He's a

[No Elephants]

Keynesian!

That was the response I got, bold italics and all, when I posted bemoaning re-appointment of Bernanke as head of the Fed, as though it was supposed to make Bush's guy more palatable to me.

Truth is, nothing could have made me and my gut comfortable with re-appointment of Bush's guy, no matter what, but I shut up because I did not know anything about Keynesian economics.

This morning, I decided to learn a teensy bit about that.

John Maynard Keynes-born born 1880 in England, when the poor were street urchin poor and the upper middle class did very nicely indeed economically, thank you very much.

In the caste system of Victorian England, he was not considered upper class, of course, but he did mingle with the upper class quite well. First love affair with a sibling of Harold MacMillian, Prime Minister of England. Then again, why not?

He had attended private nursery school, private parochial school, then Eton and then King's College, where he joined a semi-secret society, with which he remained in contact throughout his life.

(Any of this sounding familiar?)

If you want to know a bit more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes


Apparently, Keynesian economics offers two key principles for dealing with bad economic times. The Central Bank lends to participating banks at a low rate to encourage inveswtment. We certainly did that. However, according to wiki, that no longer does the trick.

And investment in infrastructure (which, I guess is the half of this two part formula we didn't do so well on). But not so people have jobs and paychecks so much as that investment in infrastructure is good for the job creators.

And, while Keynes was a fan of globalization, being born when he was, he did not really have a lot of opportunity to test that theory out, did he, except insofar as nations like England traded with their colonies. (He was a clerk in the India office, whatever that means.) I am sure those transactions worked out well--for England, but they are not 100% relevant to America today. The 1% have serf nations, not the U.S. itself.

:wtf:

He sounds like the king of the DLCers, only we're in a different economic world today than the one he knew. I was supposed to accept Bernanke's re-appointment cheerfully because of this guy's theories?

Keynes was an improvement on prior economists, who believed that the free market would take care of everything, also long as workers were "flexible about wages," as wiki puts it.

The wiki on Keynesian economics says that Keynesian economic lost a lot of its following suring the stagflation of the 1970s *because it was not working?) but the 2008 economic crisis (aka Great Depression no one will admit to) caused a resurgence of Keynes' ideas. his views got a resurgence (Thank heavens FDR was "a little left of center" as FDR put it, and not a center right Keynesian).

There are several more wiki articles on Keynesian economics during various time periods which I still must read. At the end of all that, I won't pretend to know Keynesian economics, but I hope to understand a bit more about why anyone thought it would comfort me.

So far, not comforted. Then again, I don't own lots of stock.

[Enthusiast]

1. I agree with the Keynes theory on investing

when the economy is down. The problem with the Obama stimulus was that it was mistargeted and too small. Also, in his zeal to please the Republicans, Obama agreed to one third of the stimulus going to tax cuts. Bad job. It still helped tremendously. But it could have brought the economy back with a roar if done properly. Of course I'm an expert on these things.

[No Elephants]

2. FDR went beyond infrastructure. Think I may be a Rooseveltian

on the economy, though not on things like internment.

FDR also feared that doing anything about Jim Crow was like to lose Democrats the South, which they really needed then because California's 55 electoral votes were going to Republican Presidential candidates then.

But Eleanor did her thing anyway, from Marion Anderson to going back to the White House while she was still the first or second most popular woman in the U.S. to beg Eisenhower to enforce Brown v. Board of Ed.

So, I'll take Franklin on everything but equal rights and Eleanor on civil rights and say I'm a "Rooseveltian."

Geez, what I would have given to have grown up around that dinner table. Then again, maybe no kid did. The upper classes often ate dinner without the kids.