The Same as It Ever Was, or: A War Criminal Economist Pops Off

What John B. Taylor meant to write:
 
WHEN he introduced Alan B. Krueger, his new economic adviser, in the Rose Garden last week, President Barrack Hussein Obamaramaman offered a few hints about his new economic plan. So far it sounds much like the old plan, which is too bad because that plan didn’t work very well - mostly because the people who had the plan didn't want to really implement the plan, so in compromise in pursuit of appearing to be adults, they made their plan mostly ineffective. But feckless is as the feckless do ....

One part of the new plan, the president said, is to “put more money in the pockets” of people. That was tried in the 2009 stimulus, when the federal government borrowed money and gave it to people in the form of one-time payments or temporary refundable tax credits. Well, actually, the government doesn't really borrow money - but to clear that up would require me to learn Modern Monetary Theory. Still, it is true that the temporary transfers created little or no increase in aggregate consumption or, in turn, in jobs, because people mostly paid down debt or saved what they could, and the economic actors who received these funds have mostly sat upon them like a turd in their shorts.
 
Another part of the new plan would “put construction crews to work rebuilding our nation’s roads and railways and airports.” That too was tried in the 2009 stimulus. My colleague John F. Cogan and I found that state and local governments put most of the money in their coffers, because unlike the Federal Government, States are not sovereign issuers of currency: It is true that States may only spend (or borrow on) what they tax. So States did exactly what people like me counsel everyone else to do - save for the future. Don't be fucking with me because I adhere, consistently, to the false analogy of household and state. The federal government also undertook its own construction programs, but, with few shovel-ready projects, it could only increase infrastructure spending by an immaterial 0.05 percent of G.D.P. There's more to be done, that could be done, of course; but since even the Feckless Democrats really don't believe in public goods, they don't plan for much anymore.

In my estimation, those interventions and most others — cash for clunkers (which probably did save the domestic auto manufacturers, despite some flaws with the program,) the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit (which braked the collapse of the real estate bubble and kept some people working who otherwise would not have been, but having expired and removed the brakes, is less help now than the administrative logjams forestalling foreclosures en masse nation wide), quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve (which is only to be done when Milton Friedman says so, and he's dead) and the sharp increase in federal spending (which really isn't that sharp of an increase - the real cause of the rise in Fed "debt" is the drop in revenue, mostly an accounting matter, but now I'd have to learn MMT and explain it to you) — have not only been ineffective but have also lowered investment and consumption demand by increasing concern about the federal debt, another financial crisis and threats of inflation or deflation. Yep, people will do nothing for opposite reasons, ya know, or not do anything, for opposite reasons, ya know. Most businesses have plenty of cash to invest and create jobs. They’re sitting on it because they rather like the feel of a turd in their shorts - and there are no profits to be made in a consumption-saturated society anyway, which reminds me that one of my axioms - "people are insatiable" - and its corollary - "more is always better than less" is wrong, but far be it for me to point you to the work of Steven Keen.

Rather than more of such temporary interventions, the American economy needs a new comprehensive economic strategy. Well, actually, it needs to do what I say, which isn't new at all, because David Ricardo solved everything provided you can accept economic collapse as the natural and scientific solution to what ails us. (Isn't it wonderful when nature and artifice coincide, and description and prescription are conflated to obscure the interests of the people who pay me to say this shit?) A natural starting place is the debt-limit cum and jizz soaked spending-control agreement reached this summer. It reduces projected increases in spending over 10 years by $2.1 trillion to $2.4 trillion. The agreement reduces spending growth in a very gradual way, which is appropriate in a weak economy - so all that boilerplate bullshit above about them Negro Muslims spending money they ain't got is, well, me just being a cynical turd. I know that Keynes is the only possible solution to a capitalist crisis if you are going to save capitalism.

But it does not fully deal with the debt and the deficit problem, which is why it needs to be embedded in a broader economic strategy with the goal of closing the rest of the budget gap through pro-growth reforms. There is no place for better and different in a system that requires more and bigger in order to absorb just enough chumps to sustain the political conditions which make it possible for capitalists, financiers, politicians, and apologist propagandists to walk the streets unmolested. People need to watch more reality TV and learn from Nancy Grace what really threatens them and theirs.

There are of course sharp differences of opinion about the reforms needed to achieve that goal. The biggest differences of opinion will probably have to be Teabagged out in the 2012 election. Entitlement taebagging, tax teabagging, regulatory teabagging, monetary teabagging — indeed, the fundamental teabagging of government in the economy — should be part of that debate, but with a clear commitment to America’s living within its means. Actually, I got nothing to add that Mitt the Shit didn't put in his pulp fiction, most of which he stole from that other Mormon cultist, Huntsomething or other. We need to do just three things, really, to fix what ails us: 1) Suck off all the capitalists; 2) Fuck labor, especially those who need medical insurance and those who are less white than me; 3) Fuck the environment.

Economy fixed, QED.

That strategy will take us toward a more stable and predictable economic policy with less uncertainty about the future. It will thereby increase both demand and supply and cause the economy to grow and create jobs again. Gotta go smoke some crack, bye bye.

John B. Taylor is co-conspirator of the Bush Secundum Administration wars of aggression, serving as the Treasury under secretary for international affairs from 2001-2005, and is now jerking off as an economics professor at Stanford.