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Bill may have already left us, but I was hoping to get a chance to ask him to explain his understanding of Keynesian economic theory with regard to deficit spending during a deep recession with the attendant high unemployment and lack of consumer demand.
As I said before, his assertion
"Keynesian economics is absurd at its face, that you can spend your way out of a recession."
does strongly suggest a serious lack of understanding of Keynesian theory. Indeed, quite contrary to his assertion, it seems to me that it is almost common sense to suppose that ramping up government spending should help lift an economy out of recession. That doesn't mean it's necessarily true, but history would appear to provide plenty of evidence to support the idea (e.g., the effect of war-time spending, the economic expansion that accompanied Reagan's massive peace-time deficit spending, etc.) In any event, I honestly can't imagine anyone truly thinking it to be an "absurd" idea unless they harbored some type of misconception about economics.
Bill is not, however, the only one that I've heard make that suggestion and it has occurred to me that it may be connected to a conflation of "recession" with "debt."
John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona
On Aug 19, 2011, at 11:15 PM, William Robertson wrote:
I'm leaving this group tonight. I have learned a few things. I've also_______________________________________________
received fairly condescending remarks when unwarranted (Thanks so
much, John Denker). The main reason for leaving, though, is the main
problem with academia and politics. I spent a number of years in
academia. The politics were liberal. Everyone was liberal. I was
liberal. You expected that you could make fun of conservatives and
everyone would laugh. No real thought attached to it. Just
indoctrination from the first moment of undergrad. I moved away from
academia and began to think more about my politics. What i eventually
arrived at personally was not as important as my view from the outside
regarding academia. I still "do business" with those in academia, and
they assume everyone around them is liberal, so any caustic comment
about conservatives is fine. That's what happens on this list. One can
make any kind of disparaging remark about conservatives and it's okay.
One can even make ridiculous claims that the views of fundamentalists
are typical of conservatives in general. It's expected that all will
agree with any liberal comment, and that it won't be questioned. When
someone questions liberal dogma, one gets attacked. I am reminded of a
comment one NY Times reporter made after Reagan was elected--"How did
this happen? No one I know voted for him." I'm afraid this list
remains just as out of touch with the real world. If politics were
completely banned from this list, that would be great. But only
conservative politics are considered political. Liberal politics are
considered business as usual. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Bill
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l