Alan
More circular reasoning, ho hum. At no stage have you given any *reason* for the *economic* issue, whether the observed benefits were because of, or despite policy action.

The "best-managed economy" approach assumes that if something economically good happened, it must automatically be because of government. So you're back to trying to squirm out of your nutty logic that full socialism would be more productive than a system based on private property.

Merely *repeating* your fallacious methodology and evasions doesn't prove your argument. It just means you're wrong.

jcro
Don't think it went unnoticed how you didn't provide any reason for your ASSUMPTIONS that stimulus policies create net benefits for society as a whole. But no doubt argument at the level that people opposed to your cargo cult are in favour of mass murder, is more at your intellectual level.

All
It's not some kind of strange coincidence that the arguments of the Keynesians
a) circularly assume that government has some kind of unexplained mystical fructifying power, without EVER AT ANY STAGE addressing the obvious logical possibility that this belief is false; and
b) completely ignore the blatant conflict of interest in all the major proponents of this [non-]theory, who just happen to be government-funded!

Obviously, at the level of self-interested acolytes and sycophants, you have no trouble passing off this dodgy snake-oil as panacea. The only reason it exists is not because its proponents can defend it - as we have just seen, they can't.

Keynesianism exists only because of the symbiosis by which the high priests make a living preaching to the masses that Pharaoh makes the rivers to flow; while the corrupt elites and political favourites pay for this convenient ideological smoke-screen to fund their above-market privileges.

Notice how nothing that the leftists have said in this thread has given any rational defence of their own claims, or addressed the Austrian-school's demolishing critique of it?

Jo, you're displaying your own economic illiteracy in your last two paragraphs. I know you don't understand it, because if you did, you wouldn't say it.

You see the original economic problem is that resources are scarce. If resources were infinite, this problem wouldn't arise. We could fund this important thing, and that important thing, for example education and broadband without anyone suffering a lesser satisfaction of wants.

But because resources are not infinite, that means we are always confronted with the problem of which values are more important to satisfy.

But obviously if you don't count the costs, anything will seem to be beneficial! Even you understand this, because it's the true idea underlying your stupid gibe about "mangled bodies".

So it is NEVER a justification of ANY policy to simply point to the benefits, and assume that this disposes of all issues in your favour. It's just simply infantile.

It's like when I was a kid, I used to say to my mother "Mu-um? Can we have this?"
And she'd say "No."
And I'd say "O-oh? Why no-ot?"
And she'd say "Because. We don't have enough money."
And I'd say "But why can't you just get money out of the bank?"

That is the infantile, primitive level of economic theory, or rather non-theory, at which you, and Alan, and all Keynesians, are operating.

Instead, you're just looking at some benefit that the government has paid for by taking the money from somewhere else, and AT NOT STAGE turning your mind to whether the social values that were perforce sacrificed, by withdrawing the funds from some other usage, were worth it, even in your own terms.

For example if faster broadband is achieved, but only at the cost of worse education, you are at a loss to defend your own assertions.

Your only way out of this, consistent with your own argument, is to allege that society would be better off if the government confiscated THE WHOLE of the product of society, and unilaterally decided how to dispose it.

Sorry but it's just sheer idiocy, and it doesn't matter if you don't understand that, it remains incoherent babbling on the part of anyone who asserts it without showing how you took the sacrificed values and opportunity costs into account, which neither you, Alan, Stiglitz or Keynes have ever done.

Go ahead. Show us your workings.

Hi JKJ,

Re: “At no stage have you given any *reason* for the *economic* issue, whether the observed benefits were because of, or despite policy action.”

Econometrics answers questions like: What happened? How? How can we do things with different outcomes?

The question Why is ultimately a metaphysical one. Comes down to human nature and why people were created or evolved as we did.

Re: “The 'best-managed economy' approach assumes that if something economically good happened, it must automatically be because of government.”

Not at all. Assumes nothing. Rather, looks at all the possible explanations, examines other comparable economies, looks back through time, considers the various theoretical explanatory frameworks, applies trial and error, and then harnesses reason and evidence to assess the best explanation of the observed phenomena.

Vastly different from assumption, JK. The opposite, in fact.

Re: “full socialism would be more productive than a system based on private property.”

The best fit seems to be a mixed economy with some decisions made by governments, others left entirely to the free market and some made via a combination of both.

Re: “Keynesianism exists only because of the symbiosis by which the high priests make a living preaching to the masses …”

Not at all. Keynesianism provides the theoretical underpinning for the best economies in the world.

Most communities across the globe have workers who want jobs, salaries, job security, holidays and various benefits and then eventually want to retire happy and comfortable. They also have enterprising people who want to invest, start businesses, make a profit, get rich and retire happy and wealthy.

Everyone wants shelter, good food, security for the family, education for the kids, leisure, and entertainment.

Of all societies in the world today – some say all societies ever – Australia is now providing all these most effectively and efficiently.

One of the observable reasons for this is Australia’s appropriate response to the 2008 downturn. The BER and the pink batts - as the author here affirms - have been shown to be vital elements of that response.

You should be celebrating this, JK.

Cheers,

Alan

More circularity and appeal to authority, ho hum. It's enough to dispose of your entire argument to point out that science does not and cannot rest on logical fallacies, and that's all you've got.

Thus the BER was as wasteful, corrupt, parasitic and destructive as it seems, and the true test of its supporters' claims is whether they would have paid for it voluntarily. Obviously they wouldn't, or the whole discussion would be redundant

Hi again JKJ,

No, not at all.

There’s no circularity. We start with the open question: What do citizens require of their economy?

Then move to: How do the various governments around the world fare in meeting those requirements?

Then, eventually: Is Australia the most successful economy in the history of the world in terms of meeting the specified needs of its citizens? Yes or no?

If no, which economy is? Or was?

And, if yes: What were the specific strategies the Australian Government deployed differently from all other governments during the global financial crisis to have its economy rocket to the top of the rankings during that period?

Where is the circularity, JK?

No appeal to authority either. Simple observation and measurement.

No logical fallacies either.

Win, win, win!

So you really can cheer up. JKJ. No need whatsoever to be so tetchy.

Cheers,

Alan