Enjoy. You can find the complete lyrics at the EconStories.tv website but it’s probably best to just skip through to 3:20, bypassing the fluff to the real meat:
Hayek sings:
I’ll begin in broad strokes, just like my friend Keynes
His theory conceals the mechanics of change,
That simple equation, too much aggregation
Ignores human action and motivationAnd yet it continues as a justification
For bailouts and payoffs by pols with machinations
You provide them with cover to sell us a free lunch
Then all that we’re left with is debt, and a bunchIf you’re living high on that cheap credit hog
Don’t look for cure from the hair of the dog
Real savings come first if you want to invest
The market coordinates time with interestYour focus on spending is pushing on thread
In the long run, my friend, it’s your theory that’s dead
So sorry there, buddy, if that sounds like invective
Prepared to get schooled in my Austrian perspectiveWe’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spiritsThe place you should study isn’t the bust
It’s the boom that should make you feel leery, that’s the thrust
Of my theory, the capital structure is key.
Malinvestments wreck the economyThe boom gets started with an expansion of credit
The Fed sets rates low, are you starting to get it?
That new money is confused for real loanable funds
But it’s just inflation that’s driving the onesWho invest in new projects like housing construction
The boom plants the seeds for its future destruction
The savings aren’t real, consumption’s up too
And the grasping for resources reveals there’s too fewSo the boom turns to bust as the interest rates rise
With the costs of production, price signals were lies
The boom was a binge that’s a matter of fact
Now its devalued capital that makes up the slack.Whether it’s the late twenties or two thousand and five
Booming bad investments, seems like they’d thrive
You must save to invest, don’t use the printing press
Or a bust will surely follow, an economy depressedYour so-called “stimulus” will make things even worse
It’s just more of the same, more incentives perversed
And that credit crunch ain’t a liquidity trap
Just a broke banking system, I’m done, that’s a wrap.We’ve been goin’ back n forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No it’s the animal spirits“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
F A Hayek
The Fatal Conceit
Since the United States is currently in super-Keynesian overdrive, take this with a sense of humor. Enjoy the drinking-to-get-sober analogy appearing in this video. But don’t fret. Stay positive! Here’s a ray of hope for the jobless. As promised, it comes from Obama himself. Just go outside, roll up your sleeves, and take up one of the many shovel-ready jobs. This is one everybody can do. It involves shoveling up the mega-tons of bullshit spewing from the mouth of our esteemed celebrity President.
One final thought and not to be so hard on old Keynes but, in his time, government spending was ultimately based on an industrial-based economy. One wonders if there is a material difference when comparing the effects of government spending on an industrial-based economy versus today’s public-relations-based sheconomy. Maybe China can be examined in this regard?
Right at the “sheconomy” crack, you went completely off the rails on the misogyny train!
If the GOP wants to win elections, it must triangulate between Keynesians and Hayekians by advancing Keynesian policies, while talking like a Hayekian. George W. Bush did this brilliantly.
The Keynesian “sheconomy,” allowing women to replace men as husbands and fathers, renders them irrevocably materialistic and completely detrimental to the family.
Keynes’ legacy showed what a worthless hack he was! Hope he’s rotting in Hell!
CCC, Praise be to Allah for inspiring your comment.
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