No one can doubt that $1.9trn is serious spending. But it is a lot less than the debt funded money Trump pumped into the US economy via massive corporate tax cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy and his own stimulus package. Those are, it would seem, successes in Evans Pritchard’s’ eyes. The trouble with the Biden stimulus is that it’s just too much of a good thing, apparently. That, of course, is so often the case when state support goes to those in lower incomes, in the opinion of the right wing.
Stimulus is cumulative. Moron.
The next bit adds on to the effects of the last bit. Tax cuts and spending are both stimulative so the more that is done of the one the less room – before inflation – there is to do the other.
The actual argument therefore is, as is being said by entirely serious people like Larry Summers, that we can’t carry on spending because Trump already shot the fiscal bolt with the tax cuts.
Idiot.
“entirely serious people like Larry Summers”: he’s certainly solemn but is he serious?
Aha, you must be referring to his experience of interfering in the investment policies of the Harvard endowment. That went well.
If anything the blog entry on wokism (attempting to hitch his carriage to the Meghan Markle interview as being a matter of ‘human rights’) is even more idiotic than this one but its a close run thing.
AEP is not without his flaws but he is an economics journalist who has been commentating intelligently for the better part of three decades.
Murphy is a semi-numerate moron whose ignorance of almost every aspect of finance and economics continues to stagger and horrify in equal measure. I know who I’d rather back…
Summers/Harvard links.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/11/29/how-larry-summers-lost-harvard-18-billion/
https://harvardpolitics.com/larry-summers-endowment-2/
Experience (from 2008 for example) shows that stimulus spending always ends up in the bank accounts of wall street bankers and the super rich generally.
The only bit which might possibly benefit the middle or working classes is the first bit before the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
What an ignorant fucking lefty twat (but I repeat myself) he is.
I was a listening to a real professor make the case for this stimulus not being inflationary last night. He made some good points (I thought) including a recent calculation of the output gap. He also made the point that deflation is worse than inflation and if it comes to it we know how to deal with inflation.
And there’s the rub, trusting politicians to stop spending in time to control runaway inflation when votes depend on them spending.
Worth seeing the man’s mindset in its entirety. He is ‘woke’ and apparently one cannot be ‘Christian’ and simultaneously ‘not’ woke. The mind boggles:
Nor are those who are woke a mob. The Cambridge Dictionary defines woke when used as an adjective as:
aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality:
By this definition I am most certainly woke. The government and every employer has a legal obligation to be so. Every major wisdom tradition is, of course, also woke by this definition. Quite explicitly, it’s simply not possible to claim to be Christian and not be so. Loving your neighbour as yourself, the most basic rule upon which it is based, requires it.
So what was being said by this person, and Policy Exchange, for whom they were speaking?
Are they suggesting that government should be built on the basis of racism and inequality? I hope not, but cannot be sure.
Are they also suggesting, as very definitely followed from the language used, that a woke mob is threatening the institutions of state?
Are they also suggesting that this mob be stopped?
And are they suggesting in that case that the power of the state be used to defend institutions rhat(sic) are racist and promote inequality?
If so, why?
And if they are, institutions promoting racism and inequality what is the reason for defending them from the mob?
@van patten – who are we talking about a) a narcissist b) desperate to hold on to various titles c) has fallen out with practically everyone they have ever met d) a fantastically overrated opinion of themselves e) always grubbing round for more money and claiming poverty e) has a partner who is mentally ill. No wonder potato self identifies with the skanky sleb.
” He also made the point that deflation is worse than inflation ”
To who? To people who owe money. To people with money, deflation’s manna from heaven. Let’s have deflation by the barrel load. Fuck the impecunious.
@bis
Falling prices tend to have the kind of negative economic consequences that mean people with money can’t just enjoy the greater value of their money cost-free – the downside tends to result in them no longer making as much more money as they used to. People start hoarding cash, delaying purchases (why spend now when if you wait, things will be cheaper?), those saddled with debt whose real value is rising lose confidence … It’s not hard to see how it can stuff the whole economy up, and that’s not good news even for most of the wealthy.
The problem is, it’s all geared for the debtors, not the savers. Easy-money camp versus the hard-money camp. An old lady with savings is being shafted, having to enter risky markets say equity even if what she really needed was a savings account paying 6 per cent.
The idiot somewhat recognizes that Mr. Trump addressed the problem and the economy is well on its way. This further money pumping is going to do no one any good, with the possible exception of the lying politicians.
Typically twattish “taxes cost for the rich” comment as well. That was the “narrative” of course but as actual analysis showed just about everyone who actually earned money (as opposed to being on welfare) got a significant cut in taxes.
One of the really nasty bits of propaganda was how much of the media made a thing of how many were getting smaller tax refunds at the end of the tax year – and that was because they actually paid less tax and the rules were changed so some of the common overpayment causes were no longer in effect. There was a concerted effort by the MSM to poetry the lower refunds as showing that people didn’t get a tax cut, despite the widely available evidence that they did.