Actually, I was just making fun of Zyx's link. I don't completely believe Chinese economic statistics, but I do tend to believe those emanating from official accountants in America and Britain.

What link?

You quoted from something, but you didn't actually link to it.

Ho ho!

I provided multiple links. I don't always recognise all of them. However, cherry-picking quotes doesn't change what all of those articles were reporting, which was that austerity hasn't been working as advertised.

...what all of those articles were reporting, which was that austerity hasn't been working as advertised.

Ho ho!

Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF ... nah, they already won.

Or maybe you've been trying to summon urban prostitutes. Good luck with that.

You should read the articles you linked to.

And you should stop pretending those articles say austerity has worked to increase employment (to current American levels). But you won't.

...you should stop pretending those articles say austerity has worked to increase employment...

More urban prostitutes?

None of my comments said, or suggested, that austerity raised employment.

...

you gave up too soon

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!

WTF are you talking about?

I meant you had him all the way but let him win the argument in the end.

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!

What argument do you think I was having?

I would never accuse you of being in an argument.

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!

He doesn't really communicate with you, either.

What do you mean by that?

America! I could teach you, but I'd have to charge.

It's an expression of mirth.

These loan guarantees.

How much has been loaned thus far?

I don't know have an amount, but looser credit has to help some.

Also, NSA number is only 166K, with the seasonal adjustment for Christmas out of whack in recent years.  Also, the jump includes the Olympics jobs which are short term.  Also, employment trails GDP by around 6 months, so you wouldn't normally see much effect yet from a coincident GDP slowdown.

At least employment as a lagging indicator is defensible from a theoretical standpoint.

Katherine Baicker and Cecilia Rouse are pretty hot for being economists.

I tried to rate your comment "milf-y" but alas the unseen hand of Scoop wouldn't allow it.

[I'm not that guy.]

I appreciate the acknowledgement. At least someone thought the same

(BTW, this is improper. I had to create a new username because it won't allow me to post with "improper" anymore, not sure why.)

Oh and on the second question I'm getting 46% agree it worked, and 60% agree based on responses weighted by each expert's confidence. Those are far greater than 12% disagree and 14% disagree. (not counting uncertain and no opinion).

Do you agree that the benefits outweighed the costs?

Misleading because you disagree with its conclusions? Yeah, I thought so. No one should disturb your slumber with mere facts.

Keynesianism may not be perfect, but your favoured austerity would be much worse, as Britain has been trying to prove for two years now by cutting government spending and balancing budgets. But if you had to choose between conservative-inspired double-dip recession and liberal-inspired slow economic growth, you would choose recession every time. Unless, of course, your Keynesian was Ronald Reagan.

Spending a trillion dollars didn't cause joblessness to go up?  Wow.  Who would have thought that?  
I'm a bit late to the show here, sorry.

There is nothing like a complete distortion to make your argument.  The stimulus was about $830B, not a trillion dollars, buts whats $170B among friends?  The actual stimulus was about 1/3 payments to states to states to extend unemployment insurance and supplements state budgets to cover tax shortfalls.  Depending on the state, much of this went to education an policing.  Another third went to stimulus spending on construction and all the other stuff that was the subject of so much praise and criticism.
The final third, $275B dollars  was tax changes.  That is right, it wasn't spending at all and it was what Republicans insisted on in order to get it passed.  It did increase the deficit.  About half the tax breaks went to folks with incomes less than 150K, the rest to a wide variety of things.

You can read all about this in the Wikipedia entry for "2009 Stimulus".  But that would involve learning something that would destroy one of your screaming points.

The final third, $275B dollars  was tax changes.  That is right, it wasn't spending at all and it was what Republicans insisted on in order to get it passed.  It did increase the deficit.  About half the tax breaks went to folks with incomes less than 150K, the rest to a wide variety of things.

Thank you.

If you're going to link DeLong on this topic, link the relevant page.  The point is that if you allow insufficient aggregate demand persist for long enough, the skill set of the labor force will deteriorate, and the potential output of the economy will degrade back towards the current output.  If your window makers would otherwise forget how to make windows, running around breaking windows is a net public good, because otherwise you end up losing all the windows they would have made later.

The notion government spending on "anything at all" prevents labor force skills in general from deteriorating is comical.

What do the people receiving the money spent on "anything at all" spend it on?

According to you they spend it in the precise areas where it's needed to prevent labor skill erosion.

Yes, along with everywhere else.

Because government spending money on anything expands aggregate demand, and this expanded aggregate demand will allocate proportionally to exactly where it is needed. It will not cause any sort of misallocations of resources, either directly through the spending, or because of responses to the spending. No bubbles, no effect on expectations or investments.

Whistling robots, spa showers.

I thought you liked whistling robots and spa showers.  Whatever would you do if people forgot how to make them?

If your window makers would otherwise forget how to make windows, running around breaking windows is a net public good, because otherwise you end up losing all the windows they would have made later

Sort of like Milton Friedman saying that he would support any tax cut for any reason or for no reason. When your side says crazy stuff, though, you can be counted on to cheer.

What contractionary policy do you believe you see here?

Austerity. Remember?

How is austerity contractionary?

Did you mean "contractionary" to begin with or did you mean contradictory? Trying to seamlessly recover from your initial mistake? Why should I help you?

Oh, all right. If you tell me what contractionary means, I'll tell you how austerity qualifies as contractionary, IF you still need anyone to explain it to you.

No, I misread the comment.

Contractionary usually refers to monetary policy. How does austerity quality as contractionary?

"Contractionary" can also refer to fiscal policy. Normally, we see such policies during times of economic expansion, when inflation threatens, not during times of recession or depression. Nonetheless, "contractionary" monetary policy involves "decreasing aggregate expenditures and aggregate demand through a decrease in government spending (both government purchases and transfer payments) or an increase in taxes... Contractionary fiscal policy leads to a smaller government budget deficit or a larger budget surplus." So-called "austerity" was designed to decrease budget deficits by decreasing government spending (and aggregate demand).

You could have googled this as easily as I did. You chose not to. If you now lecture me for not providing what you would have provided if you weren't so damned lazy, as if you were some sort of economics professor, please expect more glorious victories on my part.

I know what contractionary fiscal policy is. You apparently do not, at least judging from your choice of linked webpage.

What does he mean?

Who cares?

Grover Norquist made you sign the pledge too?

Do you think raising taxes right now is a good idea?

If your aim is deficit reduction.

So raise taxes right across the board, then?

If your aim is deficit reduction, yes.

What if you aim to reduce the deficit while growing the economy?

Not possible. You can reduce deficit through economic growth, not while.

Why do you believe it is not possible?

Haven't seen a scenario where did it work.

You mean no politician has proposed one?

Are you saying that no politician has ever proposed cutting spending and lowering taxes?

I thought you were saying that.

"The basic issue is that the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal track," says Dean Maki, the chief United States economist at Barclays Capital. "From that point, none of the choices are fun." The most obvious choices, Mr. Maki says, are to reduce spending (ouch), raise taxes (yuck), let inflation run (gasp) or default (thud).

We wouldn't need any of that if we could restore economic growth. If that happened, Americans would become richer and pay more taxes. Et voilà! -- we'd pay down the debt painlessly.  

Now the people that want deficit/debt reduction, will they pay it down? Not sure.

You're barking up the wrong tree. I'm on your side here, but I'm specifically talking about deficit/debt reduction.

I do believe that during times of recession, economic policy should be fiscal and monetary expansion IE lower taxes, increase government spending, increase open market purchases...

I didn't mean to come across as I did. I was trying to say what you ended up saying in your second paragraph.

Many economist said it was inefficient immediately. You know it, I know it, color it as a hedge if you like but it is demonstrably true.

What say you regarding the quote?:

"You might think that the failure of high inflation to materialize, plus record low interest rates, would at least provoke some reflection, some consideration of the possibility that one had the wrong model."

If definitive empirical econometric data does not match up with your model of reality AT ALL, what pray tell are you basing you're economic opinions on these days?

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

It sounds as though Krugman didn't carefully read the essay he was criticizing:

Mulligan tries to refute people like, well, me, who say that the zero lower bound makes the case for fiscal policy.

"Inefficient" should read "insufficient"

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

You might think Krugman's failures to predict inflation might provoke some reflection on his part. He's misrepresenting those he disagrees with, as usual.

Just to be clear, you are stating that per Chicago/Supply-side dogma, massive monetary growth should not cause inflation and yet should cause interest rates to drop to historic lows?

Careful. You may be straying into thought-crime territory.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

I will take the deafening silence from the right as a concession of their model's total failure. As Jonathan Portes says:

"My answer to it is that policymakers and the public should listen to economists who fulfill two critera: first, they have made empirically testable predictions (conditional or unconditional - see Krugman here) that have proved, by and large, to be broadly consistent with the data; and second, they base those predictions on an analytic framework (not necessarily a formal model) that is persuasive. In other words, getting it right alone is not enough; it should be possible to show your workings - to explain why you got it right"

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

When Krugman's and his cohorts predictions are wrong (wrong about the effects of the stimulus, wrong about predicting inflation, completely mystified by stagflation), it doesn't discredit them, but because inflation has not happened now, despite the Fed paying interest on reserves, despite demand for money having gone up because of uncertainty here and in Europe, despite historically that hasn't how inflation has come about, somehow Keynesian models are completely correct, and the 70's never happened.

You see, this is where you just look pathetic. He clearly said, up front, that the stimulus was insufficient yet you still carp on like that never happened. There is no inflation and no, this ISN'T THE SEVENTIES. This has been his point from the get-go. Liquidity trap!

Your problem, and seemingly an affliction of all conservatives, is that you believe there is must be grand unified model to rule them all, all the time... Even though your model has failed spectacularly, decisively, you still believe, religiously. Krugman points out that different conditions require different models and solutions, much like treating a human patient. A liquidity trap requires Keynesian solutions. The Euros are starting to get it. Jesus, the American Enterprise Institute is getting it. The response to the fiscal cliff by congressional Republicans indicates they definitely get it.

Yet here you flounder in the smoking crater of a blasted belief.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

The stimulus was larger than the one Krugman initially called for. It failed to meet the projections of the models White House economists were using. If they are using the wrong Keynesian models, why doesn't Krugman call them and inform them of the correct one?

There is no such thing as a liquidity trap, it's a figment of the Keynesian imagination.

"Krugman points out that different conditions require different models and solutions"

Is that how you justify Krugman contradicting himself for political reasons? Krugman is attached (romantically, almost) to the models he learned in graduate school, so he pretends the 70's didn't happen, and is at times dismissive of new-Keynesians (arbitrarily, of course).

"Your problem, and seemingly an affliction of all conservatives, is that you believe there is must be grand unified model to rule them all"

Your problem is you don't you know what you are talking about.

No one ever "knows what [they] are talking about" except you/ Zyx, even if that requires repeating outright lies over and over again, like so many others on America's new right.

"The stimulus was larger than the one Krugman initially called for." Horse pucky, but keep on saying it and maybe it will become true. (It worked for Karl Rove and lots of other conservatives, eh?) Much of that "stimulus" was Republican-demanded tax cuts, not direct government spending, which was what Krugman was actually calling for. I would say you've been corrected on this point before, but you cannot be corrected, any more than blind people can be made to see (i.e., by "miracles" or Star Trek technology).

"There is no such thing as a liquidity trap, it's a figment of the Keynesian imagination." I guess those idiots at New York's Federal Reserve Bank should just resign and get out of your/ Zyx's way.

Meanwhile, only two of America's last five presidents actually reduced federal employment: Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, both of who were open Keynesians. Go figure. Or not.

...two of America's last five presidents actually reduced federal employment: Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama...

Look it up, chuckles.

Meanwhile, stop making things so obvious by replying to your alter-ego's mail. Unless you want me to believe you were following this subject so closely that you would have read anything posted by anyone.

You look it up: federal employment was under 2 million when President Obama took office. It's 2.2 million now.

What mail are you talking about?

I DID look it up, but, unsurprisingly, you can claim (and perhaps even believe) whatever you like. Everyone has been LYING to you, but you can see through them.

My post was responsive to Alf, but  who should write back minutes later but you, Chuckles. I suppose you won't have any idea why I would consider that significant either, given your long record of disingenuousness.

Come on, novy, read carefully. MediaMatters is part of the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. Didn't you know that?

I still don't know what "mail" you were referring to. Maybe I never will.

PolitiFact.com must be yet another shill for Democrats.

(Of course, what you might have said if you had actually read what I linked to was that "government employment" and "federal employment" were never synonymous, and that most "government jobs" that were lost since 2009 were in state and local employment rather than federal employment, but that would have required more than minimal effort.)

You plainly never will, because you don't want to.

Read comment #104.

Been saying that for what, four years now?

But....Any day now...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

Dec 21 2012.

Investors have been a bit slow on the uptake it seems. Lack confidence in the data, etc.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

Ted Nugent doesn't like you:

Regrettably, there are way too many intellectually stunted Americans who support this gluttonous and irresponsible spending curse. They are called socialists. Socialists believe in Keynesian economics, which supports government control and meddling in our economy. It's akin to Jerry Sandusky managing a little boys' football team. Another, more accurate name for Keynesian economics is Kamikaze economics.

Every year he's on everyone's Dead Pool list.  Sooner or later ...

I am shitfitter; hear me roar.

How does that changing anything?

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!