Saturday, March 20, 2010

Stimulus...and Keynes' intentions....

Richard Posner hit on something that reminded me about the nonsense that Keynes hated capitalism...
 No one knows how many people are employed who wouldn’t be were it not for the stimulus money. There are almost 15 million unemployed Americans, and since the unemployment rate is almost 10 percent, this suggests that about 135 million are employed. If the stimulus, which as I said is injecting about $400 billion a year into the economy, has increased the number of employed by 1 percent, that would reduce the number of unemployed by almost 10 percent. Or stated differently, were it not for the stimulus, the unemployment rate might be almost 11 percent rather than almost 10 percent. An unemployment rate of almost 11 percent would cause something akin to panic among businessmen, consumers, and politicians, with very bad consequences for the country. So one can think of the stimulus program as a kind of insurance policy against potential economic and political unrest.
Keynes whole goal was sustain capitalism not dismantle it.  The political unrest was leading to fears of revolution.  Government intervention was seen in some ways as a way to sustain stability and keep unrestrained capitalism from undermining Government and market stability. 
 
Go figure the same people who are wrong about Keynes intentions... tend to be the same people who said the stimulus wouldn't help... [I wrote work but rewrote help because the stimulus would have helped a lot more if it had been much larger in size....]
 
--
James A. Nichols IV
cell: (770) 312-6736
 
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."     ---Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)
 
"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."    Charles De Gaulle (1890 - 1970)
 
 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

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