Romney's debate comment

I'm watching the GOP debate and Romney says that Obama has failed to get the economy going

Two things:
1: Romney obviously believes that fixing anything is easy and only takes a pen swipe to fix. If it were easy, don't you think it would have been fixed it by now?
2: Other things (like natural disasters and oil spills) get in the way. Those are the wild cards that no politician can be ready for.

All of the candidates indicated that the fix for the economy is as simple as giving the private sector certainty and lower corporate taxes. And this is true even using Keynesian economic theory.

The problem is, Obama does not believe in capitalism. He is an anti-capitalist. He could have fixed the economy by lowering corporate tax rates for a known period of time - a minimum of 5 years - to give the private sector the certainty and incentives needed to boost expansion and hiring. Instead he made his play to expand federal government intervention in the private sector thus killing any incentives to expand or hire.

It really is as simple as that. Even John Maynard Keynes would have opposed Obama's actions. And Keynes was anything but a capitalist.

Obama has just been that wrong on economics. I suspect he is drawing his inspiration from Marx and not Keynes. But of course his own admitted statements from his books support this theory.

Dbl, you just learned about Keynes in your economics class recently, huh?

No baiting.--K.

BubbleBliss wrote:Dbl, you just learned about Keynes in your economics class recently, huh?

No baiting.--K.

No. I've known about Keynes for years. He and his theories are mentioned in a number of books I've read on economics over the years. But I will admit that I did not read a whole lot about him or his economic theories until my economics classes - which predictably were all Keynes all the time. Imagine my surprise to learn that Keynes was a tax and regulation cutter when it came to a recession.

Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

I'd hope that Keynes is mentioned in every book one reads about economics.
I know what you mean. I just recently learned more about his theories and in detail along with other famous economists. It's quite interesting to see how the economic thought has changed over the past hundred years even.

dblboggie wrote:Imagine my surprise to learn that Keynes was a tax and regulation cutter when it came to a recession.

Accompanied by big deficit spending.

BubbleBliss wrote:Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

My mistake then; carry on.

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:Dbl, you just learned about Keynes in your economics class recently, huh?

No baiting.--K.

No. I've known about Keynes for years. He and his theories are mentioned in a number of books I've read on economics over the years. But I will admit that I did not read a whole lot about him or his economic theories until my economics classes - which predictably were all Keynes all the time. Imagine my surprise to learn that Keynes was a tax and regulation cutter when it came to a recession.

If you're interested in famous economists, Dbl, here's one that I personally find to be fascinating along with his theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Erhard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

BubbleBliss wrote:Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

I think he may have taken the " and " bit as the baiting.

BubbleBliss wrote:I'd hope that Keynes is mentioned in every book one reads about economics.
I know what you mean. I just recently learned more about his theories and in detail along with other famous economists. It's quite interesting to see how the economic thought has changed over the past hundred years even.

Yes, it has changed considerably in some camps, not quite as much in others, but I think that the increased ability to gather information and metrics on the economy has probably been responsible for a lot of new thinking about economics.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Imagine my surprise to learn that Keynes was a tax and regulation cutter when it came to a recession.

Accompanied by big deficit spending.

Precisely!

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

I think he may have taken the " and " bit as the baiting.

Yeah, the combination of "Whistle" and "Snicker" is unfamiliar to me.

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

I think he may have taken the " and " bit as the baiting.

BubbleBliss wrote:I'd hope that Keynes is mentioned in every book one reads about economics.
I know what you mean. I just recently learned more about his theories and in detail along with other famous economists. It's quite interesting to see how the economic thought has changed over the past hundred years even.

Yes, it has changed considerably in some camps, not quite as much in others, but I think that the increased ability to gather information and metrics on the economy has probably been responsible for a lot of new thinking about economics.

I apologize for the smiley confusion, guess it wasn't a good combination.

I agree. Not only the increase in information, but the dependence of every market on not only a few other markets but on most markets around the world. Nowadays, there is one supplier who offers the best product and that's the guy that everybody wants as a supplier, there is no second best. Every country has specialized on what they do best. Germany is good in building machines, cars, etc. whereas the US has strong suites in such fields as computers and software. Japan is the microchip genius and China is the labor force for the world. Everything is connected nowadays and that is one of the biggest reasons of the "overhaul" of economic thinking in the past decades.

BubbleBliss wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:Dbl, you just learned about Keynes in your economics class recently, huh?

No baiting.--K.

No. I've known about Keynes for years. He and his theories are mentioned in a number of books I've read on economics over the years. But I will admit that I did not read a whole lot about him or his economic theories until my economics classes - which predictably were all Keynes all the time. Imagine my surprise to learn that Keynes was a tax and regulation cutter when it came to a recession.

If you're interested in famous economists, Dbl, here's one that I personally find to be fascinating along with his theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Erhard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

Interesting. I had not heard of neoliberal economics - though I have some understanding of a social-market economy. Naturally, I'm not a huge fan of the system, but I can understand reasoning behind it.

As you might expect, I'm more of a fan of these economists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hazlitt

And, of course, my favorite living economist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell

Don't forget Walter Williams, who's columns I've posted now and then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams

BubbleBliss wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

I think he may have taken the " and " bit as the baiting.

BubbleBliss wrote:I'd hope that Keynes is mentioned in every book one reads about economics.
I know what you mean. I just recently learned more about his theories and in detail along with other famous economists. It's quite interesting to see how the economic thought has changed over the past hundred years even.

Yes, it has changed considerably in some camps, not quite as much in others, but I think that the increased ability to gather information and metrics on the economy has probably been responsible for a lot of new thinking about economics.

I apologize for the smiley confusion, guess it wasn't a good combination.

I agree. Not only the increase in information, but the dependence of every market on not only a few other markets but on most markets around the world. Nowadays, there is one supplier who offers the best product and that's the guy that everybody wants as a supplier, there is no second best. Every country has specialized on what they do best. Germany is good in building machines, cars, etc. whereas the US has strong suites in such fields as computers and software. Japan is the microchip genius and China is the labor force for the world. Everything is connected nowadays and that is one of the biggest reasons of the "overhaul" of economic thinking in the past decades.

Actually I wouldn't say that specialization was that hard and fast with respect to supply. Several nation's produce cars for instance as well as machinery. However there is definitely more of an interdependence between markets in more places around the world than in the past. But even centuries ago there were highly interdependent market relationships between various nations... it's just more widespread now thanks to advances in transportation and communication. And certainly that's sparked fresh looks at aging economic theories and been a driver to new thinking on the subject.

TexasBlue wrote:Don't forget Walter Williams, who's columns I've posted now and then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams

Yes... Walter is quite good as well. I like Thomas better, but Walter is no slouch in the economics department.

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

BubbleBliss wrote:Please explain to me how that is baiting? That was a serious question.

I think he may have taken the " and " bit as the baiting.

BubbleBliss wrote:I'd hope that Keynes is mentioned in every book one reads about economics.
I know what you mean. I just recently learned more about his theories and in detail along with other famous economists. It's quite interesting to see how the economic thought has changed over the past hundred years even.

Yes, it has changed considerably in some camps, not quite as much in others, but I think that the increased ability to gather information and metrics on the economy has probably been responsible for a lot of new thinking about economics.

I apologize for the smiley confusion, guess it wasn't a good combination.

I agree. Not only the increase in information, but the dependence of every market on not only a few other markets but on most markets around the world. Nowadays, there is one supplier who offers the best product and that's the guy that everybody wants as a supplier, there is no second best. Every country has specialized on what they do best. Germany is good in building machines, cars, etc. whereas the US has strong suites in such fields as computers and software. Japan is the microchip genius and China is the labor force for the world. Everything is connected nowadays and that is one of the biggest reasons of the "overhaul" of economic thinking in the past decades.

Actually I wouldn't say that specialization was that hard and fast with respect to supply. Several nation's produce cars for instance as well as machinery. However there is definitely more of an interdependence between markets in more places around the world than in the past. But even centuries ago there were highly interdependent market relationships between various nations... it's just more widespread now thanks to advances in transportation and communication. And certainly that's sparked fresh looks at aging economic theories and been a driver to new thinking on the subject.

Specialization didn't happen fast but it was the fact that it happened with an increase in Globalization and an increasing number of competitors, IMO, that economic theories have been reconsidered in the past decade(s).