Does that mean Larry can’t complain if somebody blows up his house? After all.. think of the stimulus!!!
There’s an old saying “Never comment about another man’s house when your’s a mess”.
I guess the good news is that this is the first time I’ve ever seen the majority of the comments on a major news site call one of these goons out on their bullshit.
lol
In the most secret basement levels of his lair, Dr. Bernanke is close to completing the Quanto Earthquake 3 (QE3) destructo-machine as the ultimate (“Never fails!”) weapon against animal spirit-induced recessions.
Would everyone agree that the entire place where all such errors spring from are broken window fallacies which appear in GDP, and so it appears that because people are spending more money they are materially better off?
“In the most secret basement levels of his lair, Dr. Bernanke is close to completing the Quanto Earthquake 3 (QE3) destructo-machine as the ultimate (“Never fails!”) weapon against animal spirit-induced recessions.”
You Win my good sir
Would everyone agree that the entire place where all such errors spring from are broken window fallacies which appear in GDP, and so it appears that because people are spending more money they are materially better off?
Sounds reasonable - but you do not even need windows for that! One can pay half of the population for digging trenches, and the other half for undoing them… Or, wait, one can skip the whole digging affair and just pay… And the GDP will soar!
Indeed, with scions like Dr. Krugman and Dr. Bernanke, economic science (and humanity itself!) has advanced quite a lot since the days of Bastiat. Only backward savages would propose stimulus in the form of war, earthquake, or digging/filling holes these days. In the 21 century, we just give money to…someone. Much more civilized, that.
Still, one must always keep a good Quanto Earthquake 3 (QE3) destructo-machine in the basemanet as backup, if all else fails.
Before we all go strawmanning Summers, lets at least point out that he mentioned these effects will provide a jolt “over the short term”. Long run effects weren’t actually mentioned.
The government should make a policy out of randomly nuking a city every few years.
The short term of what? How long is the “short term,” and how will a massive earthquake and tsunami provide a “jolt” to it?
This is just from observation, but it seems you’ll say anything to disagree with the people here.
Heroin provides a great short term jolt too. Or so I have heard.
Heroin is too mellow! By this logic, we would all be more prosperous if we start doing lots of blow!
Before we all go strawmanning Summers, lets at least point out that he mentioned these effects will provide a jolt “over the short term”. Long run effects weren’t actually mentioned.
Accounting for the easily seen, visible effects, sure. What if you bring the unseen, more extensive, immediate consequences in?
Accounting for the easily seen, visible effects, sure. What if you bring the unseen, more extensive, immediate consequences in?
You don’t even need to bring in the unseen effects of the earthquake, although one can certainly imagine all sorts of foregone investments in R&D for example. But as I said, even without these I don’t think anybody is arguing that the tsunami has been a good thing for Japan. All Summer’s is pointing out that this might provide some sort of relief to the aggregate demand problems Japan has suffered from for a long time (if you buy that theory).
The short term of what? How long is the “short term,” and how will a massive earthquake and tsunami provide a “jolt” to it?
See, I’m not going to get into an argument about what constitutes the long term. I’m fairly sure Summer’s had a somewhat precise definition in mind, most likely that which is accepted by the majority of the economics community. If you’re going to ridicule him you should at least try to figure out the definitions he’s using. Assuming whatever your intellectual opponents say is patently absurd is going to lead to a self congratulary circle jerk at best.
Well, since it was you that suggested the appearence of a strawman, I thought you could make the significant distinction between the “long term” and “short term”. If there was no demonstratable, significant distinction, it seems there wouldn’t be a strawman in the first pace.
I thought most were aware that in general, “short term” means less than a year. But either way, I think this is more or less a moot point. I have yet to see anyone demonstrate how people having to divert time and resources to replace a bunch of stuff they already had before is any sort of “jolt”, “stimulus” or any other positive-spun euphemism someone wants to use.
Right: whether you’re talking about the short term or long term, there is nothing about a massively destructive tsunami and earthquake that is beneficial to the economy. That’s why I’m not sure of EconomistInTraining’s point.