Keynesians are Clueless

Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist, Nobel Prize winner, and Keynesian economist extraordinaire is about to have his new book released entitled, End this Depression Now.  In it, the Duke of Deficit Spending argues that a speedy, robust recovery from the Great Recession which started in 2008 is just a quick policy decision away.  If only our leaders can muster the “intellectual clarity and political will” needed to raise federal spending further, Americans will begin consuming again, businesses hiring, and the current depression will be over in a flash.  Once again Krugman is being true to his economic philosophy – namely that increasing aggregate demand through loose fiscal and monetary policy is a cure-all for what’s ailing the economy.  Let it be said that there is not a more consistent deflationist than Paul Krugman in all of the economic profession.

Now, why anybody would still listen to Krugman is a mystery to me.  After all, he entirely missed calling the financial crisis of 2008 while Austrian economists were spot on with their prognostications.  I suppose most laymen don’t know the difference and most economists and academics are as Milton Friedman proclaimed so long ago “All Keynesians now”.  Thus ignorance of and loyalty to a failed philosophy are powerful forces to make people do irrational things.

In the first place, Krugman shows his ignorance with the title of his book, End this Depression Now.  The statistics indicate that we are not currently in a depression.  Secondly, current numbers indicate that the deflationary spiral that Krugman has been predicting and fears the most is not happening.  On the contrary, while he continues to fret over falling prices leading to a double-dip recession, long-term trends point strongly toward oncoming double digit price inflation.

What it all boils down to is that Krugman and other Keynesian economists are about to miss the next economic crisis.  Austrians have been arguing all along that we can’t solve our economic problems by doing the same things that got us into the mess in the first place.  Deficit spending and a ridiculously loose monetary policy will not cleanse the market of all the mal-investments made during the preceding artificial boom (housing bubble).  It will only put us deeper into trouble.  What was needed was a drastic cut in government spending, a cut in taxes, and the setting of interest rates by the market not the monetary oligarchs at the Federal Reserve.

So because policy makers in Washington listened to Krugman and his ilk over the voices of reason, we are about to enter the next cycle of boom and bust.  It will consist of phony growth, rising prices, and rising interest rates which will ultimately pop the bubble and send the economy into another tailspin.  The proof is in current trends.

In spite of Krugman’s ill-timed book, we are not in the middle of a depression.  Consumer spending is way up.  In the fourth quarter of last year balances on credit cards rose 9.27 percent.  In February, retail sales in the U.S. improved in 11 of 13 industry categories and marked the biggest gain in five months according to Commerce Department figures.

Then there is job growth.  400,000 private sector jobs have been created just in the first two months of this year.  More workers mean more spenders and more spenders mean more jobs, right?

Oh, and let’s not forget how well the financial markets are doing.  The Dow is up 7 percent YTD, the S&P 500 is up 11 percent YTD, the Homebuilders Index is up 23 percent YTD, and the S&P Financials are up 21 percent YTD.  These are not numbers indicative of a depression.

But, all of this good news is coming at a cost, literally.  We are approaching the place this commentator wrote about on October 16, 2009.  Bernanke and the Federal Open Market Committee are going to have a big decision to make in the near future – raise rates and burst the Fed induced bubble or leave rates low and watch prices skyrocket.

Price inflation is already heating up.  It was only a matter of time before all the stimulus, low interest rates, and money printing kicked in to produce higher prices.  The money supply has increased by 14.6 percent year over year ending in February.  That makes 39 consecutive months of double digit year over year rates of monetary inflation.

The result has been higher gasoline and food prices.  College and healthcare costs continue to rise.  And the Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® for the 4th straight month shows the number of industries experiencing higher raw material costs on the rise and the number of industries experiencing  lower raw material costs on the decline.  It will be just a matter of time before those higher raw material costs find their way into higher prices on the merchant’s shelf.

So while Krugman and other Keynesians clamor for more federal spending and easy money to produce a speedy, robust recovery from the Great Recession, they are missing that the next boom and bust cycle has already begun.  But, that’s okay because Austrians have been predicting it for some time.  In the words of Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again”.

Article first published as Keynesians Are Clueless on Blogcritics.

Romney is Focusing on the Wrong Mechanism

Coming off derogatory remarks he recently made about the underclass in America, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney apparently felt the need to throw them a bone. Last week, he reaffirmed his support for linking regular increases in the minimum wage to the rate of inflation. Given that Romney has held this position since he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, one could assume that he really believes the proposal would go a long way to helping the working poor. But, what he is really doing is focusing on the wrong mechanism to help them.

On the surface, Romney’s proposal seems reasonable. As prices increase, so should wages. After all, aren’t Social Security benefits indexed for price inflation?

However, the first realization that must be acknowledged is that government economic policy causes the price increases that allegedly make the minimum wage necessary for some to live a minimal existence. In other words, if the federal government would simply live within its means and cease using the Federal Reserve to monetize huge amounts of debt and maintain artificially low interest rates there would be little or no need for a minimum wage.

As the late, Austrian economist, Murray Rothbard pointed out in his book, The Mystery of Banking, from the mid-eighteenth century until 1940 prices in the United States actually fell on average from year to year with the exception being during war years. Since 1940, the Federal Reserve which became responsible for maintaining price stability and the value of the dollar through monetary policy oversaw a decline in the dollar’s value by more than 93 percent. That calculates to a 1506% annual rate of inflation change! It’s no wonder we have become a society with a low savings rate and two partners working to make ends meet.

What was the difference between these two economic epochs in our nation’s history? The first had a Gold Standard and the second was based on a fiat dollar standard.

The bottom line is that minimum wage laws are a reaction by politicians to their own historical bungling of the economy. If Mitt Romney and his ilk really wanted to help the working poor in America they would endorse a sound money policy instead. In particular, a gold backed currency that would alleviate the ability of politicians and central bankers to devalue the dollar and cause price inflation by printing money and running deficits. In short, a return to the Gold Standard would stabilize and eliminate the need for a minimum wage.

We Can’t Afford to Raise the Debt Ceiling

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.”

Senator Barack Obama

Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt

March 16, 2006

Senator Obama ended his speech with a profound yet often neglected fact, “Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.”  He went on to vote against raising the debt ceiling in 2006.

What a shame Barack Obama has such a short memory.  If only he would have paid heed to his own words once he became president in 2008 we wouldn’t be about $3 trillion more in debt and in the worst fiscal crisis the world has ever seen.  But, of course, the President and his supporters claim that he had no choice but to spend us even farther into oblivion.  After all, he inherited an awful economy from his predecessor.  The story goes that his spendthrift policies are what saved us from an economic meltdown.  How they know that exactly is not clear?

What is known is that Obama’s policies have not solved our economic woes.  In fact things have become far worse under his leadership.  The two statistics that the ordinary American cares most about are unemployment and price inflation.  Both have headed in the wrong direction since Obama assumed the reins of power.  The government’s unemployment figure stood at 7.8 percent the month Obama became president.  Today, 9.2 percent of our workforce is without work.  In spite of his “stimulus” spending the unemployment rate has increased 18 percent!

Naturally, with all the new spending and monetized debt over the last two and one-half years, it is reasonable to expect that goods priced in dollars would see an increase.  As I have predicted many times on this post, they have.  If we just use the government’s CPI numbers it is easy to see that prices under Obama’s program have taken off. When Obama took office the government’s CPI number stood at 0.0 percent.  The number released for June 2011 stood at 3.6 percent.  Additionally, gas prices have doubled under Obama and food prices are soaring.

If one were to calculate unemployment and price inflation like they were prior to 1980, we are clearly in a depression.  Bread lines have simply been replaced by food stamps.

The point is that Obama’s polices have been a dismal failure.  The current issue before Congress is whether to raise the current debt ceiling.  It is interesting to note that Obama and his ilk will only talk about what alleged calamities will befall us if the debt ceiling is not raised.  Seniors, soldiers, and the disabled will be relegated to the streets begging for change to support their families they tell us.  No mention is ever made of what calamities will befall us if the debt ceiling is raised and the reckless spending is allowed to continue.  Right now, 43 cents of every dollar Washington spends is borrowed.  Over the next decade, interest payments on that debt assuming interest rates rise gradually will total $5.5 trillion.  That is revenue that cannot be used to invest in America – roads, schools, jobs…  If the current debt ceiling is raised for further deficit spending a greater percentage of each future dollar will not be available for American investment or as Senator Obama put it so aptly in 2006, “Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.”

The President and Congress have tried to spend our way out of economic crisis.  Predictably, it has failed and even made things worse.  Raising the debt ceiling further will only exacerbate the crisis.  To avoid a “leadership failure” Obama should do whatever it takes to cut trillions in spending.  It is the only way to get “our Government’s reckless fiscal policies” under control and ensure a viable economic future for all Americans.

Article first published as We Can’t Afford to Raise the Debt Ceiling on Blogcritics.