The latest Biden/Democrat stimulus bill is just the beginning. There is more government spending coming down the pike. That means more money printing. But Paul Krugman says not to worry. It didn’t cause a big jump in CPI last time and it won’t this time either. Peter Schiff talked about it in his podcast. He said when Krugman talks – nobody should listen.
I saw a tweet this week by Paul Krugman asserting, “What we do have is a persistent problem of weak demand; yes, we have full employment now, but only with extremely low interest rates, which means little ability to respond to the next downturn. This makes a strong case for a big government investment program.”
Ah yes. It’s the Keynesian solution to every problem. Just spend more money!
The national debt continues to spiral upward. It increased by another $1.2 trillion in fiscal year 2019. But Paul Krugman says it’s not that big of a deal. He downplayed the national debt in a tweet, claiming emphatically that “DEBT IS MONEY WE OWE TO OURSELVES.”
This encapsulates a common Keynesian argument. Debt can’t really burden future generations. In the aggregate, Americans won’t be any worse off. Paying the national debt merely shifts dollars from one American to another. While future taxpayers will be out some money, the American bondholders who receive the interest payments will end up with more money. When all is said and done, it’s a wash.
SchiffGold’s It’s Your Dime features “straight talk” interviews with movers and shakers in the world of precious metals, investing and economics.
In this episode, host Mike Maharrey talks with economist Bob Murphy about his Contra Krugman book, how Keynesian economics goes off the rails, the time Paul Krugman ridiculously compared HealthCare.gov to UPS, the trade war, the gold standard and the Great Depression, Bob’s favorite Krugman flip-flops, and more.
In an article we published last week, Peter Schmidt highlighted what he called the “fatal conceit” of modern Keynesian economics. These economists, central bankers and politicians think they can plan, direct and guide the economy through their great wisdom and application of their economic models. But as economist Friedrich Hayek explained, the central planners’ arrogance ignores the knowledge problem. No individuals or groups of individuals, no matter how many PhDs they have among them, possesses the knowledge necessary to foresee all of the consequences of a given policy.
As financial guru Jim Grant once put it, “We are the prisoners of the very dubious set of pseudo-scientific pretentions that are part of the people who manage our monetary affairs.”
In a follow up to his last article, Schmidt puts an exclamation point on this idea of fatal conceit, recounting the maneuverings of Benjamin Strong, New York Federal Reserve governor from 1914-1928.
A recent Paul Krugman New York Times column praised the success of the Keynesian macro model in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In his view, the Federal Reserve did exactly what was necessary – pushed interest rates to zero and launched rounds of quantitative easing to jumpstart demand. As Tom Woods and Bob Murphy put it in a recent episode of the Contra Krugman podcast, “we agree that Krugman’s model did great…if we overlook all the times it blew up in his face.”
As is typical of Keynesians, Krugman ignores the side-effects of Federal Reserve policy. It works for a while, but it perpetuates the boom-bust business cycle. Sure, the economy today seems to be booming, but there is a rotten underbelly that most everybody in the mainstream seems to be ignoring. Peter Schmidt offers a succinct breakdown of Keynesian-based Fed policy and reveals why its doomed to failure.
Paul Krugman said gold is dead. In fact, “Bitcoin has more utility than gold,” according to the popular lefty economist.
Krugman made the comments at ChainXChange, a blockchain artificial intelligence and innovation conference in Las Vegas.
