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Joseph Stiglitz Was Right: Suicide
It’s a rare man that is recognized for his achievements during his own lifetime. Normally, the geniuses of the world have to wait until they are dead to get any sort of recognition, let alone strike it rich. We never like giving recognition to people as it makes our own status decrease.
Except, that’s more of a thing of the past, isn’t it? Our super-fast world at the press of a button and at our fingertips means that we no longer have the possibility of putting that off until the ones with the knowledge are forgotten bywords of a bygone era. It happens here and now, these days.
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001. We have constructed the world in which we live on recognition and awards. But, they are just for giving. They are not for anything else. We take no heed of what the ones that have been recognized might have to say or declare. They can go blue in their face, we have delusions of grandeur. Who gave them the prize anyhow?
In 2012, talking of the European Union’s austerity plans, Stiglitz had just one word to say. It was “suicide-pact”. He went on to say last year that imposing austerity on the citizens of the EU would do nothing more than lead to the collapse of the economies of those very same countries. Nobody listened to him then and nobody is listening to those words now. Politicians today in the EU are so hell-bent on retaining power that they have transformed themselves into economists, without any ability or reason. Politics is the governing element that will lead to the downfall of our economic structures because we are governed by flawed responses from people that have no idea what economics is about.
Isn’t it Keynesian economics that shows that austerity can only be put in place when the economy is on an upper? Didn’t Keynes say: “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury"? Haven’t they learnt that a country was nothing like running a household? Margaret Thatcher got it all wrong. If we all reduce our budgets and we all stop spending at the same time, then where’s the money going to come from? Is it going to magic somehow out of the magician’s hat? Undoubtedly, it will disappear down the rabbit hole along with the white rabbit that Alice chased after. Chasing white rabbits, that’s what we’re doing.
Cutting our spending all at the same time can only bring about the paradox of thrift. Some may criticize it and say it’s not true. But, in order for their arguments to hold up, we would have to export our way out of the recession and that we are not doing today. It would also have to be done at the same time as currency devaluation. That we are definitely not doing…we just know how to put the modern technology that we have created to good use: printing new shiny notes and throwing them at the people.
Take the example of the UK. The British believe that they export more to the EU than they import. They don’t believe the figures that show the contrary. That’s because they are living on the lies that their politicians have constructed. In March (and this is just one example, but the past is just as true) 2013, the difference between the value of goods imported by the UK and the value of the goods exported stood at $6.1 billion. The UK has a trade deficit that is growing (March: an increase of 31.8%). Will this help the UK export itself out of their recession? Hope against hope, we might pull it off. But, the paradox of thrift has been around since the 18th century when Bernard Mandeville (another guy that has been forgotten) wrote The Fable of the Bees. But, the bees are disappearing too, aren’t they these days?
The EU is in a slump, austerity can only bring us down. Yet, the politicians that we have voted into power seem to believe that its austerity, contrary to what the past has shown us; that will get us out of that rut.
We have spent decades, even centuries, wishing for others to follow in our footsteps and create what we have built our societies upon. Now, they are on the cusp, on the verge of doing it and succeeding possibly even better than we were able to do in the US and the EU, we are floored. We are telling them that they are wrong.
But, Stiglitz was right; we have signed a suicide-pact. We have decided that we need to destroy everything and start again. That’s what normally happens when those that are lagging behind finally catch up with us, we change the boundaries, so they are lagging behind again. But, this time, it’s our own death that will come about. Our economies will die. The politicians are not economists. They can’t tell us what will happen and what bright new future they will construct. But, they are the ones that are the apprentice-sorcerers that are waving the wands, dressed in economists’ clothes.
Originally posted Joseph Stiglitz was right
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He was on NPR last week saying how professor pay has to do with luring academics away from the private sector and not the fact that the population is more or less locked into buying their services and they can charge what the govt will lend, which is nearly infinite. What a self serving fable.
Unbelievable who they will give a Nobel prize in economics to.
Paul Krugman is a nobelprizewinningeconomist. 'Nuff said.
So we have Krugman, Stigliz, Gore and Obama as Nobel Prize winners....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
What does that tell you about the 'prestigious' Nobel Prize? My dad used to tell me that the cream always rises to the top; I would answer back that shit floats too.
The author seems more than a little surprised that one of the options available to Western economies is FAILURE. Buckle up!
The EU itself is the “suicide-pact”
"The British believe that they export more to the EU than they import. They don’t believe the figures that show the contrary."
What? Most folk I know would be surprised to learn we export anything to the EU, balls deep as we are in German cars, foreign nationals, TBTF banks, public servants and fucking 'Recruitment Consultants'.
Now that we have endogenous money, trade deficits are largely meaningless anyway, at least without further analysis*.
They just mean that foreigners hold more sterling than UK people own foreign currencies. So what? Ultimately, the foreigners can only spend those GBP on goods/services priced in them.
* now that we have fiat money, a currency represents the value the fiat issuers can extract from people/resources within the issuing polity. So, for example... there is a big difference between a trade deficit caused by British people buying capital goods & gold from overseas, versus buying tonnes of useless junk; raw trade deficit figures don't reflect this, however.
Hugh Hendry knows how to treat a Stiglitz globalist.
Trying to bring Krugman to his senses (through rather heavy NYT censorship) :
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/non-prophet-economics/?comme...
or :
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/non-prophet-economics/?comme...
or :
"
"I don’t think the question of how civil a bunch of comfortable academic economists who went to MIT in the mid-1970s…I don’t think that matters at all compared to the question of the substantive issues and are we doing this wrong, which I think we are."
Nice little "games", Mr Krugman, meanwhile what happen in the 1970s ?
That's right, the United States of Ameweeka went through its OIL PRODUCTION PEAK end 1970.
That was a major event, that was also the basic reason for the first oil shock.
Today we are here :
http://iiscn.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/laherrere_all_liquids_productio...
That is, not only in a monstruous oil shock which is alas only beginning, but also in a kind of maximum DISSONANCE between "official information" and OBJECTIV REALITIES.
Of course it isn't all there is, but how about being able to discuss it ? How about being able to discuss one, if not the only economic policy around it, and that is increasing taxes on fossile fuels while decreasing taxes on work. And this not to increase the gov budget or cover up the deficit, but simply to favor any "solutions"/transition possible or making sense, without having to define them.
"
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/the-spat/
Krugman's post on food stamps carries a suprising reveal:
From May 30th NYTimes
So now Krugman believes in runaway bankers, too. See, life is a circle after all. A particular type of circle comes to mind...
Krugman may be worried that there is a lamp post and rope with his name on it - come the reset.
and that culture of dependency, not runaway bankers, somehow caused our economic crisis.
'cos a crisis can never have more than one cause, can it, Dr Krugpot? And of course the fact that the FSA could never get its handouts if the government had to actually tax what it cost rather than rely on deficits fueld by inflationary fractional reserve lending. I guess if he started explaning this the average NYT reader would pass out from ther overtly off-message message.
Didn’t Keynes say: “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury"?
Seems to me that the Keynesians failed to practice this component of their doctrine.
If they had run surpluses during booms as he recommended, they might now be able to afford to run deficits during a bust.
But instead, they ran deficits all the time.
They have now run up the debt to a level where it cannot be serviced and must be repudiated or inflated away.
There is never a right time for austerity for a politician/central planner. That is one of the the fatal flaws of Keynesianism.
When times are good they buy votes with the surplus. When times are bad they buy their continued existence with deficit spending. Somewhere in the cycles rational leadership might actually fix the infrastructure, but this never seems to happen. Politicians never fix anything because it's not as glamourous as something new and impressive with their name on it.
Rule of thumb: if you give a politician a dollar, he'll spend three; if you take away a dollar, he'll spend two. Either way, they spend our money to buy votes to stay in office. Did Obama win re-election on his record? i rest my case.
Sarc on: Sure Stiglitz is a globalist and tribe member that just loves free and fair markets: "‘In Making Globalization Work, I attempt to show how globalization, properly managed, as it was in the successful development of much of East Asia, can do a great deal to benefit both the developing and the developed countries of the world.’ (xv-xvi) ... - ‘Attitudes toward globalization, and the failures and inequities associated with the way it has been managed, provide a Rorschach test for both countries and their people, revealing their fundamental beliefs and attitudes, their perspectives on the role of government and the market, the importance they attack to social justice, and the weight they put on noneconomic values.’"
Yes, just the term 'social justice' tells me this Krugman globalist bro needs to be listened to and acknowledged for his neo-Keynesian advice for a better country. Sarc off.One of the best videos that I think The Tylers posted from a few years ago is Hugh Hendry spewing utter contempt and scorn on Stiglitz and his fellow traveler commie Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs was getting really angry. Hugh essentially told both of them that they are liars. Hugh is a fearless little Scotsman. He has utter contempt for these criminals.
Hugh tearing Stiglitz a new arsehole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAAnV-AolTI
Ditto towards that fraud Jeffrey Sachs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oZtPK6hqLU
More Hugh - short compilation where he slams Stiglitz and Sachs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DN_eZHxa8Q
Stiglitz won the Swedish central bank's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. There is no Nobel Prize in economics.
In other words, the Swedish paper pushers like Stiglitz.
Next, Fred "Napoleon Dynamite" Mishkin will win the award for his ground breaking economic analysis of Iceland's economy.
Here is the Swedish c.b.'s work (and they are handing out prizes):
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.ca/2013/06/sweden-housing-crash-c...
Exactly. Stiglitz is a clueless Keynesian decrying 'austerity' - what austerity? National debts are still exploding.
More to the point, what's the alternative? Our economies are being choked to death by too much government and financialisation. You're not going to reduce the former by INCREASING government spending.
I have yet to hear Stiglitz or any other Keynesian address the other real problem - economies that have debt-based money supplies determined by commercial bank lending.
"what austerity? National debts are still exploding."
That.