Paul Krugman is despairing of late, because a growing number of mainstream economists are adopting (versions of) Austrian business-cycle theory. The most recent convert is Minneapolis Fed president Narayana Kocherlakota.
Krugman dismissed the idea that Keynesianism was best suited for totalitarianism and he ignored my inquiry about the fact that the mess we are in is precisely because the US government has pursued Keynesian policies for the past eight decades.
Recorded at the Ludwig von Mises Institute; Auburn, Alabama; 8 October 2010.
Recorded at the Ludwig von Mises Institute; Auburn, Alabama; 8 October 2010.
Bailing out Bear Sterns while letting Lehman fail, the two TARP votes, and the incessant clamor about (nonexistent) systemic risk were geared toward bailing out Wall Street firms on the wrong side of housing risk.
Despite the chorus of praise, the TARP bailout was a terrible idea that will cost taxpayers both directly and indirectly through its perverse incentives. Only the Austrians consistently opposed the Republican and Democrat bailout schemes.
Blinder is arguing that of course the Obama stimulus worked, because spending money creates jobs, period. To see just how naive this view is, consider that there is nothing in Blinder's argument restricting it to cases of severe recession.
If mainstream analysts continue to disregard the role of regime uncertainty in the major depressions of the modern era, especially in accounting for their extraordinary duration, then they will only demonstrate the poverty of their own mode of analysis.
It is not the system of private enterprise and free markets that is responsible. It is the suspension of that system. It is not capitalism but interventionism and monetary uncertainty that are responsible for the persistence of the slump.
