printJohn Maynard Keynes wrote impenetrable prose. Likewise, Ben S. Bernanke speaks it. Obscurantism typified Bernanke’s address at the International Monetary Conference, Atlanta, Georgia. The “animal spirits” are lurking everywhere here. See if you can spot them.
UPDATED (June 8): John Maynard Keynes, “the commie who controls economies from the grave,” is alive and well in Fed Chairman Ben’s voodoo economics:
BEN: “[T]he ability and willingness of households to spend will be an important determinant of the pace at which the economy expands in coming quarters.”
“Spooky dude” Keynes, and his acolytes, honestly believed that the fickle consumer’s biorhythms control the economy. If the consumer is spooked, “the economy” gets that way too.
BEN: “[H]ouseholds are facing some significant headwinds, including increases in food and energy prices, declining home values, continued tightness in some credit markets, and still-high unemployment, all of which have taken a toll on consumer confidence.”
The Keynesian mixes cause and effect liberally. After all, the average man hasn’t a hope in hell of grasping the exclusive knowledge and magic formulas to which only Voodoo economists are privy. What Ben fails to mention is this: He is pumping vast amounts of paper, non-stop, into America’s phony economy. With every infusion of fake money, as Austrian economists have warned, the dollar drops like a stone. Assets will continue to devalue. Saving will be difficult; retirement near impossible. Prices will soar, and the currency will eventually collapse (hyperinflation).
Before you blame Obama, the Republikeynsians began this spiral in earnest.
Have at it.
Is Economics actually a discipline?
At least for the irrational Keynesian theories, it is almost wholly based on the mystifying psychology of ‘animal spirits,’ and dissembles from there.
The latest book, “Animal Spirits,” supporting more and ‘better’ regulation, is a veritable hodgepodge of logical fallacy and silliness.
There is truth in what you say Ilana, but you have to admit Obama’s promises to help everyone who is to lazy to earn a good living, and to give financial aid to other countries, such as Greece, recently, is not helping our economy either. Obama doesn’t have the brains God gave a domestic turkey.
Surely, even Obama isn’t stupid to dump billions down a Greek rat hole for no good reason while the United States is declining at an increasing rate. I just can’t figure out what he’s up to. Whatever it is it aint good.
30 years of cheap labor-importing open borders immigration, sweatshopping the working class, and 30 years of job-exporting “free trade”, killing the middle class, have also killed real demand. Thus the effort to force demand thru cheap credit, EZ debt, and now monetization of debt. As Ilana says, it’s not going to work. I expect complete economic collapse by mid-2012 and, if it turns out to be Rick Perry vs. Zero, an 1860’ish Prez election. CW II, coming down the pike.