Keynesian Recovery

A quote from George Bush in today's news:

"I inherited a recession, I'm ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth," he said.

"And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was president, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action."


Over the last couple of days I have seen a plethora of articles about Keynes and how the plan to save the American Economy is a resurgance of Keynesian Economic Principals and Theories. I haven't read them too closely or at all in most cases but if memory serves Keynes believed that governments should deficit spend to get economies out of slowdowns.

I think Keynes is rolling over in his grave right now. Pundits who cite Keynes are looking at a very narrow picture and completely ignoring the incontrovertible facts that our government has been engaged in Keynesian spending for the past 8 years (and longer) to no long term avail. George Bush's comments assist in pointing out this fact and supporting thier failure.

The government has been deficit spending for years while driving down interest rates and implementing policies that promoted deficit spending amongst the consumers as well. This resulted in the largest financial bubble in history and the politician's solution? Blow harder into the bubble and keep it inflated, blame everyone else.

Keynes believed during Good Times the government should reduce it's spending and save for a rainy day and then increase spending during slowdowns to smooth out economic cycles. I can't remember the last time a government agency said, "Things are going good so lets save some money for when they aren't." All I have ever heard is, "Spend, Spend, Spend, we got more money? Spend IT!!!!".

The United States is actually in a Keynesian Bubble that is imploding. Failure to recognize this and accept (deal with) the consequences in order to allow our economic ship to right itself will simply lead to greater and more costly consequences down the road.

Barack Obama is not the Change we needed nor that we can Count On. He is simply perpetuating the error of Washington's ways and condemning himself to a level of historical respect equivalent to that deserved by George W. Bush.