SLL has written what probably amounts to a book now on the futility and counterproductive stupidy of intervention by governments and central banks in economies and markets (see Debtonomics Archive). Here’s David Stockman at davidstockmanscontracorner.com with a nice refresher course:
We use the term “Keynesian” loosely to stand for economic interventionists of all schools. The followers of JM Keynes and Milton Friedman alike fit that category. So do some of the more rabid supply siders who claim the power to stimulate ultra-high economic growth with the tools of tax policy alone.
The common denominator is economic statism. That is, the assumption that the state, including its central banking branch, is indispensable to economic progress and prosperity.
As the various denominations of the Keynesian economic church have it, capitalism is always veering toward the ditch of under-performance and recession when left to its own devices and natural tendencies; and, if neglected by the wise policy-makers of the central state too long, it lapses toward outright depression and collapse.
Our purpose here is not to correct the particular philosophical and analytic errors associated with each of these Keynesian or statist variants. On any given day we make it pretty clear the central banking based mutation of modern Keynesian is predicated on two cardinal errors. Namely, the myth of demand deficiency and the false presumption that central bank pegging of interest rates, yield curves and other financial prices will enhance macro-economic performance while not harming the efficiency, stability and efficacy of money and capital markets.
That’s completely wrong. The very worst thing the state can do is meddle with and falsify financial market prices. Sooner or later cheap debt, repressed volatility, stock market “puts” and artificially inflated asset prices drain the genius of markets out of capitalism. What remains in the financial system is raw speculation for the purpose of rent gathering and leverage for the purpose of supercharged gambling.
On the other hand, what gets lost is true capital formation, honest price discovery and allocative efficiency. These are the building blocks of true macroeconomic expansion and rising wealth.
The irony is that the theories of Keynes and Friedman were designed to enable exactly that. Yet after having been morphed and melded into the cult of central banking in recent decades they have become a generator of main street stagnation and impoverishment.
In that regard, we have frequently pointed out that behind all the pretentious jargon and faux economic science of the likes of Yellen, Bernanke, Dudley and Fischer is little more than the “D” word. They believe that an economy can never have enough Debt.
At the end of the day there is no other purpose for the lunacy of 78 straight months of ZIRP and the fraud of $3.5 trillion worth of QE/bond-buying with digital credits conjured from nothing. It’s all designed to get the primary economic agents—households, business and governments—-to borrow and spend.
The contemporary central bank based mutation of the old Keynesian and Friedmanite fallacies is rooted in this debt-centric economics but is far more dangerous. Owing to his anti-gold standard worldview, Friedman failed to realize that fiat money was nothing more than debt, but at least he swore an oath of restraint in the form of a fixed rule (such as 3% per annum) for the growth of credit money.
To continue reading: The Keynesian House Of Denial
