Problem with America, market based solution?

[Sir Og]

The whole debate regarding the crisis that began in 2009, specificly the causes and proposed solutions leads me to beleive that 99% of economists are useless.
It is surprising how few economists have actually demonstrated that they understand macroeconomics. The general populations knows even less.

The mainstream discussions on economics subjects are mostly reiterations of participants' ideology/favourite theories with little interest in logical consistency or actual economics data.

The comparison to physics is not very good because in economics multiple correct answers might be possible especialy if you assume that human nature can be changed/influenced. (e.g. communism (not planned economy) could theoretically work if you could change human nature)

[notyoueither]

The problem with ideas/discussions like this is that the people who are not economists don't understand how things work well enough to have a cogent discussion about it, but EVERYONE thinks they understand basic economics. This thread is roughly identical to me posting a thread where I say "You know, that grand unified field theory, it's pretty dumb. What should we do about it?" ... except people generally know that they don't understand physics beyond dropping a bowling ball and a hollow bowling ball, and even most people don't know _that_.

That is not a problem. Discussion is a good way of showing people who might have an interest that they might have things to learn, and to at least expose some relatively non-interested people to different ideas.

The gist of what you are saying is fairly defeatest.

[Sava]

no one cares that the modern conservative "austerity" ideology was proven false?

[Fake Boris]

I fondly remember the days where Spain and Ireland were touted as liberalization successes by the Poly cons.

They have jumped on other bandwagons and never will learn.

[giblets]

Neat. Could you cite some examples of conservatives touting Ireland and Spain so I can laugh at them?

[notyoueither]

Ireland is doing relatively well, no?

Austerity can work when you are in a robust global market, and you can sell lots of sheet.

Defecit spending can also be good during a downturn, provided you are not into hock up to your eyeballs, and people are still willing to lend to you. Too bad most of the first world's countries were up to their eyeballs in debt before the financial crisis hit.

[Dinner]

The part about Keynesianism which everyone seems to forget is he called for governments to cut back on spending during cyclical up turns so that spending could be increased during cyclical down turns thus buffering the effects of the down turn. The problem is when the economy is doing well there is rarely political will for large cuts.

[Colonâ„¢]

I fondly remember the days where Spain and Ireland were touted as liberalization successes by the Poly cons.

They have jumped on other bandwagons and never will learn.

I can't see why one would tout Spain as an example of liberalisarion successes since they didn't had all that much liberalisation going on to begin with. I'm also not aware of any liberalisation that took place in Ireland, though they are doing far better than the more rigid economies in the south.

[Sir Og]

The number one problem around the world in the last 5 years has been monetary/nominal. (for Japan its 20 years)

The big central banks had too tight monetary policies. ECB is the last to keep the "brakes" firmly on and we are going to be the last to get out this mess.

Instead of focusing on the real issue most of the debate is on debt, inequality and various other non issues( or at least secondary issues)