Study Says Stimulus Prolonged Depression By Seven Years

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: marincounty
It's possible that FDR's stimulus prolonged the depression by seven years, but not likely.
It's also possible that had we continued Hoover policies we would still be in a depression.

Many of FDR's policies were simply extensions of hoovers.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
"Credible" and economist should never be used in the same sentence.

It's nicknamed 'the dismal science' for a reason, but I'd put a lot more stock in what, say, Paul Krugman has to say about economics than you, no offense.

In fact, you might benefit by watching his series of talks to the London School of Economics recently about how wrong economists have been.

http://www.news.com.au/perthno...908482-5017962,00.html

Krugman has said specifically that aggressive stimulus spending around the world has averted a "second great depression."

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
"Credible" and economist should never be used in the same sentence.

It's nicknamed 'the dismal science' for a reason, but I'd put a lot more stock in what, say, Paul Krugman has to say about economics than you, no offense.

In fact, you might benefit by watching his series of talks to the London School of Economics recently about how wrong economists have been.

http://www.news.com.au/perthno...908482-5017962,00.html

Krugman has said specifically that aggressive stimulus spending around the world has averted a "second great depression."

Yes, he has. You have proof he's wrong?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
I wasn't thinking of any particular economist Craig and I would consider one who realized the limitations of retrospective analysis as one more on the ball that the authors of this study. Unless they are qualitatively more intelligent than homo sapiens then I have a hard time buying their conclusion. It reduces to a virtually unlimited numbers of "if-thens" not amenable to statistical solutions.

?GIVE me a one-handed economist,? demanded a frustrated American president. ?All my economists say, ?on the one hand...on the other'?. From a mono-manual perspective, at least, Harry Truman would have loved Paul Krugman, an economist who rarely hesitates to take a bold position?even when the subject is himself. In recounting the transformation of his twice-weekly New York Times column from a genial discussion of the ?New Economy? into a widely read broadside against the Bush administration, the Princeton professor recently described himself as ?a lonely voice of truth in a sea of corruption.?
- The Economist

 

[Ozoned]

I think this mess was calculated and created decades ago as a political manuver to destroy a certain political party. It is like a game of Chess. It will Really be interesting to see the next move, even though I already have a good idea what it will be.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
"Credible" and economist should never be used in the same sentence.

It's nicknamed 'the dismal science' for a reason, but I'd put a lot more stock in what, say, Paul Krugman has to say about economics than you, no offense.

In fact, you might benefit by watching his series of talks to the London School of Economics recently about how wrong economists have been.

http://www.news.com.au/perthno...908482-5017962,00.html

Krugman has said specifically that aggressive stimulus spending around the world has averted a "second great depression."

Yes, he has. You have proof he's wrong?

Absolutely not. I was affirming that he is likely correct.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I suppose it's easier to try to blame an economic stimulus package for our economy's prolonged and continuing malaise than it is to recognize that our real problem is that we are both exporting middle class jobs overseas while also importing foreigners to do middle class jobs at home while importing even more foreigners to put downward pressure on wages for the lower classes. In the meantime, our immigration-driven population explosion is reducing the amount of resources per capita and increasing the costs of those resources, further stifling economic recovery.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
I think this mess was calculated and created decades ago as a political manuver to destroy a certain political party. It is like a game of Chess. It will Really be interesting to see the next move, even though I already have a good idea what it will be.

Your tinfoil beanie is slipping :roll:

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: eskimospy
That's an interesting study. The majority of economists disagree with it, but interesting nonetheless. It also poorly explains other countries' emergence timelines from the Great Depression.

Much to the chagrin of Ron Paul bots everywhere, how fast countries got out of the great depression is highly correlated to how fast they dropped the gold standard:

Ben Bernanke and Harold James, in a paper called "The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison" published in 1991 (NBER working paper version here), noted that 13 other countries besides the U.K. had decided to abandon their currencies' gold parity in 1931. Bernanke and James' data for the average growth rate of industrial production for these countries (plotted in the top panel above) was positive in every year from 1932 on. Countries that stayed on gold, by contrast, experienced an average output decline of 15% in 1932. The U.S. abandoned gold in 1933, after which its dramatic recovery immediately began. The same happened after Italy dropped the gold standard in 1934, and for Belgium when it went off in 1935. On the other hand, the three countries that stuck with gold through 1936 (France, Netherlands, and Poland) saw a 6% drop in industrial production in 1935, while the rest of the world was experiencing solid growth.

A gold standard only works when everybody believes in the overall fiscal and monetary responsibility of the major world governments and the relative price of gold is fairly stable. And yet a lack of such faith was the precise reason the world returned to gold in the late 1920's and the reason many argue for a return to gold today. Saying you're on a gold standard does not suddenly make you credible. But it does set you up for some ferocious problems if people still doubt whether you've set your house in order.

http://www.econbrowser.com/arc...2/the_gold_standa.html

Umm... money fundamentally changed when the gold standard was dropped. The metric by which an economy is measured fundamentally changed for the US.... quoting simple 15% increase with any legitimacy is crazy. Banks wanted off the gold standard and made sure economies rocketed forward to seal the deal.

When the article states 'industrial production dropped 6%' my question is 6% how, measured how? All industries combine on average literally made 6% less goods by mass, volume, number... or six percent less by value? Well what value determined how? Well if the numbers came from Fed monetary statistics or the like... the comparison of economies before and after the monetary basis transition is nonsense.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: MovingTarget
Wow, fail. Ask anyone who lived through the depression what they thought of Roosevelt's New Deal. There are still quite a few around and they overwhelmingly approve. The author is an idiot.

Sorry... can't help but laugh. How many people have you talked to about the economic policies of FDR in 1930-31 that could actually read at a high school level at the time?

Go back to 1300 AD and ask most anyone you see... they'll tell you the world is flat. Don't make it so.