N.J wrote on May 05, 2009 10:16 AM: There are equal hazards to unregulated market economies as well.

When a government prints money when it does not have the assets to back that money up, this is little different than when a speculative stock market drives the prices of shares up well beyond the total assets that the company would be worth if it went under and sold off all its assets.

Speculative markets created by the excess money available to investors when taxes are too low is also a hazard.

Even supply side economics states there are two points at which government revenues fall to zero. 100 percent taxation and zero taxation.

Bob_Robertson wrote on March 04, 2009 05:08 PM: I'm impressed.

FDR made the depression worse, so it's because he "wasn't funding enough". The problem started before FDR took office, so obviously Keynsianism wasn't at fault since Hoover was a Republican. (Hint: Hoover enacted everything Keynes advocated, and caused the problem in the first place)

I love the idea that Bush "cut government". Is this really all the Keynesian's have to argue with?

The entire basis of Keynesian philosophy, that it is possible to print wealth, has been debunked since even before Keynes published. It's all lies, damned lies, and higher mathematics to cover over the lies.

Every problem ascribed in these comments to the "free market" was caused by Keynesian interference in the first place. There has been no deregulation, no privatization, no rolling back of government what so ever.

Why not complain about the depression of 1921? Because there WASN'T ONE! 1921 saw the same magnitude correction as 1929, and no depression occurred because government did NOTHING, just like with all the corrections before.

But 1929 was met with comprehensive action by government, intrusions, price controls, labor laws, and every effort possible to "prevent" a correction. And sure enough, 15 years after the Federal Reserve was established to "prevent depressions", the biggest depression of all.

Why do the Keynesians conveniently forget these facts? Because they don't support the idea that government intervention "solves problems", so it puts the tax eaters out of work.

Bill Smith wrote on March 03, 2009 05:53 AM: I can see Steve was “educated” in a government school. The federal government grew by leaps and bounds under Bush, about three times as much as Clinton. There has never been a free market in America. Why do the sheep still blame a myth?

Paolo wrote on March 03, 2009 04:31 AM: Regarding the concept "Keynesianism works."

That depends on what you want to accomplish. If your goal is a bubble economy followed by recession or stagflation, then yes, Keynesianism "works."

Actually, any political system "works"; all you have to do is redefine your terms for what constitutes "working."

The Soviet Union "worked", if you want a relatively well-off political class lording it over a helpless, half-starved population.

Keynesianism has "worked" beautifully in the twentieth century at creating bubbles, crashes, and depressions.

STEVE wrote on March 02, 2009 08:41 PM: Nice attacks on Keynesianism. The US GDP in the 4th quarter of 2008 contracted by 6.5%, a hallmark of depression, not recession. We need 8 more years of Bush so that he can accomplish more of the following:
a. Reduce govt even more so that the banks may further bankrupt themselves, without the burden of govt oversight, by investing at a ratio of 1 to 32 using their mortgage holdings;and
b. The economy may further contract so that we will become another Mexico.

Then, with sprialling deflation pressure worse than what we experienced during the Great Depression, we would just need to pay 2 pennies to buy a copy of the Review Journal. I am championing this to support the libertarian, minimalist govt view of people like Mr. Suprynowicz.
On second thought, I would take it back. Two pennies for a copy of the R-J would likely result in many writers like him being given a pink slip. Then, I would not be able to express my free speech in response to his articles any more.

Bob A wrote on March 02, 2009 07:55 PM: In every year after FDR took office, private investment and GNP increased over what Roosevelt inherited, so his policies were certainly working better than Herbert Hoover's.
But if the measure is unemployment, that's no way to prove that George W. Bush's policies were successful. Unemployment averaged 4.0 percent in 2000, before George took over. Unemployment averaged to 5.8 percent in 2008. Are those the policies you want to continue?

Bill Smith wrote on March 02, 2009 09:02 AM: I see the parasites are still trying to justify theft and murder.

johnnyBagpipe wrote on March 02, 2009 09:02 AM: John Gault wrote "Never have so many who were poor in the early 1930s been vaulted into the middle class by the 1940s."

John, there was a war spanning this period, during this war a large number of people died - which resulted in a smaller post-war labor pool. You're also ignoring the GI Bill which gave the poor greater access Universities. College graduates tend to get better paying jobs.

PS - I really don't like your screen name. If you want to borrow from Rand to argue for socialism you should have picked James Taggart.

Walt - I like how you back up your argument that Keynesian economics works. "Keynes works. Everyone without an agenda knows this." I know what your talking about, I have saber tooth tiger replant - I know it works because I have never been attacked by a saber tooth tiger.

Walt wrote on March 02, 2009 07:23 AM: Sigh. This is why the GOP is doomed. Having had all of their economic and social ideas blow up in their faces they are left with nothing else but trying to reignite arguments they lost 70 years ago.

Keynes works. Everyone without an agenda knows this. You can cherry pick all the stats you want. Even if you manage convince a few partisans that don't do the basic research (or ignore what they don't want to see), it won't change the facts of what happened or make your arguments any less intellectually dishonest.

What's so scary is that the conservative half of the political discourse in this country no longer has anything honest or fact-based to contribute! Until they do, they are giving the floor to the liberals without any realistic alternatives.

Dave West wrote on March 02, 2009 07:10 AM: Vince, Thank you for your March 1 column re Keynes. It needs to be said again and again and again until the consequences are understood by enough people to reverse the direction of our present federal government. I urge everyone concerned with the present direction to advocate for State Sovereignty as a means to check the headlong rush to disaster by the idiots in Congress. A return to Constitutional Government is the only way that their madness can be stopped.

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