jesus, dude, pipe down. Why would the leading practitioners in a field "not count?"

Krugman actually had a blog not too long ago explaining his liquidity trap argument. That, by itself, would support the claim that "keynesian-sympathetic economists agree that we're in a liquidity trap"

And he explains it here: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/trioshrt.html

and here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/macro-policy-in-a-liquidity-trap-wonkish/

and here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/liquidity-preference-loanable-funds-and-niall-ferguson-wonkish/

and also here: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20111216/WIRE/111219606?p=1&tc=pg&tc=ar



So, you can either look into that shit and refute the positions, or resort to character assassinations. I'm gonna go ahead and take a wild guess to which one you're going to choose.


And for the record, I'm not going to pretend to be an economics wonk. I just find it funny when people in this forum say things that amount to, "PROVE IT! BUT ONLY USE SOURCES THAT ALIGN WITH MY IDEOLOGY!"

[Edited on December 21, 2011 at 10:07 PM. Reason : ]

12/21/2011 10:03:05 PM

Quote :

" Why would the leading practitioners in a field "not count?""

One person in the media noise == leading practitioners? This argument is same tdub shit, different day. You go find your Keynesian sources, I'll go find Austrian, they both have what seem like reasoned arguments all math and sciencieness and both disagree with each other about root causes or policy prescriptions.

I'll err on the side of the free market because the only evidence we have of your side is that as the government grows society gets steadily more fucked. You cite that it isn't government but it's capital and if we can only just take capital and give it to other people society will un-fuck itself. While making those statements you ratchet up the cognitive dissonance so you can ignore the fact that capital doesn't actually make or enforce laws -though you'll protest rather loudly that they effectively do and that government can (despite olympus mons of evidence to the contrary) do good and be the referee that your nirvana society would require.

Rinse, repeat.

[Edited on December 21, 2011 at 10:20 PM. Reason : .]

12/21/2011 10:16:36 PM

funny how you don't hold yourself to the same standard as you do your opposition.

12/21/2011 10:22:33 PM

Quote :

"So, you can either look into that shit and refute the positions"

Here is the thing, I don't have time nor the inclination to become an expert on IS-LM and think it rather absurd that anyone on this fucking website...this bastion of deep intellectual economic thought...expects anyone else to be a wonk about something such as the liquidity trap where you have one asshole with a Nobel prize claiming it as so when the rest of the economic world really hasn't even weighed in on the matter and it's certainly not a foregone conclusion that we are in one. With that as a premise, I can tell you that I've read the basics of what might be the indicators of being in a liquidity trap and I can tell you this (my rebuttal):

Take a random sampling of economic indicators from the US (ISM, housing starts, unemployment rate, truck tonnage, philly fed, etc etc) and with a god damn straight face make the argument that investment is drying up.

After you fail at that task, I'd like you to then go back to Krugmans explanation of a liquidity trap and tell me how the fuck does aggregate supply/demand tell me one god damn thing about investment and interest rates in our economy? You mean after a period of unprecedented expansion in the number of homes in our nation there will be reduced demand to build homes at the unsustainable pace they were being built before? HOLY FUCK, PEOPLE THAT WERE EMPLOYED BUILDING HOMES ARENT REQUIRED NOW, WHAT THE FUCK WILL SOCIETY DO? GOTTA GET THE GOVERNMENT TO PRINT DEM DOLLARS AND THEN UGH...ummm, build homes again? Or, or...ummm, fuck, what do we do with these dollars we just printed?

The death of Keynesian economics and all it's diseased variants and offshoots can't come soon enough.

Quote :

"funny how you don't hold yourself to the same standard as you do your opposition."

Get the fuck outta here you intellectual infant.



[Edited on December 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM. Reason : .]

12/21/2011 10:29:20 PM

might wanna tuck that rage-boner away before you hurt someone, cowboy.

You asked for links to back up the notion that we are in a liquidity trap.

I gave you some. And now you're too busy to read into the argument. But you're not too busy to offer a rebuttal.

12/21/2011 10:35:28 PM

^^ The IS/LM model (Investment Saving/Liquidity preference Money supply) is a macroeconomic tool that demonstrates the relationship between interest rates and real output in the goods and services market and the money market. The intersection of the IS and LM curves is the "General Equilibrium" where there is simultaneous equilibrium in both markets.

Also, Krugman won the Nobel prize for his work on comparative advantage from some of his work like 20 years ago. In the economics blog arena he's seen as little more than a politician or cheerleader these days.

With respect to liquidity, that's the whole reason we've pumped the IR so low and the reason why Bernanke is here (he was considered one of the great experts on getting liquidity out of depressions (e.g. 20s/30s)). The issue is that the economy is so poor (relatively), that banks/people are holding onto their money instead of flowing it through the economy as they would otherwise. So, when we see some figures showing the amount of holdings here and there, it may not look as dire as it really is because theres both (1) the amount and (2) the movement.

12/22/2011 3:21:22 AM

Quote :

"You asked for links to back up the notion that we are in a liquidity trap."

You can't comprehend anything, can you? This was stated:

Quote :

"Most Keynesian-sympathetic economists agree that we're in a liquidity trap"

I asked for links to economists other than chief Keynesian sycophant and his masturbatory buddy and I'll assume either:
1) 'Most' is in fact just those two guys
2) You can't read

Quote :

"The issue is that the economy is so poor (relatively ) "

Relative to what? The credit fueled peak of malinvestment? We're in a period of slow growth which is expected after we pulled growth from the future for nearly a decade.

Quote :

"that banks/people are holding onto their money instead of flowing it through the economy"

This is fucking stupid. Banks aren't holding on to their money. They are loaning it out for all sorts of things, cars, houses, businesses, etc. Did any of you Keynesian slaves possibly contemplate that maybe there isn't demand for the money?

You've got a point though regarding interest rates, if we could actually PAY corporations to take money (which is where Keynesians would set interest rates if they could) we could put people back to work building shit the market doesn't want right now and we'll just do that indefinitely because exponential functions are something fairies made up.

12/22/2011 6:47:48 AM

I came in there to address one topic but now feel compelled to address another.

To the conversation ^:

Despite economic uncertainty, businesses are looking to grow. Low interests rates make the risk premium on a long-term debt fairly reasonable when compared to using cash on hand, even when economic uncertainty is factored in. As a result there is heavy demand for funds. However, banks are holding on to their money. Why? Because it would be completely idiotic to do otherwise. 1) Due to significant open market purchases there has been a sharp increase in reserves, which, if released could lead to a large increase in the public money supply, which in turn would yield heavy inflation- exactly what we don't need. As a result 2) the federal reserve offers interest on bank reserves, meaning that the banks receive slightly above market rate to keep the money in their bank. No bank in their right mind would lend money to uncertain individuals in uncertain times when they can instead receive guaranteed payments from the FED.


Now on to what I was going to say:

Ron Paul has potential. The only reason why he may not get nominated is because many of those who like what he has to say think "well there is no way he will get nominated, so I won't waste my vote."

I have seen this response among individuals that vary based on party lines, age, race, and income. I give him shit sometimes because the e-libertarians are so blindly fixated on the man but the truth is that he does have the broad electability needed to win. The sad thing is that, as a result of historically bad candidate choices who are equally neurotic and parrot the same talking points year after year, we consider a man who is so right on with how we feel to be too far out there to be elected.

It is this paradox that is emblematic of what will keep America and its political system as just another experiment rather than a great experiment.

12/22/2011 8:58:11 AM

its hard to take arguments seriously from str8follish when he claims the New Deal helped the economy.

The economy was mired in a DEPRESSION for almost 20 years because of FDR's crazy ass policies and didn't end until World War II ended and we had an influx of labor with our men returning home from the war.

Everything the liberals do just ensures we will stay in the current economic depression that much longer.

Do you have any idea how quickly the economy would collapse into serious negative GDP if we took government spending away? If we don't hurry up and embrace the recession/depression this thing will hang over our heads for decades. Is that really how you want to experience your 30's and 40's?

12/22/2011 12:13:41 PM

GDP isn't a real measure of how the economy is doing for real people. Super captialists fail to realize that GDP increases only mean one thing for sure; the well off are doing better. We had GDP increases for decades while wages went down. Screw GDP growth. The new deal may have hurt the "economy" but it helped america.

12/22/2011 12:24:29 PM

I don't think many of the capitalists here take GDP seriously. I'd rather have negative nominal GDP and a fundamentally sound economy than roaring 8% GDP fueled by easy credit.

12/22/2011 12:36:49 PM

right. The point is we have negative GDP right now if you take out the government spending. Since the government spending is $1 trillion of fantasy money per year that can never be paid.. you must take that out in order to get a true idea of how bad our economy is in the shitter.

The deficit spending will end eventually (likely by force not choice) so you may as well prepare for it now and wind things down in orderly fashion instead of us experiencing chaos like Europe is right now when austerity is shoved down their throat.

Or we can just print infinite amounts of money and the poor and middle class can starve. Screw them, right?

12/22/2011 2:38:14 PM

Or we could invest in their future, no?

12/22/2011 3:55:17 PM

NO. Stop saying the word invest.

The government does NOT invest it SPENDS.

We have wasted trillions of dollars educating people who don't give a fuck about being educated and are never going to use all this knowledge. How about we let people work instead of learning? Let companies pay to teach them or let them pay to learn. Enough of this crazy nonsense that every secretary in the country must be college educated and understand the fine arts.

And don't even get me started with all this insane waste spending on ethanol, hybrids, spaceships, theaters, concert halls, statues, etc.

It has to end. No more "investing". Just get rid of that word and substitute "wasteful spending that is causing millions of Americans to live in poverty and millions of other Americans to make less money than they otherwise would".

It's simply amazing how much less the average worker makes than they did 40 years ago. Quit corrupting people's minds with this foolhardy shit. There is no easy way to create wealth. You can't just vote on creating wealth for everyone. Someone has to work, someone has to have ingenuity. The rest is just a transfer of wealth and all these rent seeking politicians, lawyers, accountants, etc are bankrupting our country. How can anyone not see that?


Read this for a quick understanding: http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pub/reports/201112PSI_issue.html#continue

12/22/2011 5:02:09 PM

12/23/2011 12:10:51 AM

There is a cut at 1 minute 50 seconds. It appears to me that the interview moved on to other subjects, he objected to the ambush after the interview was over, and CNN edited it to appear he "walked out".

This man will never be allowed to be president. The system is completely broken. Stop voting and turn to more effective means.

12/23/2011 12:32:03 AM

^^^
false


from http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Viewer/?peid=38d970d3f0724ee188c274afaf299a1d

[Edited on December 23, 2011 at 1:13 AM. Reason : ]

12/23/2011 12:50:56 AM

lol owned

12/23/2011 1:16:09 AM

The market would have never discovered those things without free money from the government.

12/23/2011 8:35:55 AM

Government is the main driver of innovation guys.

12/23/2011 9:24:39 AM

It's like when the government gave my (former) company money to move from our site in RTP to the new site in Cary and to hire new employees...except we were already going to move and hire new employees anyway. But um, it was the government that caused that to happen.

12/23/2011 9:29:50 AM

wat

12/23/2011 11:07:17 AM

No surprise that whore is the offspring of Dennis.

12/23/2011 11:17:39 AM

^^ Um, I think she's saying the same thing you are.

12/23/2011 11:22:49 AM

Just because the GOP doesn't want to admit that he's in the lead doesn't mean he's not in the lead.

12/23/2011 11:32:45 AM

The body of the article says that people don't give him "front-runner" status.

Being in the lead in Iowa is not the same as being in the lead nationally or being the front-runner.

I think it's a poorly titled article, but when you look at it all in context, I don't think it's that bad. I've certainly seen a whole lot worse.

12/23/2011 11:39:44 AM

I just like how the GOP elite are saying that if Ron Paul wins, it will discredit the Iowa caucus entirely. Ron Paul correctly stated that it's wishful thinking on their part.

12/23/2011 11:41:13 AM

ron paul is/was/might be winning iowa. he's still not the front runner.

hell, who was it? huckabee who won iowa last time? cmon now.

12/23/2011 1:26:33 PM

Did Huckabee have what could be considered an army of supporters? Was Huckabee the only candidate that firmly rejected the status quo?

The closest parallel to this election cycle might be in 1996 when Ross Perot got 19% of the popular vote. He never ran as a GOP/Democratic candidate, though.

Ron Paul is challenging a political establishment that is a century in the making. We haven't seen anything like this in a long time.

12/23/2011 1:38:41 PM

^i thought they said the same thing about obama. like word for word that last sentence
not agreeing or disagreeing with it. just making an observation.


also

Quote :

"Government is the main driver of innovation guys."

lol awesome. morons only regret in life is that he was born in capitalist pig USA instead of North Korea


[Edited on December 23, 2011 at 1:48 PM. Reason : ,]

12/23/2011 1:45:25 PM

^They basically did, but when they said it then it was pretty much a bunch of hot-air propaganda to pump him up without the stances to back it up.

12/23/2011 1:49:34 PM

Quote :

"^i thought they said the same thing about obama. like word for word that last sentence not agreeing or disagreeing with it. just making an observation."

Some people might have. Obama had no background or track record suggesting that he would actually oppose the establishment, though.

[Edited on December 23, 2011 at 1:50 PM. Reason : ]

12/23/2011 1:49:56 PM

************************************************************************
*** SMC OFFICIALLY ENDORSES RON PAUL ****
************************************************************************

He sounds just like me when I'm drunk. My kind of guy! WTC '93 probably was the Israelis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/8976403/US-Election-2012-Ron-Paul-under-fire-for-racist-newsletters.html

Stick a fork in him, he's done.

[Edited on December 23, 2011 at 2:24 PM. Reason : Stop voting and turn to more effective means.]

12/23/2011 2:22:43 PM

Ron Paul isn't even your average racist. In fact, I've sent this picture to a few news agencies hoping they will expose him further they than have already.

Here he is, going so far as to enable an old, 95% criminal or semi-criminal woman regain her fleet-footed ways.

12/23/2011 4:20:48 PM

Quote :

"I asked for links to economists other than chief Keynesian sycophant and his masturbatory buddy and I'll assume either: 1) 'Most' is in fact just those two guys 2) You can't read"

haha. Dude, now you're just being flippant. The only reason why I brought up the links for the Krugman definition was so that you could read into it. Instead, you chose not too, and are demanding that I satisfy your stringent requirements. Should I gather up all "Keynesian sympathetic economists" and prove with an up-and-down vote that over 50% of them agree that we are in a liquidity trap?

Quote :

"the only evidence we have of your side is that as the government grows society gets steadily more fucked"

Quote :

"despite olympus mons of evidence to the contrary"

I would like to see some of this evidence of government growth and society getting fucked. And these olympus mons you speak of sound delicious.



Anyway, the only reason why I even brought it up was to prove to myself that you were never interested in arguing the points, but rather more interested in typing in all caps and imposing your perceived intellectual superiority over anyone who disagrees with you.

carry on.



[Edited on December 23, 2011 at 10:32 PM. Reason : ]

12/23/2011 10:27:56 PM

Quote :

"The market would have never discovered those things without free money from the government. "

Because countries where the government doesn't invest as much in research are just CRANKING out the research.

LOL

Private companies are perfectly content letting the gov. fund fundamental research, because the applications aren't always clear or immediate. That's what the chart is demonstrating.



[Edited on December 23, 2011 at 10:31 PM. Reason : ]

12/23/2011 10:30:42 PM

Government should invent shit and hold patents on stuff but let domestic companies use that technology for free. Sell it to foreign companies and collect royalties on all patented items sold outside US.

12/23/2011 11:54:27 PM

More like private companies are content letting government squander countless billions on research because they are concerned with making a profit and government doesn't care.

I wonder if we are better off overall squandering resources...

12/24/2011 8:23:13 AM

Paulites shouldn't worry too much about the "racist newsletter" attacks from the press, it just means that Paul is actually becoming a legit contender.

That being said, a letter SIGNED by Ron Paul circa the early 90s:

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/279791-solicitation2.html#document/p6/a41643

nothing racist in this case but lots of .

12/24/2011 11:40:34 AM

Maybe by the time we're all 70 years old, we'll still be trying to figure out our own views...

12/24/2011 11:58:53 AM

Quote :

"More like private companies are content letting government squander countless billions on research because they are concerned with making a profit and government doesn't care. "

LOL

You clearly have no concept of what "fundamental research" means.

You don't generally know the exact impact of research, especially fundamental research, until well after it's done.

12/24/2011 12:00:51 PM

Quote :

"You don't generally know the exact impact of research, especially fundamental research, until well after it's done."

Congrats, you just made the best argument possible AGAINST having the government fund research.

Quote :

"Should I gather up all "Keynesian sympathetic economists" and prove with an up-and-down vote that over 50% of them agree that we are in a liquidity trap?"

How about start with any others besides Krugman and his fuck buddy Delong. That was what I asked for in response to the "most Keynesian economists" argument. Do you not follow the logic here? Go back and read it again. You're arguing over some bullshit completely fucking clueless that you're reinforcing the point I was making. I don't need another Krugman link in support of some Keynesian argument, I already know what his position is.

Quote :

"but rather more interested in typing in all caps and imposing your perceived intellectual superiority over anyone who disagrees with you"

Thats because you're not intellectually rigorous. You've got your bias and you just fling shit all over these forums hoping something sticks as an argument. I mean for fucks sake, you just asked this:

Quote :

"I would like to see some of this evidence of government growth and society getting fucked."

And you'll spend countless words and posts decrying the stagnation of the middle class and blame it not on the every larger growing institution of people that make laws and spend taxpayer dollars, but on the fucking Capitalists.



[Edited on December 24, 2011 at 3:29 PM. Reason : .]

12/24/2011 3:21:10 PM

Quote :

" Congrats, you just made the best argument possible AGAINST having the government fund research."

This isn't hard to understand. Historically private entities have not chosen to fund fundamental research, for various reasons, and the government ends up filling this gap (masked generally as defense spending or education spending) and it's A good thing too because these developments have resulted in the growth of the most innovative tech companies in the world.

You can't rationally think not having this system is better when this system has clearly out performed any other in history.

12/24/2011 4:12:29 PM

Quote :

"Historically private entities have not chosen to fund fundamental research"

Which research specifically have they chosen not to fund? Top 10 things private industry said "nope, we don't think there is a market here, we're not going to do it".

12/24/2011 9:18:59 PM

Is that a serious question?

Pretty much every major technology of the past century exists because the government invested in it.

Between nuclear <anything>, microprocessors, GPS, microwave <anything>, the Internet, plasma displays, DLP TVs (evolved from research with adaptive optics), our gov. involvement in research has made the US the clear leader in sci/tech.

The one area where private industry dominates a lot of the research is medicine, which often gets criticized for finding lots of treatments but few cures. It's easy to see where profit motive could be blamed for this.

12/24/2011 11:10:29 PM

No sir, you're not going to fucking dodge this question. Which of those technologies wouldn't have been invented without the government.

Bonus points while you're at it for delineating just how much "investment" went into each one of them on a percentage basis between public/private.

12/24/2011 11:18:24 PM

LOL

Literally all of them would have been significantly delayed without the government.

If you're asking me to give you a 100% accurate prediction of what would have happened in an alternate universe were our gov. more like Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico, China, etc., where the governments either don't invest in fundamental research or were late to the game, then I can only speculate that we'd be as backwards or regressed as one of those countries.

12/24/2011 11:24:20 PM

I can't believe you're trying to argue that public investment into research is inferior to waiting on private industries to figure things out. What aspect of this concept is unclear? For "big picture" things like the Internet, the gov. has access to more resources over a broader range (political and geographical) to have a fast buildout and expansion. For more fundamental things, like nuclear power, the gov. would have a more vested interest (weapons) to fund the research vs. a private industry not wanting to take the risk.

Look at the LHC or the Spitzer telescope (or the mars missions, or viking/voyager/whatever).

What is profitable about these technologies that would warrant GE or Lockheed doing these projects on their own?

Even if we find the Higgs-Boson, that's meaningless. There aren't any directly marketable applications of knowing it exists. Down the line, some physicist will discover some effect that could be exploited for some sellable technology, but no one can even fully fathom what that might be at this point.

12/24/2011 11:33:32 PM

Ive been reading this at a distance because I try not to feed the trolls (Chance), but really, you need to stop being such a fucking sensationalist who feels the need to express himself through quotes, defensive arguments and four letter words. Chance, for real, give it up buddy.

12/25/2011 4:21:03 AM

Quote :

"Literally all of them would have been significantly delayed without the government."

So for starters, we're going to go ahead and mark you down for not being able to defend the idea that the private market was unwilling to research any of those things you mentioned. Next, despite it being unprovable, I'll allow that these technologies would be delayed. But that says not a damn thing about quality of life improvements regarding those technologies. For all we know the money spent by the government on those technologies was done inefficiently and the private market would have found them at the efficiently optimal time. At least the "non modelers" of us will concede that we really don't know one way or the other, unlike you big government dick devourers.

Quote :

"Down the line, some physicist will discover some effect that could be exploited for some sellable technology, but no one can even fully fathom what that might be at this point."

Hilarious, yet another reason to not have bureaucrats squandering taxpayer dollars on such endeavors.

I also think it's hilarious, as a bleeding heart liberal, you're using weapons research as a way the government is better suited to spend than the private industry. The irony of that is so fucking rich that only a liberal hack could post it with a straight face.

12/25/2011 11:08:42 PM