that Geezer can't possibly explain this in his own words because he doesn't know.
Yeah, this tells me that you're not even looking at the data. How exactly could the data I provided back up Hayek or Rothbard?
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"I have questions and doubts about all the schools."
No. You blindly trust the libertarian-capitalist one. It's your religion.
"Also as noted, the specific problem I have with Keynes is that if his theories don't work, you end up in a deeper hole that's even harder to get out of."
Depends on what you assume is the hole. Lots of people out of work and some starving - in the Great Depression people were literally eating grass b/c they were starving - seems like a big hole that needs to be fixed. And fairly quickly b/c people perish in a short time. But maybe you don't see that as being a hole. All YOU'RE concerned about is the 'hole' between government spending and revenues - that apparently is the only 'hole' that counts.
But then, you've been shown over ... and over ... and over ... that even that doesn't happen with government spending during a depression/ recession. So why you're so fixated on that as being the 'hole' that everyone has to worry about, says a lot more about you than it does about the world out there.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is a BLUE PILL ADDICT!
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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KIKI: amen
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Quote:
Depends on what you assume is the hole. Lots of people out of work and some starving - in the Great Depression people were literally eating grass b/c they were starving - seems like a big hole that needs to be fixed.
Compare that to the hole that the country was in after the massive Keynesian experiment of WWII. The country was able to reduce its debt/GDP no problem, while seeing the strongest period of economic growth in its history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expans
ion
It's not personal. It's just war.
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Quote:
Originally posted by ElvisChrist:
Geezer, if you don't have any information that persuades you one way or the other, why is it that you specifically point out Keynesian economics as not being something you can believe in?
You don't seem to have any problem believing in Hayek or others, despite your own assertion that nobody knows and that all economic beliefs are akin to acts of faith.
So what is your underlying bias that prevents you from accepting that, in your own estimation, Keynes is every bit as valid as any other economic school of thought?
I don't particularly believe in Hayek or von Mises or anyone else. I just note that they are in pretty much direct opposition to Keynes.
As I said early in the thread, "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 to why Keynes came up, that was KPO in the third post in this thread. SignyM also jumped on the Keynesian bandwagon.
"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 kpo:Quote:
I'm still looking for an answer to whether conservative or liberal response to recession, as proposed in the article KPO cited, has worked better in the recent past.
I would define conservative response as spending cuts, and liberal response as deficit spending. Is that ok? From there answering the question is easy.
It's not personal. It's just war.
Use the definitions stated in the article you posted, as I described them above.
"The question I originally had was whether the current conservative response to recession (...lower taxes, less regulation, government spending cuts, more domestic energy production, school choice, free trade, and low inflation.) was any more or less successful than the current liberal response (Deficit-financed spending to compensate for demand gaps in the private sector, easy monetary policy to raise inflation and support demand, and mortgage modifications to reduce foreclosures and support consumption.)"
Be aware that if you claim that conservatives used stimulus, that pretty much invalidates the claim of the article you cited, and the title of this thread.
"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 kpo:
How exactly could the data I provided back up Hayek or Rothbard?
Here's Rothbard's take.
http://mises.org/rothbard/AGD/contents.asp
In summary...
Quote:
Conclusion: The Lessons of Mr. Hoover's Record
Mr. Hoover met the challenge of the Great Depression by acting quickly and decisively, indeed almost continuously throughout his term of office, putting into effect "the greatest program of offense and defense" against depression ever attempted in America. Bravely he used every modern economic "tool," every device of progressive and "enlightened" economics, every facet of government planning, to combat the depression. For the first time, laissez-faire was boldly thrown overboard and every governmental weapon thrown into the breach. America had awakened, and was now ready to use the State to the hilt, unhampered by the supposed shibboleths of laissez-faire. President Hoover was a bold and audacious leader in this awakening. By every "progressive" tenet of our day, he should have ended his term a conquering hero; instead he left America in utter and complete ruin—a ruin unprecedented in length and intensity.
What was the trouble? Economic theory demonstrates that only governmental inflation can generate a boom-and-bust cycle, and that the depression will be prolonged and aggravated by inflationist and other interventionary measures. In contrast to the myth of laissez-faire, we have shown in this book how government intervention generated the unsound boom of the 1920s, and how Hoover's new departure aggravated the Great Depression by massive measures of interference. The guilt for the Great Depression must, at long last, be lifted from the shoulders of the free-market economy, and placed where it properly belongs: at the doors of politicians, bureaucrats, and the mass of "enlightened" economists. And in any other depression, past or future, the story will be the same.
"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:
Use the definitions stated in the article you posted
You mean this one?
"The implication is that conservatives believe there is nothing in particular the government should do about economic cycles."
Quote:
Be aware that if you claim that conservatives used stimulus, that pretty much invalidates the claim of the article you cited, and the title of this thread.
That's bad logic. It suggests that conservative policies can only be implemented by conservatives, and liberal policies implemented only by liberals. Obama is a liberal and his ARRA stimulus was approximately 1/3 tax cuts. So are tax cuts a liberal policy now?
It's not personal. It's just war.
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Quote:
Here's Rothbard's take.
http://mises.org/rothbard/AGD/contents.asp
That's nothing to do with the data that I was highlighting, which is strongly at odds with that piece of analysis.
In fact there's no data in that essay at all, only quotes - that might lead an innumerate person to get the wrong idea about exactly how much spending occurred.
http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1925_1935USb_15s2li111mc
n_F0f1lc
Do you see that dramatic increase in spending starting in 1929, up to the end of Hoover's presidency in 1932? No, me neither.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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