Friday, February 24, 2012

Why do so many people WANT there to be disagreement?

Isn't it a good thing when we agree?

Why do Austrians want to think people who like markets actually don't like markets?

Why does Scott Sumner want to think Keynesians are lukewarm about monetary stimulus despite the fact that, along with the market monetarists, we've been the strongest backers of monetary stimulus?

And now, why do the MMTers want to think that non-MMT Keynesians are worried about large deficits from fiscal stimulus?

All of you guys - we agree with you! Shouldn't you be glad about that? Don't we have enough drama in this world already - aren't there enough genuine disagreements we can fight about? Why do you need to act like we disagree so much on these issues?

4 comments:

  1. How can you make straw men without phony positions?

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  2. No one has said you don't like markets. You like markets. But when push comes to shove, you find many deficiencies in the free market, and these deficiencies can be lessened or eliminated by government.

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    1. The second comment was by patch, btw. When I type on ky phone for some reason it doesn't include my name.

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  3. I just don't see how you can claim that Keynesians aren't a bit lukewarm about monetary stimulus given the Keynesian belief in things such as liquidity traps and ZLB.

    I think you need to realize that Austrians have a fundamental distrust of government rooted in many areas including things such as the theory of public choice. So, your "camp"'s idea that sometimes (or more often than Austrians believe) there are market failures that can and should be resolved by government is a serious disagreement. It's not that Austrians believe you hate markets. It's that Austrians love markets while you just like them. (First order approximation)

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