The War on Intellectualism

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yes, which led to the Recession of '38, which led him to restore his Keynesian policies.

Are you talking about military spending? You must realise how absurd it is to claim that military deficit spending is Keynesian. It's impossible to collect enough taxes for that kind of spending.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Agathon

You'd be better off if you listened to me. You and all the other stupid peons who post here.

Well, it's getting to the time of day when 'poly grinds to a complete halt for me. I shall return (probably around 3pm) when it functions again.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

Do you really have THIS little grasp of history?!

Roosevelt, when the economy went into the crapper, expanded the WPA (as well as pushing through the minimum wage).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Do you really have THIS little grasp of history?!

Roosevelt, when the economy went into the crapper, expanded the WPA (as well as pushing through the minimum wage).

Keynes himself said that FDRs policies weren't Keynesian. You're being as ridiculous as ever.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Arrian




Well, it's getting to the time of day when 'poly grinds to a complete halt for me. I shall return (probably around 3pm) when it functions again.

-Arrian

I am right. In essence, society employs us to criticize it for its own health. Then people complain when we do criticize it, despite the fact that we are only suppliers of ideas and have no power to put them in to practice.

But it really doesn't matter any more. We have reached the stage of the last man. Public rationality and discourse are dead, and with them substantive conceptions of politics and ethics (I mentioned this in one of the other threads and oddly received much tory admiration for it).

Our society has one problem: freedom in the way we understand it is the root of most of our problems. Our society is Orwellian in that our conception of freedom objectively leads to slavery, the substitution of ignorance for inquiry and the stamping of a boot on a human face for ever. People refuse to see this because they refuse to acknowledge that the last thing they want to give up is the cause of all our problems.

If nothing else, it is a bit of a laugh.

[Imran Siddiqui]

http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?letter=K

It argued that economies could sometimes be stable (in EQUILIBRIUM) even when they did not have FULL EMPLOYMENT, but that a GOVERNMENT could remedy this under-employment problem by increasing PUBLIC SPENDING and/or reducing TAXATION, thereby increasing the level of aggregate DEMAND in the economy.

Remind me again... did Roosevelt's administration increase public spending? And did they do it far, far more than they raised taxation?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Remind me again... did Roosevelt's administration increase public spending? And did they do it far, far more than they raised taxation?

He tried very hard to collect more taxes. He tried very hard to balance the budget. For this Keynes himself said that he was the slave to a defunct economist.

Hint: Keynes wasn't talking about himself.

[Imran Siddiqui]

He obviously didn't try that hard.

Or will you next say that Reagan tried very hard to balance the budget?

[Velociryx]

oh c'mon Imran! You KNOW he did!

-=Vel=-

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by MrFun
Next idea they come up with is that you hate America if you pursue higher education.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
He obviously didn't try that hard.

His goal was to redistribute income and balance the budget. It appears that redistributing income was a priority. That doesn't make him a Keynesian in respect to fiscal policy. Keynes would have only increased spending, and he would have done it a lot more.

Or will you next say that Reagan tried very hard to balance the budget?

Reagan intended to create a deficit.

[Blaupanzer]

Reagan never submitted a balanced budget, but blamed Congress every year for the fact that it wasn't balanced when it cme to him for signing. Saying he intended to create a deficit because that is what happened gives the man an awful lot of credit for thinking it through. He was very old and he knew the bill wouldn't come due on his watch, so he just didn't care. That's not the same as "intent." (Incidentally McCain is even older now than Reagan was at the start of his second term. Think that might give folks a clue as to how much he cares about deficits?)

[Dauphin]

You mean first term?

Reagan was nearly 74 at the start of the second term, McCain turned 72 in August.