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Title: John Maynard Keynes Knew What Occupy Wall Street Tells Us Today: "Banks and bankers are by nature blind."
Source:
AlterNet
URL Source: http://www.alternet.org/economy/153 ... s_are_by_nature_blind.%22link:
Published: Nov 11, 2011
Author: James K. Galbraith
Post Date: 2011-11-12 17:40:49 by lucysmom
Keywords: None
Views: 2549
Comments: 6
Friedrich August von Hayek was a charming and gracious man who accepted my invitation to lunch in Salzburg when I was 23 years old. But even Milton Friedman called his price theory “very flawed” and his capital theory “unreadable.” He was denied a post in economics at the University of Chicago, and his reputation today rests largely on The Road to Serfdom, a warning against Soviet-style central planning with which Keynes felt free to declare “deeply moved agreement.”
On policy matters Hayek was no extremist and often aligned with Keynes. As Professor Walter Block points out in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, he agreed that central banks should fight unemployment, he favored fair labor standards and “an extensive system of social services;” also antitrust and policing against fraud and deception and state-sponsored health insurance; what we might call a “public option.” All of this drove Professor Block to declare in despair that Bill and Hillary Clinton should have cited him in their campaign for health care reforms. None of this came from Hayek's own economics: as Block wrote, the Hayek of 1944 “stands condemned by the Hayek of 1931 and 1933.” The contrast between Hayek's economic ideas and his policy views is for our friends on the other side to explain if they can.
Unlike Hayek, John Maynard Keynes was a policy man: fully engaged from the Great War and Treaty of Versailles through the Depression and World War II to Bretton Woods. His theories and his policy views developed side by side.
Thus Keynes favored deficit spending – “loan-expenditure” -- to fight unemployment, and he denounced the pernicious doctrine of the natural rate of unemployment in 1929, almost forty years before our friend Professor Edmund Phelps is credited with inventing it:
“The Conservative belief that there is some law of nature ...that it is financially ‘sound’ to maintain a tenth of the population in idleness for an indefinite period, is crazily improbable – the sort of thing...
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Want to see a pic of a 1 percenters house?
Well here it is if you want it or not.
#2. To: Not Badeye, A K A Stone, Fred Mertz, Godwinson, go65, war, no gnu taxes, Hide Your Eyes Eric, Skip Intro, ferret mike, jwpegler, mininggold, brian s, mcgowanjm (#0)
Keynes in 1930 knew what Occupy Wall Street tells us today: the Great Depression was produced by banks. He wrote “Banks and bankers are by nature blind. They have not seen what was coming...” Even when faced with their own destruction they get it wrong...
Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…Money rules. Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890
#3. To: A K A Stone (#1)
Want to see a pic of a 1 percenters house?
Better than that, I'm having Thanksgiving dinner at a 1percenter's house. I'll let you know how it is if you want.
Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…Money rules. Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890
#4. To: lucysmom (#3)
Let us all know. Thanks in advance.
#5. To: A K A Stone (#4)
Will do.
Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…Money rules. Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890
#6. To: lucysmom (#0)
Banks and bankers are by nature blind
Yep, especially Ben Bernake, the Federal Reserve, Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac...
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. - Voltaire (1764)
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