Friday, December 12, 2008

Some interesting economics geekery

Economics professor Brad Delong: On Not Making The Same Mistakes We Made In The Great Depression.

Paul Krugman Nobel Prize Presentation

Paul Krugman Nobel Prize Lecture

Paul Krugman Nobel Prize Interview

Another Paul Krugman Nobel Prize Interview (telephone)

That ought to keep your head explodin' for a while... better than sitting there thinking gloomily about the fact that jobless claims are at a 26 year high. In December, no less, when everybody is supposed to be staffing up for the Christmas shopping season!

And oh yeah, the tighty righty's favorite answer to every economics issue (economy good? Tax cuts! Economy bad? tax cuts!) did not work. And cannot work in a deflationary environment, because they just go to pay off creditors. A deflationary environment is a mechanism for transferring wealth from the working class (you and me) to the creditor class (the oligarchs who rule us). That's how it worked in the Great Depression -- the oligarchs got filthy rich by repossessing the homes of people and then buying them at auction for pennies on the dollar -- and that's how it still works today. The answer is a) return the monetary policy to being an *inflationary* policy, which allows merchants to sell goods for more than what they paid for them, and b) jobs, jobs, jobs, so that people can consume and thus stimulate economic activity. Anything else is just repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression.

-- Badtux the Economics Penguin

2 comments:

  1. I'm loving it. They can't stop it cuz they refuse to see the real problems, let alone fix them.

    I'll do just fine, and I like to see people that deserve too, suffer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe they think it will work the same way as the last depression worked, but I know they won't be able to keep hungry people off of their properties this time. There are too many hungry people and not enough Blackwater guards to hire because they're in the war zone over seas.

    ReplyDelete

Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.

WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.