Seriously though, most of the mistakes we are doing today are repetitions of mistakes our ancestors have made. There are a lot of huge similarities between today and the Great Depression, and our leaders don't seem to understand that in their religious zealotry for Milton Friedman. They are repeating the same mistakes that historical figures have made, namely Andrew Mellon (head of the Federal Reserve from 1921-1932), Herbert Hoover (US President, 1929-1933), and Heinrich Bruning (Last Chancellor of the Weimar Republic 1930-1932). Besides being contemporaneous, these three fine gentlemen (at least they would be if Friedman's guesses were correct, you need some evidence to make a theory, so I will call his writings guesses) followed the assumptions of Milton Friedman while they were in power, before they were replaced by Keynesians in the United States and Nazis in Germany. They desired a limited role for their governments and central banks to play in stimulating their economy, firing of public workers and decreasing wages, and cut government spending. If Milton Friedman was correct, the great depression would have never happened or would have finished before 1933 under their policies, because they did exactly what he and similar guessers would have them do. I hope I don't have to mention that did not happen.
Unfortuntately for the libertarian/Republican/CDU/pseudo-economics etc. movement, this didn't happen. The policies of Mellon, Hoover, Bruning and others with the same mentality led to the worst economic crisis in history. GDPs fell, wages fell, unemployment rates rose, everything that Milton Friedman says wouldn't happen given the situation did. Why do we want to emulate these three crooks?
President Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Prime Minister David Cameron, Chairman Ben Bernanke, President Jens Weidmann, President Mario Draghi, Governor Mervyn King, Secretary Jacob Lew, General Director Christine Lagarde, and Speaker John Boehner, if you people value your legacies, please choose the right path, proven economics over unproven speculated pseudo-economics. Every single one of you has been choosing to emulate the three people I mention above, and you are all doing close to what Milton Friedman would tell you to do, either through austerity or not fighting hard enough for proven economics. Fortunately you aren't doing the last major part of the policies of 1929-1932 which was the shutting down of the global market through tariffs, which created economies that approached that of modern North Korea which is the only country to currently pursue self-sufficiency, but you have managed to do every other important policy that set the great depression in motion and kept it going those four horrible years!
I don't consider the monetarist theories valid economics because they have absolutely no proof for their claims and every single time their ideas have been done the countries that try them have been worse off in the end with higher unemployment, lower GDPs, and other major failures of the global economic system. Please switch to scientifically proven Keynesian economics as soon as you can, because the people of the world need to have a system that works, and we don't have the time or patience to disprove Milton Friedman yet again. Nobody wins with your system in the end, not even the banking crackpots who tell you to do this. We need a system that works now!
Our unemployment is at a 30 year low right now in America, don't make it go any lower!
This post was inspired by Gerald Silverberg, an economist who is willing to do the legwork and prove things before he says them. If only Milton Friedman did the same the world would be a much better place.
BEDA post #7
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