a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

I'm reasonably sure Keynes himself called bullshit on trickle-down.





briandmyers  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Indeed - Keynesian economics is sometimes called "trickle-up". As I understand it, Keynesian economics is more about stimulating a sluggish economy, by lowering interest rates, public-works spending, etc; whatever works; but I'm no expert on it.

b_b  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    As I understand it, Keynesian economics is more about stimulating a sluggish economy...

I think that's where people misunderstand Keynes. I'm no expert either, but Keynes was for stimulating the economy by government spending and other tools in economic downturns, but also for raising taxes and cutting spending during good times. We always only hear about the downturn half, but the problem is the downturn half doesn't work so well when you're always cutting taxes and encouraging spending independent of what the economy is doing. For example, during the boom between the dot com bubble and the housing bubble, what did we (the US) do? Cut taxes, spent a trillion dollars on a war, and encouraged people who couldn't afford it to borrow as much money as they possibly could, all while keeping interest rates low enough that those poor people could afford it (kind of...in the immediate term...yay interest only loans!). Leave it to W to fuck up a boom.

kleinbl00  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·  

One of these days I'll read the guy. I just gave up on Mark Horowitz. I thought I was a high-fivin' white guy but I don't start my chapters with Nas lyrics.

briandmyers  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·  
kleinbl00  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah. That douchecamel.

Ryan Holiday recommended the book at one point, without mentioning that it's a VC bragging about how rough it is being a VC because you need to lay people off without pissing off the people who stay. Cue some bullshit DMX quote.