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I’m watchin’ you.
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Lord, Keynes, wow! It’s, it, it’s such an honor.
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Indeed, sir.
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Please, just go, just go right on through.
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[beeping alarm]
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woo, woo
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Identification, please.
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Hayek?
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No. Hayek, like high explosives.
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High explosives?
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Yeah.
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We have a 10-66, HQ I repeat, we have a 10-66.
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[Copy that, Mike. Proceed.]
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What is a 10-66? That was just an example of how to pronounce my name.
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Ladies and gentlemen.
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Members of the committee.
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We are here today to consider the impact
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of government spending on our economy.
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We’re fortunate to have two world-reknowned
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economists to offer their testimony on the matter.
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I see you took a detour down the road to serfdom.
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Talk about the end of laissez-faire.
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Well, shake it off, Freddie,
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I’m not pullin’ any punches in there.
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I’m ready. Are you?
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Prepare for the return of the master.
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John Maynard Keynes
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F. A. Hayek
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Round Two
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Round 2.0
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Same economists,
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same beliefs,
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new microphones,
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new mustaches.
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Here we are… Peace out! Great recession.
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Thanks to me, as you see, we’re not in a depression.
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Recovery, destiny, if you follow my lesson,
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Lord Keynes, here I come, line up for the procession.
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We brought out the shovels but we’re still in a ditch
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and still digging, don’t you think that it’s time for a switch
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from that hair of the dog? Friend, the party is over,
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the long run is here, it’s time to get sober!
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Are you kidding? My cure works perfectly fine.
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Have a look, the great recession ended back in ’09.
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I deserve credit. Things would have been worse.
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All the estimates prove it, I’ll quote chapter and verse.
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Econometricians, they’re ever so pious.
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Are they doing real science or confirming their bias?
-
Their “Keynesian” models are tidy and neat,
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but that top down approach is a fatal conceit.
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Which way should we choose?
-
More bottom up or more top down?
-
The fight continues,
-
Keynes and Hayek’s second round.
-
It’s time to weigh in
-
more from the top or from the ground.
-
Let’s listen to the greats,
-
Keynes and Hayek throwing down.
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We could have done better, had we only spent more,
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too bad that only happens when there’s a World War.
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You can carp all you want about stats and regression,
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do you deny World War II cut short the Depression?
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Wow. One data point and you’re jumping for joy,
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the last time I checked, wars only destroy.
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There was no multiplier, consumption just shrank
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as we used scarce resources for every new tank.
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Pretty perverse to call that prosperity,
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rationed meat, rationed butter, a life of austerity.
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When that war spending ended, your friends cried disaster,
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yet the economy thrived and grew faster.
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You too only see what you want to see,
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the spending on war clearly goosed GDP.
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Unemployment was over, almost down to zero,
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that’s why I’m the master, that’s why I’m the hero.
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Creating employment’s a straigtforward craft,
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when the nation’s at war, and there’s a draft.
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If every worker was staffed in the army and fleet
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we’d have full employment and nothing to eat.
-
Which way should we choose?
-
More bottom up or more top down?
-
The fight continues,
-
Keynes and Hayek’s second round.
-
It’s time to weigh in
-
more from the top or from the ground.
-
Let’s listen to the greats,
-
Keynes and Hayek throwing down.
-
Jobs are the means, not the ends in themselves,
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people work to live better, to put food on the shelves.
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Real growth means production of what people demand,
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that’s entrepreneurship not your central plan.
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My solution is simple and easy to handle,
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it’s spending that matters, why’s that such a scandal?
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Money sloshes through the pipes and the sluices
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revitalizing the economy’s juices.
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It’s just like an engine that’s stalled and gone dark,
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to bring it to life, we need a quick spark.
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Spending’s the life blood that gets the flow going,
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where it goes doesn’t matter, just get spending flowing.
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You see slack in some sectors as a “general glut”,
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but some sectors are healthy, only some in a rut.
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So spending’s not free, that’s the heart of the matter,
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too much is wasted as cronies get fatter.
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The economy’s not a car, there’s no engine to stall,
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no expert can fix it, there’s no “it” at all.
-
The economy’s us, we don’t need a mechanic,
-
put away the wrenches, the economy’s organic.
-
Which way should we choose?
-
More bottom up or more top down?
-
The fight continues,
-
Keynes and Hayek’s second round.
-
It’s time to weigh in
-
more from the top or from the ground.
-
Let’s listen to the greats,
-
Keynes and Hayek throwing down.
-
So what would you do to help those unemployed?
-
This is the question you seem to avoid.
-
When we’re in a mess, would you have us just wait,
-
doing nothing until markets equilibrate?
-
I don’t want to do nothing, there’s plenty to do,
-
the question I ponder is who plans for whom?
-
Do I plan for myself or leave it to you?
-
I want plans by the many, not by the few.
-
Let’s not repeat what created our troubles,
-
I want real growth not a series of bubbles.
-
Stop bailing out losers, let prices work,
-
if we don’t try to steer them they won’t go berserk.
-
Come on, are you kidding? Don’t Wall Street’s gyrations
-
challenge your world view of self-regulation?
-
Even you must admit that the lesson we’ve learned
-
is more oversight’s needed or else we’ll get burned.
-
Oversight? The government’s long been in bed
-
with those Wall Street execs and the firms that they’ve led.
-
Capitalism’s about profit and loss,
-
you bail out the losers, there’s no end to the cost.
-
The lesson I’ve learned? It’s how little we know,
-
the world is complex, not some circular flow.
-
The economy’s not a class you can master in college,
-
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.
-
Which way should we choose?
-
More bottom up or more top down?
-
The fight continues,
-
Keynes and Hayek’s second round.
-
It’s time to weigh in
-
more from the top or from the ground.
-
Let’s listen to the greats,
-
Keynes and Hayek throwing down.
-
You get on your high horse and you’re off to the races,
-
I look at the world on a case by case basis.
-
When people are suffering I roll up my sleeves
-
and do what I can to cure our disease.
-
The future’s uncertain, our outlooks are frail,
-
that’s why free markets are so prone to fail.
-
In a volatile world we need more discretion,
-
so state intervention can counter depression.
-
People aren’t chessmen you move on a board
-
at your whim – their dreams and desires ignored.
-
With political incentives, discretion’s a joke,
-
those dials you’re twisting, just mirrors and smoke.
-
We need stable rules and real market prices
-
so prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis.
-
Give us a chance so we can discover
-
the most valuable ways to serve one another.
-
Which way should we choose?
-
More bottom up or more top down?
-
The fight continues,
-
Keynes and Hayek’s second round.
-
It’s time to weigh in
-
more from the top or from ground.
-
Let’s listen to the greats,
-
Keynes and Hayek throwing down.
-
Which way should we choose?
-
More bottom up or more top down?
-
The fight continues,
-
Keynes and Hayek’s second round.
-
It’s time to weigh in
-
more from the top or from ground.
-
Let’s listen to the greats,
-
Keynes and Hayek throwing down.
