Beat me to it. Plus, those Zsa Zsa Gabor dogs they're allowed to have up there ain't gonna hurt nobody
There are a lot of problems in Latin America that contribute to the failure of Keynesianism. It's a big, complicated mess that the US, thankfully, has never* tried to sort out with violence and ended up making the situation worse. Dodged a bullet there, didn't we? *No I'm not an idiot. This is called sarcasm.
I'm not a Sanders expert, but we have a couple hundred billion sitting around in the defense budget that gets wasted every year (if you subscribe to Sanders' foreign policy.) If you employ a typical liberal's foreign policy, it's actually not that hard to cut the deficit because defense spending is so preposterously bloated.
Shit in the old wall street journal fix the budget thing they had, I raised taxes on all, cut the shit out of military, social security and medicare. I was able to balance the budget, pay down debt and have a little something-something left over for my switzerland bank account. Is not hard, politics is what makes it complicated.
If you can't say specifically what you are going to cut or by what percentages you are no better than the politicians who just say they are going to cut waste.
I'll throw in another. I'd increase the tax rates to back where they were during the Clinton administration.
With all due respect isn't it a Congress person's duty to do no harm. By making sure that all of his sponsored bills failed saved many taxpayer's $$. I do like his proposal to increase SS payments if they should go to persons of a particular age and move it up by 1 every year. Increasing the tax rate for everyone who makes more than I is OK also.
For sure but for many lefties (mostly in developing countries) Doing Keynesian economics eventually leads to this. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...junk-sends-bonds-sliding-as-petrobras-tumbles For some people hey -mis-use- Keynesian theory to just spend money with out thinking on a way on how they will ever pay it back. Brazil was doing good things in poverty reduction, but they were ridding the boom years, and they are collapsing now that they are gone. I guess the answer is that they need to spend more money
OK, even of you accept the idea that you can cut all that stuff and balance the budget (never mind whether it's politically feasible), Sanders is saying increase social security benefits, single payer health system for everyone, free college - all those expenses are going to go up with time and aging of the population. That's a gigantic increase in spending. Most of what he says I agree with, but he is making a bunch of promises he can't keep and that's why I say he's just another bullshit politician.
Is Japan the future of us all? http://www.economist.com/news/finan...t-efforts-japans-economic-future-will-be-leap Japan does show that countries can take on a lot of debt and still have relatively low interest, so people that complain about 100% of GDP debt are a bit off, not that having 250% of GDP debt is something we should all aim for, but in case of emergencies there is room, if there is political will, the problem is getting out of the habit of trying to spend your way out of problems.
I think there are plenty of flaws in Keynesian and neo-Keynesian economics. But to be fair to Keynes and his followers, no economic theory can possibly be a panacea to the levels of corruption that exist in Latin America.
It's not just corruption. The fundamental political problem, as I understand it, is that the Peronists/Bolivarians/populists compete with the conservatives/US-backed dictators/US-backed corporations (you get the idea) with such a vast ideological space between them that compromise, a necessity in multiparty electoral regimes, is virtually impossible. If we think of the economic ideological policy space as being unidimensional, the gap between American Democrats and Republicans would be like the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and the distance between the Latin American left and right as the distance between the Earth and, say, Pluto. There aren't major moderate parties that both sides could accept. This leaves you with only a few options: near-totalitarian powers in the President (see: Brazil), gridlock, or wild swings in who is in power, and subsequent swings in policy. This creates an uncertain economic climate for investors. Keynesianism, much like other economic policies, needs stability to work.
Former President Cardoso (I think) in Brazil set up economic policies (his ministers) that the left has respected (similar in Chile), Lula and the new President just added a lot of very good social programs during the boom times that helped a lot of poor people, now that commodity exports are down, revenues have collapsed and Brazil can't cover all the extra expense (and congress does not want to cut other fat that as you would say makes government work). Brazil is in a bad place right now, the need fiscal stimulus to grow, but the markets don't trust them so debt is getting expensive. So the currency is dropping that makes exports more competitive, but China the huge market is slowing down, so if the demand is not there it does not mater how cheap the supply is. China has an appetite to invest overseas with their construction firms, Brazil needs lots of investment in infrastructure, so perhaps more open rules regarding foreign ownership is the way to go for them. One of the big problems with Keynesian economics, is that is hard to run deficits when people do not want to let you borrow money (or want a high interest). But as I point above, that is not an issue with big developed countries like the USA and Japan, markets will keep on lending us money regardless of our debt size
This part I did not understand, maybe @nicephoras can help explain it to me, it sounds like the bank of Japan buying up all of the debt, and doing something to spark high inflation (Japan needs inflation).
Yeah, Japan's economy is confusing. My point was not so much about Japan but about Keynes, because many people call themselves Keynesians -or conversely put down the Keynesian theories- and yet they have never even read Keynes, let alone understand his ideas. Unlike the Neo-Keynesians, Keynes would not have approved of the way Japan is handling its economy. Keynes believed in deficit spending during a recession in order to stimulate the economy, but he believed that in general nations should strive to have a surplus. Journalist and commentators today may call it "Keynesian economics", but the levels of deficit spending we see today, particularly in Japan, would have appalled Keynes.
Well she is out of power now, but the results of high taxes to rich farmers to funds hand outs to poor urban people. http://www.economist.com/news/ameri...-best-and-some-worst-argentina-down-riverside
I dunno. Some of the satire hits its mark, but much of it indulges in the fiction that being against bigotry is intolerant. Nobody says that putting kidnappers in prison is hypocrisy.
Colin Jost punches down to make a similar point - being too diverse is a negative today. Must be something in water at SNL. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/colin-jost-is-a-dumbass-1789262223