The problem that is often overlooked is that while the debt-to-GDP ratio may not look all that bad right now, those unfunded liabilities just seem to keep on growing, as successive governments make promises to the voters that then have to be met by future governments.
I had a look at the growing unfunded liabilities of the UK, focusing on the NHS, pensions, and education.
Yes, same problems in the U.S., massive inflation.
Seems to all trace back to Keynsian economics.
Keynes gets a lot of undeserved flak. He promoted the thesis that govt. should increase expenditure during a downturn, in order to soften a recession, and to run a surplus in times of expansion, so as to control inflation.
The problem is that govt. programs are never cut. When did the US last have a govt. surplus? Or the UK for that matter?
US debt is catastrophic. UK debt is cataclysmic. The problem is far worse for the UK though; it is one of the most crowded major countries in Europe, cannot possibly be self sufficient in food, has de-industrialized, and has incompetent political leadership. In fact there isn’t a single institution in Britain, from top to bottom, that is fit for purpose.
Boris has bought into climate-change catastrophism. The British economy is now a “transition economy” - i.e. it has transcended old economic thinking. National debt will have no bearing in a post-Keynesian world, where modern monetary theory smooths the way to government control of the number of particles per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
I agree with everything you said there except the first sentence. All the flak Keynes gets is well deserved.
I am still nodding in agreement with you, Liz.
So you want government interference in the market, as Keynes does?
Again you express an idea that belongs on the Left.
Well, I sure as hell don’t believe in the market forces fairy.
Governments cause inflation. They do not cure it.
If you do not understand the importance of the free market to prosperity and liberty, you are no conservative.
Have you ever actually read von Mises? Hayek? Milton Friedman?
All of them. And Keynes, and Galbraith, and Adam Smith, plus a pile of others.
You do not seem to understand what capitalism is and what it does.
Capitalism leads to concentration of wealth, which leads to monopoly, because the capitalists buy the politicians. Their first task then is to place obstacles in the path of aspiring innovators so as to protect the power and wealth of the status quo. The will have the bought politicians enact all sorts of legislation that protects their monopoly and increases their wealth.
This is all around us! You can’t see it?
One of the greatest economists who ever lived. Hated by the libertarian “market forces” crowd.
Try and win an election on a laissaiz fare platform. You won’t get anywhere because the vast majority of the people see through the BS.
Yes, that’s called “crony capitalism”. Thats not real capitalism. I dont know how you can have read Mises and still prefer Keynes, unless you just like socialism.
Real capitalism! Like real socialism! it is BS.
Where Keynes was essentially wrong - believing government could cure economic ills:
(He says it in English.)
And more Milton Friedman -
In praise of capitalism:
Very interesting observations by Hayek on Keynes. I suggest starting at 1.46 minutes.
That reads like an admission that it is not capitalism that’s the problem but rather the combination of capitalism and corruption in politics. Universal suffrage opened the door to socialist policies, politicians who made unaffordable promises were elected, and the result is that the true (largely concealed) debt has just grown over time. Those most prepared to lie are the most likely to get elected in such a society (Tony Blair in particular springs to mind), so corruption is almost to be expected.
Exactly! Yes, the problem is not capitalism itself, but the corruption (cronyism) between capitalists and politicians. This is something that needs fixing (seems to me there should be legislation banning cronyism) but it never happens, because, I assume, the cronies don’t want to give up their mutually benificial “arrangement”.
So you agree with Keynes that (as Friedman puts it) A) Governmwnt should be the one to solve all problems, and B) they should put intellectuals in charge of it?
Great videos! Thanks!