Keynesian Economics

Austerity Offers Europe Their Only Hope

Michael Pento | Posted 05.17.2012

Michael Pento

Blaming a recession on the idea that an insolvent government was finally forced into reducing its debt is like blaming a morning hangover on the fact that you eventually had to stop drinking the night before.

Bloomberg Businessweek on Obama, Economic Steward

Robert Teitelman | Posted 05.28.2012

Robert Teitelman

Mostly, it seems to mean that if Obama doesn't fully embrace your economic faith, then he has no faith at all, that he's a sort of economic atheist. But that's not the case at all.

The Pension Wars

Richard Brodsky | Posted 05.27.2012

Richard Brodsky

Budget crises cause short-term dislocations. Pension reductions may be inevitable in the short-term. We need a national dialogue on these questions that includes advocates who aren't afraid to defend a decent retirement for public workers.

Obama's Not So New Deal

Tom Silva | Posted 04.28.2012

Tom Silva

The truth is that top-down government spending is as old as capitalism and not an invention that starts with Roosevelt and the WPA of the 1930s.

The World's Leading Debtors and America's Exploding Debt Burden

Howard Steven Friedman | Posted 04.28.2012

Howard Steven Friedman

How do we increase federal revenue in ways that don't hurt the fragile economy? How do we control federal spending without stomping on the sprouts of economic growth?

Mitt Romney: 'Closet Keynesian'

The New York Times | Paul Krugman | Posted 04.25.2012

Speaking in Michigan, Mr. Romney was asked about deficit reduction, and he absent-mindedly said something completely reasonable: "If you just cut, if ...

Krugman: Austerity Is For Boom, Not Bust Times

The New York Times | Paul Krugman | Posted 03.02.2012

"The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury." So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove...

The Super Committee, Austerity, Stimulus, and Compromise: the Collapse of American Politics

Richard Brodsky | Posted 01.22.2012

Richard Brodsky

How deeply do you want to plumb the depths of the collapse of the super committee?

Finding the Right Analogy for the Economy

Jared Bernstein | Posted 12.27.2011

Jared Bernstein

With the Super Committee meeting, it's time to determine how we should speak about the economy. Some commentators like to analogize government spending to a swimming pool, as if you can only take water from one end and dump it in the other end of the same pool. A dollar that the government spends on stimulus is a dollar someone else won't be spending, so there's no net gain. But this analogy is false. A better way to think of the economy is as a car, with fuel as the demand that propels the car forward. The gas tank is empty, but we've got a tank of gas sitting on the lawn next to the car. If we put the gas in the tank, the car can get started and go somewhere.

Leonhardt on Why the Great Depression Was Good

Robert Teitelman | Posted 12.12.2011

Robert Teitelman

How can we get back to that marvelous age of the '50s with its amazing economic growth, low unemployment, great equality of incomes and world supremacy? The answer is: suffer through a slump that lasts a decade and that scars every American.

Why We Need a Financial Transactions Tax

John Fullerton | Posted 10.25.2011

John Fullerton

The truth is simple: A modest financial transactions tax of less than 1 percent would serve as a remarkably efficient tool to achieve needed reform.

Jason Linkins

Paul Krugman Impersonator Uses Google Plus To Make Stupid Arguments In Bad Faith

HuffingtonPost.com | Jason Linkins | Posted 10.24.2011

It seems that some hardcore ninny took to the Google+ platform disguised as Paul Krugman and used that venue to disseminate some controversial stateme...

Rick Perry Is a Socialist in a Secessionist Costume

Bob Cesca | Posted 10.18.2011

Bob Cesca

Despite his many remarks against the federal government, Rick Perry is in fact responsible for Texas being the second biggest state recipient of stimulus dollars -- ostensibly "redistributed" from tax payers in other states.

Krugman's War Won't Avert Depression

Michael Pento | Posted 10.17.2011

Michael Pento

Paul Krugman extolled the benefits of war this Sunday on Fareed Zakaria's program Global Public Square. After all, he asserted, only spending equivale...

Why the Jobs Argument Against Military Cuts is Bogus

Robert Naiman | Posted 10.16.2011

Robert Naiman

An argument against cuts to projected military spending that is sure to rear its ugly head is that this would cost American jobs. In the current political context, this "jobs" argument is 100% nonsense. Here's why.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Briefing to Solve the Debt Crisis

Stephen Zarlenga | Posted 10.11.2011

Stephen Zarlenga

On Tuesday, July 26th, a day Washington DC was consumed by turmoil and posturing over "solving" a phony budget and debt crisis; in one place in the Capitol there was common sense -- the best America can offer.

Bill Gross: Problem Is 'Insufficient Consumption And investment'

Washington Post | Bill Gross | Posted 10.11.2011

For a few days there it seemed like President Obama was the master of the bond market. This is a Triple-A nation, he intoned on Monday, and always wil...

The American People Lost the Debt Ceiling Debate

Bob Cesca | Posted 10.04.2011

Bob Cesca

We lost. Middle and working class Americans. We're the losers in the debt ceiling debate. Not President Obama or the Democrats. And it was always going to be this way. As soon as deficit reduction became the only game in town.

Consumer Spending Falls For First Time In Nearly Two Years

Posted 10.02.2011

WASHINGTON (Lucia Mutikani) - Consumer spending unexpectedly fell in June to post the first decline in nearly two years as incomes barely rose, a ...

Elise Foley

Durbin: Debt Deal Will Be The Death Of Keynesian Economics

HuffingtonPost.com | Elise Foley | Posted 09.30.2011

WASHINGTON -- The Republicans are killing Keynesian economics with their attempt to cut spending as the economy rebounds from a recession, Senate Majo...

Paul Krugman: Washington Determined To Prolong 'Lesser Depression'

The New York Times | Paul Krugman | Posted 09.21.2011

These are interesting times — and I mean that in the worst way. Right now we’re looking at not one but two looming crises, either of which could p...

DeLong: Economy Is In A Liquidity Trap

Bloomberg | Brad DeLong | Posted 09.04.2011

There is only one real law of economics: the law of supply and demand. If the quantity supplied goes up, the price goes down....

Conversation with Jeff Madrick, Author of Age of Greed (Part Two)

Lynn Parramore | Posted 08.01.2011

Lynn Parramore

"One of the remarkable things about the Age of Greed is that not only did people make enormous money and were able to pursue their self-interest unchecked, but they reversed the history of American reforms."

Advantage: Keynes?

Amitai Etzioni | Posted 08.01.2011

Amitai Etzioni

If you want to know what is going to happen next to your investments, the job and housing markets, and more generally to the economy, you may want to follow what is happening to the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes argued that when economies are sputtering, the government must increase deficits, because its increased expenditures will stimulate the economy to better growth. But what happens when our leaders don't realize the economy is sputtering, and uncork the champagne early?

Zombie Economics

Glenn C. Altschuler | Posted 07.23.2011

Glenn C. Altschuler

Age of Greed is clumsily-written and repetitious. It does not pay sufficient attention to structural problems and global challenges to America's economy. Nor does it provide clearly delineated alternatives to the misguided policies of the past.