Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Hari + Economics = Fun

Johann Hari calls for a Keynsian approach to getting the economy going. Apart from getting economic history completely wrong (for example President Hoover did not slash spending, he increased it faster than anyone in history had done up to that point), there is something else about it too.

Like all of the press advocates of Keynsianism who advocate higher public spending in a downturn. Keynes encouraged counter cyclical spending- spend more in a recession but less in a boom. Hari was not demanding that Gordon Brown rein in spending while he was running budget surpluses during the boom years. Therefore it can only be concluded that Hari 's support for Keynsianism is opportunistic and he merely supports whatever theory will encourage further public spending at any given time.

Via.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think he really understands that much.

Matthew said...

"increased it faster than anyone in history had done up to that point"

In peacetime, surely?

Ross said...

Yes, you're right.