Should we raise government spending rather than cut it?

[CookieMonster]

Ah, that makes sense.

I often do.
I'm not entirely in agreement with Keynesian economics as the be all-end all means to an end. It makes sense but in a wider perspective. But that's beside the point.

[Bobert]

I often do.
I'm not entirely in agreement with Keynesian economics as the be all-end all means to an end. It makes sense but in a wider perspective. But that's beside the point.

Aye, though I do think spending ought to be increased so as to provide short term soloutions but while we concentrate on other things.

[Big Bobo]

Two opinion pieces today in the NY Times and the Economist say that the way out of the current downturn is for governments to provide a fiscal stimulus.
The need for fiscal stimulus | The next front is fiscal | The Economist
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/op...ml?ref=opinion

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, we cut spending and tax consumers. Are we not on the wrong track?

Well Keynesianism does go a long way towards stabilising capitalism but it's hard to just switch to it overnight. We really would have needed to raise all progressive taxes on the rich over the last 10 years. We did the opposite in cutting the higher rate of tax which made absolutely no sense (in a long term view that is but then again Irish politics is very rarely about the long run but just buying elections)

[sandar]

Keynes is not a believer in raising taxes, Keynesianism is an attempt to address a recession by government intervention, the idea being that the government inject demand into the economy, raisining taxes takes moeny out of the economy. Keynes nwould argue that the way to solve a recession is to incfrease demand and the way to do that is to increase government spending, you reduce demand by increasing taxation, so it runs counter to keynes idea

[20000miles]

Funnily enough, today's Mises.org article asks the question Do We Need More of Keynes Now? - Frank Shostak - Mises Institute

[SPN]

Sadly, Mr. Krugman just won the Nobel Prize, and people might just follow his advice on this issue, even though he's completely wrong.

There is no Nobel Prize for Economics.

There is, however, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The irony of Economics being considered a science notwithstanding.


Any Government (taxpayer) spending now will be used to fill the black hole of debt that exists in the Global Banking system.

We should wait until the deflation is complete before committing taxpayers money to reflating the system, otherwise all we are doing is transferring taxpayers' Euro into the pockets of the speculators who got us into this mess, and we'll still have to spend at the bottom of the cycle to reflate.

Lets keep our childrens' taxes for productive uses, not for bailing out the speculators.

..
.

[Edo]

Two opinion pieces today in the NY Times and the Economist say that the way out of the current downturn is for governments to provide a fiscal stimulus.
The need for fiscal stimulus | The next front is fiscal | The Economist
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/op...ml?ref=opinion

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, we cut spending and tax consumers. Are we not on the wrong track?

Only problem with this is that there is no money to spend or tax to cut - ie in a true keynesian economy you cream off the froth when the economy is doing well and salt it away to be used to reflate when the economy cyclically enters a downturn to cushion it.

Now what did we do when the economy was doing well and starting to overheat ?-oh yeah - we cut taxes and vastly increased spending mainly on the back of once in a generation nonsustainable tax revenues - fecking genuises.

off course none of this will be mentioned on the new series canonising Bertie next monday - accountant me big toe.

[20000miles]

Only problem with this is that there is no money to spend or tax to cut - ie in a true keynesian economy you cream off the froth when the economy is doing well and salt it away to be used to reflate when the economy cyclically enters a downturn to cushion it.

Now what did we do when the economy was doing well and starting to overheat ?-oh yeah - we cut taxes and vastly increased spending mainly on the back of once in a generation nonsustainable tax revenues - fecking genuises.

The thing is, the government *never* takes out enough money out of the system in the boom.

[Edo]

The thing is, the government *never* takes out enough money out of the system in the boom.

Time to reassess the merits of universal sufferage democracy eh?

[20000miles]

Time to reassess the merits of universal sufferage democracy eh?

Democracy: The God That Failed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia