tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post61185138391980668..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Thinking About a Recession Election in the US for 2016Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-15985244545195163162016-02-27T15:08:06.825-05:002016-02-27T15:08:06.825-05:00When economists contemplate the end of the Great D...When economists contemplate the end of the Great Depression they think of charts and graphs that are mostly irrelevant. What actually happened was the New Deal and the government took over the system during WWII: wage and price controls, 8.5 million drafted into the Army, government expenditures 40% of GDP, a top tax rate of 94%, and rationing as private debt fell from 141% to 67% of GDP. The income share of the bottom 90% increased over 20% during the war and didn’t fall until the 1980s. Social insurance came to be; government’s share of GDP more than doubled, and the financial system was strictly regulated after the war. http://www.rweconomics.com/htm/WDCh3e.htm <br /><br />The economic system that emerged from the New Deal and WWII was not the system that led us into the 1930s. It was a system of higher taxes, more government, strict regulation, and less inequality. This was what pulled us out of the Great Depression and into the economic prosperity that followed WWII, not the magical workings of free markets or the monetary and fiscal policies of Keynesian economics. And neither free markets nor monetary or fiscal policies are going to get us out of the Great Recession we face today or allow us to avoid another worldwide catastrophe comparable to WWII. <br /><br />Policies that do not reduce the trade deficit and concentration of income will simply prop up a failed system that makes the rich richer and poor poorer as the federal debt grows. http://www.rweconomics.com/LTLGAD.htm <br /><br /><br />It is essential that we use the legislative, tax, and spending powers of the government to reduce the trade deficit, expand government services, and increase the economic and political power of those at the bottom to achieve full employment through a more equitable, efficient, and productive distribution of income if we are to deal effectively with the fundamental problems we face today.<br /><br />What is needed is the kind of overhaul of the system offered by Sanders. Neither the Republicans nor Clinton are up to the task. http://www.rweconomics.com/Deficit.htmAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16011736382575746163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-7830059185685504902016-02-27T13:11:57.745-05:002016-02-27T13:11:57.745-05:00Lord is right. Peter gets the politics right (as ...Lord is right. Peter gets the politics right (as in that old Ray Fair model) but it is the Republicans pushing austerity whereas both Democrats are pushing for fiscal stimulus in the form of infrastructure investment.ProGrowthLiberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17138489390594441753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-29889978408627461682016-02-26T17:05:32.871-05:002016-02-26T17:05:32.871-05:00How does the Fed know when to stop raising rates? ...How does the Fed know when to stop raising rates? When we enter recession. The intelligent thing to do is to attack Congress and the Fed. Lordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06747994571555237739noreply@blogger.com