Tag Archives: Keynesian economics

Keynesian Policies Have Left High Debt, Inflation and Weak Growth, by Daniel Lacalle

Keynesian so-called economics just offers politicians an excuse to do what they always want to do: tax, inflate, borrow, and spend. From Daniel Lacalle at dlacalle.com:

The evidence from the last thirty years is clear. Keynesian policies leave a massive trail of debt, weaker growth and falling real wages. Furthermore, once we look at each so-called stimulus plan, reality shows that the so-called multiplier effect of government spending is virtually inexistent and has long-term negative implications for the health of the economy. Stimulus plans have bloated government size, which in turn requires more dollars from the real economy to finance its activity.

As Daniel J. Mitchell points out, there is evidence of a displacement cost, as rising government spending displaces private-sector activity and means higher taxes or rising inflation in the future, or both. Higher government spending simply cannot be financed with much larger economic growth because the nature of current spending is precisely to deliver no real economic return. Government is not investing; it is financing mandatory spending with resources of the productive sector. Every dollar that the government spends means one less dollar in the productive sector of the economy and creates a negative multiplier cost.

When society decides to use a certain part of the resources generated by the productive sector for non-economic return activities, be it social spending or mitigation of threats, it can only do it by understanding how much of the productive capacity of the economy is able to sustain a larger cost. When costs are not considered as a burden, but considered as entitlements that can only grow, the productive capacity is not strengthened, but weakened.

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Recession, prices, and the crack-up boom, by Alasdair Macleod

The two biggest interrelated economic stories are debt and the debasement of fiat currencies. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

Initiated by monetarists, the debate between an outlook for inflation versus recession intensifies. We appear to be moving on from the stagflation story into outright fears of the consequences of monetary tightening and of interest rate overkill.

In common with statisticians in other jurisdictions, Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility is still effectively saying that inflation of prices is transient, though the prospect of a return towards the 2% target has been deferred until 2024. Chancellor Sunak blithely accepts these figures to justify a one-off hit on oil producers, when, surely, with his financial expertise he must know the situation is likely to be very different from the OBR’s forecasts.

This article clarifies why an entirely different outcome is virtually certain. To explain why, the reasonings of monetarists and neo-Keynesians are discussed and the errors in their understanding of the causes of inflation is exposed.

Finally, we can see in plainer sight the evolving risk leading towards a systemic fiat currency crisis encompassing banks, central banks, and fiat currencies themselves. It involves understanding that inflation is not rising prices but a diminishing purchasing power for currency and bank deposits, and that the changes in the quantity of currency and credit discussed by monetarists are not the most important issue.

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Cycles are driven by credit, by Alasdair Macleod

We’re living through the final crack-up of central banking. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

Central bankers’ narratives are falling apart. And faced with unpopularity over rising prices politicians are beginning to question central bank independence. Driven by the groupthink coordinated in the regular meetings at the Bank for International Settlements, they became collectively blind to the policy errors of their own making.

On several occasions I have written about the fallacies behind interest rate policies. I have written about the lost link between the quantity of currency and credit in circulation and the general level of prices. I have written about the effect of changing preferences between money and goods and the effect on prices.

This article gets to the heart of why central banks’ monetary policy was originally flawed. The fundamental error is to regard economic cycles as originating in the private sector when they are the consequence of fluctuations in credit, to which we can add the supposed benefits of continual price inflation.

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Too much liquidity, by Alasdair Macleod

It’s as simple as supply and demand. American and British monetary authorities have created far more dollars and pounds than the world demands, so the value of those currencies can only go down against other currencies and against real assets. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

Yesterday, the FOMC released its June statement which only served to remind us that its members are powerless in the face of inflationary conditions. They refuse to accept the price consequences of monetary inflation, still clinging on to an increasingly untenable hope that price rises are “transitory”.

The fact of the matter is that the world is now awash with excess money, the two greatest inflationists being the Fed and the Bank of England. In the US, the Fed’s $120bn monthly QE continues to goose financial asset values, while the US Government has spent a further trillion into circulation from its general account at the Fed. This tidal wave of money threatened money market funds totalling over $4 trillion with negative rates, thereby “breaking the buck”, which is why the Fed has increased its outstanding reverse repos to $721bn.

Interest rates will have to increase far earlier than the Fed admits to stop foreigners dumping dollars, not just for commodities which have nearly doubled since March 2020, but for other currencies as well.

Welcome to the everything bubble, whipped up by American and British neo-Keynesian policy makers who are now increasingly cornered by their own monetary fallacies.

Introduction

Courtesy of the central banks, the world is enmeshed in an everything bubble. We used to be most aware of the Bank of Japan’s extraordinary money printing to corner the Japanese ETF market —but that is no longer a topic of conversation. The Bank of Japan now owns about ¥48 trillion invested in ETFs ($447bn), the most aggressive money-printing stock ramp in the style of John Law and his Mississippi bubble relative to the size of the market in modern times. But today’s monetary planners have dismissed empirical evidence of any dangers as pre-Keynesian, and therefore irrelevant.

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Keynesians going all in, by Alasdair Macleod

What happens when every jot of economic growth, plus a lot of unproductive consumption, is funded by central bank or government debt? From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

Mainstream economists are celebrating Joe Biden’s election as US President. For Keynesians, the outlook is for a reaffirmation of economic management by the state, and of reflationary monetary policies to restore economic growth, following the damage caused by covid lockdowns.

This article points out the fallacies in the Keynesian argument. It shows how key economic statistics have been manipulated and misrepresented to conceal the delusions behind state interventions. And based on inflationary programmes only announced so far, we can expect the US budget deficit in fiscal 2021 to rise to over $5 trillion. Furthermore, the twin deficit hypothesis suggests that when the temporary increase in the savings ratio unwinds, the US trade deficit will also increase accordingly.

This assumes no disruption from the known unknowns, such as an inevitable banking crisis and foreigners’ liquidation of their $27 trillion pile of financial assets and bank deposits, causing a sharp rise in interest rates.

As with every cycle of bank credit, Keynesian monetary policies will be disproved again. But this time and without a major shift in economic and monetary policies, fiat currencies are almost certain to collapse, necessitating their urgent replacement with sound money.

Introduction

The Keynesians, who overwhelmingly outnumber monetarists and sound money men, are firmly in charge. Yesterday (20 January), Joe Biden officially became US President with a “new deal” agenda which will exceed in ambition any stimulus in American history; to put the coronavirus to bed, promote economic growth and restore America to the green agenda. There is little doubt in Keynesian minds that for changes in economic policy, Donald Trump was Herbert Hoover to Joe Biden’s Franklin Roosevelt. Keynesians are heaving a sigh of relief that state control over the macro economy is back in safe hands.

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Central Banking is Socialism, by Ron Paul

Socialism has been alive and well in the US for over 100 years. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

Last week, the Federal Reserve responded to Wall Street’s coronavirus panic with an “emergency” interest rate cut. This emergency cut failed to revive the stock market, leading to predictions that the Fed will again cut rates later this month.

More rate cuts would drive interest rates to near, or even below, zero. Lowering interest rates punishes people for saving, thus encouraging consumers and businesses to spend every penny they make. This may give the economy a short-term boost. But, it inhibits long-term economic growth by depleting the savings necessary for investments in businesses and jobs. The result of this policy will be more pressure on the Fed to indefinitely maintain low interest rates and on the Congress and president to create another explosion of government “stimulus” spending.

Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren has suggested that Congress allow the Federal Reserve to add assets of private companies to the Fed’s already large balance sheet. Allowing the central bank to buy assets of, and thus assume a partial ownership interest in, private companies would give the Federal Reserve even greater influence over the economy. It could also allow the Fed to advance a political agenda by, for example, favoring investment in “green energy” companies over other companies or refusing to purchase assets of retailers who sell firearms or tobacco products.

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Davos Man – Misbegotten Progeny of Keynesian Central Bankers, by David Stockman

The Davos men and women confabbing in Davos don’t have a clue as to what’s really going on in the world. From David Stockman at davidstockmanscontracorner.com via lewrockwell.com:

There are a reported 119 billionaires attending the Davos confab this year – plus (allegedly) the Donald, who took a day off from Impeachment to address this august gathering of the world’s movers and shakers.

There is also 1500 private jets crowding the surrounding airports – plus the notable train-traveling 17-year old expert on planetary climate science, Greta Thunberg.

Also, among the 10 billionaires in attendance from communist China is Ren Zhenfei, founder of Huawei and father of its CFO, Meng Wanzhou. Even as dad courts the rich and famous on the slopes, daughter languishes in a Canadian jail waiting extradition to the US because she had the audacity to do business with Iran against Washington’s instructions and Trump’s latest fatwa against the Tehran government.

These odd juxtapositions plus countless more got us to thinking about Davos Man himself and the ultimate juxtaposition of our times.

To wit, the combined net worth of the world’s billionaires in the year 2000 was $1 trillion, according to Forbes, but at this bublicious moment that number is reckoned at just under $10 trillion. So the 2,150 members of the Billionaires Club now have more net worth than 60% of the world’s population combined. That’s 4.6 billion people!

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The Burden Of Government Debt And James Buchanan’s Corrective, by Daniel J. Boudreaux

The article states some conclusions about debt that don’t require a PhD, or even a Bachelor’s, in economics to reach. From Daniel Boudreaux at aier.org:

Who bears the burden of government indebtedness? Prior to the Keynesian revolution in the mid-20th century, most economists understood that the burden of government (or “public”) debt falls on those citizens who, in the future, must repay the debt. The funds for such repayment can come in the future from higher taxes, from reduced government expenditures on programs other than debt servicing, or from some combination of the two.

But Keynesianism destroyed this consensus. According to what my late Nobel-laureate colleague James Buchanan called the “new orthodoxy” about government debt, all such debt that is owed to fellow citizens – that is, debt that “we owe to ourselves” – is no burden at all upon the generations who must service and repay it.

Three Prongs of the Keynesian Orthodoxy

There are three prongs to this Keynesian orthodoxy. The first prong is rooted in the Keynesian insistence that the main driver of economic activity is the volume of total spending, or what economists call “aggregate demand.” And so if American citizen Smith is taxed an extra $1,000 in order to retire a $1,000 U.S. government bond held by American citizen Jones, there’s no reason to believe that total spending in the American economy will change. While Smith’s spending will fall because his after-tax income falls by $1,000, Jones’s spending will rise upon his receipt of this $1,000. Retiring the debt, therefore, has no effect on economic activity as a whole.

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Macroeconomics Has Lost Its Way, by Alasdair Macleod

Macroeconomics took an ill-advised detour into Keynesianism and has never found its way back. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

The father of modern macroeconomics was Keynes. Before Keynes there were macro considerations, which were firmly grounded in human action, the personal preferences and choices exercised by individuals in the context of their own earnings and profits. In order to give a role to the state, Keynes had to get away from human action and devise a positive management role for central planners. This was the unstated purpose behind his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

To this day, his followers argue that macroeconomics is different from individual actions, and the factors that determine the behaviour of individuals are not the same as those that determine the wider economy. This article explains why it cannot be true, why modern macroeconomic beliefs are fundamentally flawed, and why interventionism has not only failed to produce overall benefits for the wider public, but has been at an unnecessary economic cost.

The basic fallacy

Last week, Martin Wolf (the FT’s chief associate editor and chief economic commentator) presented a programme entitled Economics 101 on BBC Radio 4, in which he raised the question as to whether a democracy can function when voters have little idea of how the economy works and why there has been so little effort to teach economics in schools.[i] The independent economists interviewed, Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz, and Wolf himself are strongly pro-Keynesian, and the programme made no mention of the fact that there are different schools of economic thought. The question as to what information should be given to the public and crammed into the minds of schoolchildren was never addressed, and it was clearly to be the Keynesian view.

Wolf is probably the most senior economic commentator in the British media, and one can therefore understand why the BBC, a state-owned broadcaster whose specific mandate is to be unbiased in matters of opinion, thought that by getting such a senior figure to present the programme, and for him to invite well-known economists to be interviewed, that there was no bias. The vast majority of listeners were similarly likely to be unaware of any bias. Furthermore, Wolf himself, being Keynesian, probably thinks that any other economic theory is simply wrong.

To continue reading: Macroeconomics Has Lost Its Way

Lessons from Japan: Decades of Decay, Unavoidable Collapse, by Charles Hugh Smith

In the long run, as John Maynard Keynes so infamously observed, we are indeed all dead. And in the long run, moronic economics, like those promoted by Mr. Keynes (with apologies to morons, not that any read SLL), lead to collapse. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

Japan has proven that decay can be stretched into decades, but it has yet to prove that gravity can be revoked by central bank monetary games.

Japan’s fiscal and monetary extremes are in the news again: this time it’s the Bank of Japan’s extraordinarily large ownership of Japanese stocks, a policy intended to boost “investor sentiment” and prop up sagging equity valuations:

The Tokyo Whale Is Quietly Buying Up Huge Stakes in Japan Inc.

The core failure of Japan’s central bank and state is they have attempted to substitute monetary games for desperately needed social, political and economic reforms. This is the Keynesian ideology and project in a single sentence:
Keynesian policy holds that expansionary monetary and fiscal policy can be substituted for structural social, political and economic reforms, enabling the status quo to retain its power and privileges without disruption.

In effect, Japan has pursued a vast monetization campaign for 26 years. The Bank of Japan creates money out of thin air and uses the free money to buy government bonds, funding the state’s enormous fiscal deficits (also known as monetizing government debt). The BoJ has extended this monetization to corporate bonds and the stock market– effectively propping up government debt, corporate debt and the stock market with newly created money.

That these were once private-sector markets has been set aside, as the only thing that matters now is keeping them propped up, regardless of the cost. As I note in my new book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform, when emergency measures become permanent policies, you know the status quo is on life support.

To continue reading: Lessons from Japan: Decades of Decay, Unavoidable Collapse