Keynesian economics is a failure. It didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1990s. And it didn’t work for Bush or Obama in recent years. No matter where’s it’s been tried, it’s been a flop. So why, whenever there’s a downturn, do politicians resuscitate the idea that bigger government will “stimulate” the economy? I’ve tried […]

The headline of this post might not be completely honest. Indeed, if you asked me to grade the accuracy of my title, I’ll admit right away that it falls into the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” category of mendacity. But I’m only prevaricating to set the stage for some satire […]

It’s sometimes difficult to make fun of Keynesian economics. But this isn’t because Keynesian theory is airtight. It’s easy, after all, to mock a school of thought that is predicated on the notion that you can make yourself richer by taking money from your right pocket and putting it in your left pocket. The problem […]

There’s an ongoing debate about Keynesian economics, stimulus spending, and various versions of fiscal austerity, and regular readers know I do everything possible to explain that you can promote added prosperity by reducing the burden of government spending. Simply stated, we get more jobs, output, and growth when resources are allocated by competitive markets. But when resources are allocated […]

Did you sing Happy Birthday? The nation just “celebrated” the fifth anniversary of the signing of the so-called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly referred to as the “stimulus.” This experiment in Keynesian economics was controversial when it was enacted and it’s still controversial today. The Obama Administration is telling us that the law was […]

Keynesian economics is the perpetual motion machine of the left. You build a model that assumes government spending is good for the economy and you assume that there are zero costs when the government diverts money from the private sector. With that type of model, you then automatically generate predictions that bigger government will “stimulate’ […]

It is reported that Henry Kissinger, commenting on the Iran-Iraq war, said something to the effect that, “Too bad both sides can’t lose.” I imagine lots of people felt the same way when two of the world’s worst murderers, Hitler and Stalin, went to war in 1941. I have the same attitude about the fiscal […]

I want a smaller burden of government spending, so you can only imagine how frustrating it is for me to observe the fight in Europe. On one side of the debate you have pro-spenders, who call themselves “growth” advocates, but are really just Keynesians. On the other side of the debate, you have pro-taxers, who […]