Is Keynesian Theory Dead Yet?

It didn't work in the 30's, it didn't work during the lost decade in Japan, it didn't work now. I know economics is a soft science, but still...

In latest quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics, the index that measures employment showed job growth for the first time in two years -- but a majority of respondents felt the fiscal stimulus had no impact.

NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act, which the White House's Council of Economic Advisers says is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year.

So Much for Bipartisanship

Well the stimulus bill passed today, without a single Republican voting for it. I am not sure what is scarier, a $350 billion TARP package in the hands of a man who can't figure out how to use Turbotax properly, or $900 billion in the hands of Democrats eager to buy off votes.

Well for a refreshing breath of reality, the National Review has an excellent article on the failed history of Keynesian stimulus. I actually have a copy of the awkwardly named The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, sitting on my shelf, that I have been meaning to read. I will have to move it up in priority, so I know what woes are in store.

Using quaint Keynesian arguments to rationalize heavy spending is nothing new. But its resurgent popularity is somewhat surprising. Democrats and their favorite economists spent the past 25 years bemoaning the “twin deficits” of the 1980s and then claimed that the strong economy of the late 1990s was the result of President Clinton’s fiscal restraint — the precise opposite of “fiscal stimulus.” Also working in the anti-Keynesian mode, former treasury secretary Robert Rubin co-authored a 2004 paper with forecaster Allen Sinai and Peter Orzsag of the Brookings Institution, who now has been tapped by Obama to lead the Office of Management and Budget. They argued that “budget deficits decrease national saving, which reduces domestic investment and increases borrowing abroad.” Big budget deficits, warned Rubin, Orzsag, and Sinai, would “reduce future national income” and risk a “decline in confidence [which] can reduce stock prices.”