[ExI] miltonian hymnal

[Damien Sullivan]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 09:58:48PM -0700, spike wrote:
> 
> > > Keynes schmeynes.  Friedman is the way.  spike

Friedman: "We are all Keynesians now."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842353-3,00.html

That may have changed for a while after the oil shocks convinced people
there were deep theoretical problems.  OTOH the Fed dropped monetarism
back in 1984, tracking interest rates a la Keynes instead of money
supply, and every recession-time tax cut or fiscal stimulus is at least
ad hoc Keynes at work.  So is countercyclical structures like
progressive income tax and unemployment insurance.  China used a
stimulus 4x larger (relative to its economy) than ours and looks set to
do well.  Things here are languishing, with recent fragile signs of
improvement -- but then, economists back in January worried that the
stimulus was too small, big enough only to turn a new Great Depression
into a mere Great Recession; "languishing" is improvement over total
crash.

-xx- Damien X-)