Keynes, Friedman e Krugman, o Pinocchio - Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald Boudreaux: Was Milton Friedman a Secret Admirer of Keynes?

Liberals misread the great free-market scholar in order to hijack his legacy.

By DONALD J. BOUDREAUX

The Wall Street Journal, Opinion, August 3, 2012

With the possible exception of Adam Smith, no person in history is more widely recognized as ably championing free markets than Milton Friedman. Justly so: For more than 60 years until his death in 2006, he pressed the case for capitalism and freedom with impeccable scholarship, good cheer, impressive vigor and unmatched clarity.

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George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux on why those who say Milton Friedman's attitude toward government is similar to Keynes's are wrong. Photo: Getty Images

Despite his clarity, there are a handful of people whose inability or unwillingness to grasp Friedman's arguments leads them to misrepresent his writings and policy recommendations.

Consider British journalist Nicholas Wapshott. He used the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Friedman's birth (July 31) to claim, in the Daily Beast, that Friedman's attitude toward government was much closer to that of pro-interventionist John Maynard Keynes than to that of Keynes's famous free-market opponent, Friedrich A. Hayek.

Mr. Wapshott says that Friedman really was quite sanguine about a large and constitutionally unrestrained state, based on the alleged contents of a supposedly "lost" essay by Friedman. Contrary to the naive Hayek—who worried that power concentrated in big government inevitably corrupts politicians and invites its own misuse—Mr. Wapshott says, the essay (which was originally published in 1989) shows Friedman believed "that big government is not evil so long as it is honestly administered." He adds that the essay "calls into question whether those today who rail against the size of the state are blaming the system when they should be rooting out corrupt politicians and public officials instead."

So Milton Friedman was really a good-government progressive? No.

Friedman's essay, "John Maynard Keynes," was never lost. The original article, first published in German translation in a volume of commentaries on Keynes's "General Theory," was translated and republished in 1997 by the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank in its quarterly magazine, and it is readily available on the bank's website.

The essay shows beyond a shadow of doubt what Friedman really thought about Keynes's views on government: "I conclude that Keynes's political bequest has done far more harm than his economic bequest and this for two reasons. First, whatever the economic analysis, benevolent dictatorship is likely sooner or later to lead to a totalitarian society. Second, Keynes's economic theories appealed to a group far broader than economists primarily because of their link to his political approach."

Friedman here articulates concerns long expressed by Hayek in the latter's 1944 book, "The Road to Serfdom," that big government of the sort that Keynes demanded is poisonous to freedom and prosperity. He saw clearly that Keynes's "political bequest" was so dangerous that no amount of rooting out of corrupt officials would prevent a government armed with unlimited discretionary economic power from becoming tyrannical.

There's an even more egregious misrepresentation of Friedman, this one by Paul Krugman, the economist and New York Times columnist. A few months after Friedman's death in November 2006, Mr. Krugman penned an essay in the New York Review of Books, "Who Was Milton Friedman," accusing him of being "intellectually dishonest." He doubled down on this charge in a letter to the editor of the New York Review responding to critics of the essay.

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Economist Milton Friedman

The dishonesty, in Mr. Krugman's telling, consists in an alleged contradiction. On one hand, Friedman the scholar claimed in his famous "Monetary History of the United States" that the Great Depression was worsened by the Fed's failure to keep the money supply from falling. But, on the other hand, Friedman the public figure claimed that the Depression likely would have been far less severe in the absence of the Fed. "I'm sorry," Mr. Krugman wrote in the letter, "but those are contradictory positions."

Mr. Krugman's charge is silly. Friedman understood that, without the Federal Reserve, private bank-clearinghouse associations—market institutions that were displaced by the Fed—would likely have prevented the money supply from collapsing and, hence, might well have kept the depression from becoming "great." But Friedman also understood that the Fed, having substituted its own technocratic discretion for the market adjustments of clearinghouses, then had a responsibility to manage the money supply properly. It failed to do so. Friedman (and his co-author Anna Schwartz) properly criticized the Fed for this terrible failure.

Friedman's argument here is no more contradictory or dishonest than would be the argument of, say, a physician who, having unsuccessfully warned a patient not to rely for medical care upon a witch doctor, points to the witch doctor's failure to administer appropriate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as the cause of the patient's death.

Milton Friedman combined soaring academic credentials with a remarkable virtuosity at explaining to the public why free markets are economically and ethically superior to even well-intentioned government plans and regulations. He was throughout his long life and career a special target of those who would preserve what he and his wife, Rose, called "the tyranny of the status quo." This status quo consists of interest groups, bureaucrats and politicians who—with help from cheerleaders in the media and the academy—use government to enlarge their own pocketbooks and to stroke their own egos, all at the expense of the general public.

If Friedman was secretly upbeat about powerful government or, worse, misleading the public, then the voice of one of history's greatest advocates of free markets would be silenced. In fact, Milton Friedman's advocacy of free markets was as principled, consistent and honest as it was brilliant.

Mr. Boudreaux is professor of economics at George Mason University and author of "Hypocrites and Half-Wits" (Free To Choose Press, 2012).

A version of this article appeared August 4, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Was Milton Friedman a Secret Admirer of Keynes?.

Krugman: da economia para a fantasia delirante - Guy Sorman

Desde quando Paul Krugman começou a escrever para o New York Times, ele começou a delirar.
Sei disso, pois havia lido e apreciado alguns livros dele nos anos 1990, sobre comércio internacional, e até escrevi a resenha de um deles, com muito prazer, aliás.
Estava nos EUA, em 1999 ou 2000, quando ele se tornou colunista do NYT, e era o início do governo W. Bush, um idiota consumado, que converteu os superávits fiscais deixados por Clinton em déficits enormes, em menos de 2 anos.
Mas Krugman não criticava isso, e sim o corte de impostos.
Desde então, considerei que ele deixou de ser economista para ser converter em político. Pior: em panfletário.
Teve um de seus livros anteriores traduzido no Brasil como "A Consciência de um Liberal", assim, literalmente, quando o sentido, nos EUA, é completamente diferente do sentido que se dá no Brasil. Neste caso, são os editores brasileiros, e o tradutor, que são idiotas.
Mas ele não merece que seja chamado de economista, pelo menos enquanto continuar a delirar como faz ultimamente.
Abaixo a crítica de Sorman a seu mais recente livro, um apanhado de ideias delirantes, como não poderia deixar de ser...
Bastaria uma pequena pergunta para derrubar todo o seu edifício: se é para os governos gastarem mais, de onde é que eles vão tirar o dinheiro para gastar?
Durma-se com uma estupidez dessas...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

GUY SORMAN

Paul Krugman’s Follies

The Nobel-winning economist embraces fantasy.

The City Journal, 24 June 2012

End This Depression Now!, by Paul Krugman (Norton, 272 pp., $24.95)

Paul Krugman’s new book should come with a disclaimer: there is no relation whatsoever between the ideological assertions of the New York Timescolumnist and bestselling author and the other Paul Krugman, who received a well-deserved Nobel Prize in 2002 for his scholarly research on international trade. Winning a Nobel Prize in economics doesn’t grant legitimacy to everything an economist writes, and Krugman’s book, like most of his newspaper columns, shows little connection with his past academic work.

To be fair, Krugman acknowledges that he has become a “pundit,” an implicit admission that his book is informed by his liberal views as much as by his economic knowledge. End This Depression Now! is essentially a pamphlet pretending to offer scientific answers to the U.S. economic slump. Its argument is easy to summarize: we have the knowledge and tools to revive the economy and provide jobs to millions of unemployed Americans. Consequently, those in positions of power who refuse to put Krugman’s advice into practice, themselves motivated by ideology, are the enemies of the unemployed. They want Americans to suffer for their past sins of excessive borrowing and spending. As if to emphasize that he sees the economic debate as a morality play, Krugman dedicates his book to the unemployed.

“Ending the depression should be incredibly easy,” Krugman asserts. The government must simply spend more, because the American consumer is spending less. Borrowing from Keynes, Krugman argues that the crisis, having been provoked by a decline in private demand, can only be solved by an increase in public demand. This is “a moral imperative” (the book constantly zigzags between ethics and economics). Public spending would be not only efficient, Krugman contends, but ethical.

This inflationary solution, which Krugman calls “a feel-good experience,” has been tried before. It worked, he claims, during World War II, when arms-building programs lifted the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. Half-jokingly, Krugman says that the threat of an alien invasion should suffice to motivate more government spending. But he knows well—or should—that President Obama has already tried to rekindle growth this way. He admits that the results were not impressive, but only because public spending didn’t go far enough and wasn’t sustained.

The argument is dubious. All economies are built on confidence. An increase of the public debt now, as Krugman urges, would create a crisis of confidence, not a quicker recovery. Robert Lucas, the originator of rational-expectation theory, has shown how and why consumers and entrepreneurs reject Keynesian policies: in essence, the marketplace is wiser than the government. Entrepreneurs and consumers alike understand that an increase in public demand is artificial and short-term. Consequently, public demand leads not to increased consumption or investments but to price hikes. This unintended consequence of Keynesian demand has been repeatedly demonstrated in theory and practice. Milton Friedman and the late Anna Schwartz, in their Monetary History of the United States, showed that excessive money printing, which Krugman strongly recommends, always leads to inflation, not growth.

Krugman does not even mention these fellow economists, Nobel Prize winners all. He acts as if they did not exist, hardly a scientific attitude. Nor is it scientific to ignore that the only time Keynesian theory was truly applied—after the recession caused by the 1974 “oil shock,” when petroleum-producing countries formed the OPEC cartel and sent fuel prices soaring—it produced “stagflation,” a mix of inflation and economic stagnation. Krugman ignores this feel-bad experience, as well as the supply-side policies, based on monetary stability, that sparked the 1980s recovery. He hardly mentions the success of so-called austerity policies (which basically means balancing public accounts) in nations like Germany, which has seen strong economic growth. Krugman’s pithy dismissal: “It will not last.” His attitude calls to mind a quip from Paul Samuelson, a Keynesian himself, who observed that doomsday prophets could predict five crises for every three that actually happen.

Krugman also ignores the political consequences of the inflation he supports. Inflation may not create growth, but it does redistribute incomes. In an inflationary situation, one’s wealth depends less on what one does than on where one stands. Those able to cope with price hikes—a shopkeeper charging more, a banker raising interest rates—may become inflation’s beneficiaries. But wage earners and pensioners usually fall behind when prices rise, becoming poorer by the day. All those who lent their money at a fixed rate, usually by buying treasury bonds, are bankrupted in an inflationary era. This well-known pattern destroys all faith in government and leads to political upheaval. Throughout the twentieth century, inflation has been the death of democracy.

A modest knowledge of economics and of recent history, then, reveals that Krugman’s “feel-good experience” would not reduce America’s long-term unemployment: it would only cause more damage. With any luck, the cynical ideologues he vilifies will ensure that his solutions are not adopted. Common sense, which the author dismisses, rejects so simplistic a solution. An honest review of American history offers ample proof that economic growth does not obey government’s decrees, because the engine of growth has always been innovation and entrepreneurship. Stimulating the economy through the financing of “shovel-ready” projects and the like might sound attractive, but it has no record of success in the American experience. Paul Krugman lives in an unreal world: his book could even qualify him for another Nobel Prize—in literature.

Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor and French public intellectual, is the author of Economics Does Not Lie.

Coitada da Estonia: ultraliberal e crescendo...

Poucos dias atrás, um comentarista anônimo que pretendia me dar uma bela lição de economia, saiu-se, entre outras, com esta: 
"É so ver a situação da Estonia hoje, ultraliberal : quase perdeu 20% do PIB na crise."
Confesso que não tive o que responder, pois o gajo estava manifestamente mal informado. É certo que a Estonia, que antes da crise chegou a ter um déficit de mais de 20% do PIB em transações correntes, estava justamente vivendo o seu momento keynesiano, gastando a rodo e esperando o maná do euro cair do céu. Teve uma queda brutal, e aproveitou para se corrigir, seguindo justamente o que eu chamaria de anticartilha Paul Krugman, um demagogo que virou político depois que começou a escrever para jornais, e esqueceu suas lições de economia.
No Brasil, ele é endeusado, a ponto de uma tradutora idiota, e uma editora idem, terem traduzido o título de seu livro, "The Conscience of a Liberal", como "A Consciência de um Liberal", quando o sentido americano é totalmente oposto. Liberal, nos EUA, significa social-democrata, quase socialista, ou seja, um keynesiano distributivista, o que ele é, realmente.
O título deveria ser indicando ser ele um "social-democrata", ou algo do gênero, jamais um "liberal" no nosso sentido, que nos EUA são chamados de "conservative".
Mas, enfim, surpreendido pelo comentario krugmaniano sobre a Estonia, só pude responder isto: 
My God, o simplismo se juntou à ignorância dos fatos para estabelecer uma das correlações mais estúpidas que já escutei.
Agora, tendo recebido duas contribuições sobre o assunto, tenho o prazer de postá-las aqui, para informação dos leitores, e deleite do meu comentarista anônimo metido a professor de economia.
Primeiro o Bruno Castanho, que escreve direto de Tallin: 

Bruno Castanho e Silva deixou um novo comentário sobre a sua postagem "Uma licao de economia: primeiro, vincular fatos a ...": 

Agora que Paul Krugman resolveu escrever algumas bobagens sobre a Estônia, apontando sua abertura econômica como causadora da crise, seus leitores fiéis - que não têm idéia nem de onde seja o país - saem repetindo o mantra.

Com a visão "privilegiada" de quem mora aqui e lê o noticiário local, posso dizer que nada está mais longe da verdade. A liberalização econômica implementada desde os primeiros anos da independência transformou uma província da União Soviética num país moderníssimo, com um sistema educacional básico invejável (não há pessoa que fale menos do que 3 línguas - em geral estoniano, inglês e russo), aumento brutal na qualidade de vida e no padrão de consumo e um desenvolvimento tecnológico que a coloca à frente de muitos dos países europeus desenvolvidos na área da informática - o que se pode observar pelo número de empresas internacionais com sede aqui, pelo grande número de profissionais estrangeiros deste setor que estão no país, e até fatos mais simples, como a disponibilidade de conexão wi-fi gratuita em qualquer rua de qualquer cidade do país.

A perda do PIB já está sendo compensada - com a sua tradicional austeridade (superávit orçamentário e dívida pública em 6% do PIB) a Estônia cresceu 7,6% em 2011, mais do que qualquer outro país da UE.

Enfim, era de se esperar que keynesianos fossem tentar esconder este claro exemplo de sucesso de uma economia liberal, mas Krugman parece já ter chegado a um nível alto demais de alienação da realidade.

Abraços  


Agora o Felipe Xavier que me envia um artigo, que posto logo mais abaixo.
Comento no final.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Anônimo deixou um novo comentário sobre a sua postagem "Uma licao de economia: primeiro, vincular fatos a ...": 

Pois e, professor, os seguidores do Krugman talvez devessem dar uma lida 

nesse: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120604/estonia-economy-technology-skype-euro-zone-debt-crisis

Abraco,

Felipe Xavier

Yes, they use the euro. And the economy is booming.

A fiscal surplus, low debt and soaring growth. No, this isn’t Germany, but it is a result of German medicine for crisis-burdened countries.

Paul Ames

Globalpost, June 5, 2012 06:15

TALLINN, Estonia — It’s the euro zone Jim, but not as we know it.

Sixteen months after it joined the struggling currency bloc, Estonia is booming. The economy grew 7.6 percent last year, five times the euro-zone average.

Estonia is the only euro-zone country with a budget surplus. National debt is just 6 percent of GDP, compared to 81 percent in virtuous Germany, or 165 percent in Greece.

Shoppers throng Nordic design shops and cool new restaurants in Tallinn, the medieval capital, and cutting-edge tech firms complain they can’t find people to fill their job vacancies.

It all seems a long way from the gloom elsewhere in Europe.

Estonia’s achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider that it was one of the countries hardest hit by the global financial crisis. In 2008-2009, its economy shrank by 18 percent. That’s a bigger contraction than Greece has suffered over the past five years.

More from GlobalPost: Economic growth pulls Rwandans out of poverty

How did they bounce back? “I can answer in one word: austerity. Austerity, austerity, austerity,” says Peeter Koppel, investment strategist at the SEB Bank.

After three years of painful government belt-tightening, that’s not exactly the message that Europeans further south want to hear.

At a recent conference of European and North American lawmakers in Tallinn, Koppel was lambasted by French and Italian parliamentarians when he suggested Europeans had to prepare for an “inevitable” decline in living standards, wages and job security, in order for their countries to escape from the debt crisis.

While spending cuts have triggered strikes, social unrest and the toppling of governments in countries from Ireland to Greece, Estonians have endured some of the harshest austerity measures with barely a murmur. They even re-elected the politicians that imposed them.

“It was very difficult, but we managed it,” explains Economy Minister Juhan Parts.

“Everybody had to give a little bit. Salaries paid out of the budget were all cut, but we cut ministers’ salaries by 20 percent and the average civil servants’ by 10 percent,” Parts told GlobalPost.

“In normal times cutting the salaries of civil servants, of policemen etc. is extremely unpopular, but I think the people showed a good understanding that if you do not have revenues, you have to cut costs,” adds Parts, who served as prime minister from 2003-2004.

As well as slashing public sector wages, the government responded to the 2008 crisis by raising the pension age, making it harder to claim health benefits and reducing job protection — all measures that have been met with anger when proposed in Western Europe.

More from GlobalPost: Europe gets a report card

History helps explain citizens’ willingness to bite the austerity bullet. Estonia broke free from Soviet rule just over 20 years ago, together with its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania — who are also enjoying a robust recovery, but are outside the euro zone.

For older Estonians, memories of the grim days of Soviet occupation make it easier to accept sacrifices today. Among the young, there is a widespread awareness that in a nation of just 1.3 million people, the freedom and opportunities their generation enjoy depends on unity in times of crisis.

“Western Europe has not really experienced a decrease in living standards since the Second World War,” says Koppel. “Historically, austerity is inevitable, but it’s not part of the culture of Western Europe right now. This is what really differentiates us, that we were able to understand that.”

It still has its share of economic problems. The average monthly take-home pay of 697 euros ($870) is among the lowest in the euro zone and unemployment at 11.7 percent is still above the bloc’s average. The shockwaves of euro-zone collapse radiating from southern Europe could yet snuff out the recovery.

The jobless rate is falling however, thanks in part to a thriving tech sector.

Post-independence governments invested heavily in scientific education and information technologies, successfully attracting investment with the e-stonia label.

Estonia has also paid close attention to the fundamentals of establishing a favorable business environment: reducing and simplifying taxes, and making it easy and cheap to build companies. Its location — with quick access to Nordic, German and Russian markets — has also helped, along with the very low debt level Estonia inherited when it broke from the Soviet Union. Joining the euro zone on Jan. 1, 2011, Estonia stable economy shone, despite the crisis in the currency bloc.

Innovative young companies have been at the forefront of the Estonian revival thanks to successful startups like the web-designer Edicy, online money transfer service Transferwise and point-of-sale software developer Erply.

The daddy of them all is Skype, which was developed by a quartet of Estonian software geeks with their Swedish and Danish buddies back in 2003, and was bought up by Microsoft last year for $8.5 billion.

The internet phone company runs its biggest operations out of a technology park in a Tallinn suburb, where over 400 people from 30 countries work in a relaxed, light-filled office block complete with sauna, childcare and series of trendily designed cafes and chill-out lounges for the engineers to recharge their creative energies.

More from GlobalPost: Euro crisis: Leaders debate the F-word

“In Estonia we have this national trait of just getting things done,” says Tiit Paanenen, the site leader at Skype Estonia.

“I’ve tried to work out why this is and I think it’s because we are small. The circles working on the same subject all know each other, so you create this sense of accountability with each other. If you screw up everybody knows about it.”

Estonia itself was like an innovative startup, when it suddenly became independent in 1991, Paanenen explains. Old hierarchies were overturned and youngsters thrust into key political and business positions as the country built an economy from scratch.

“One of the results is that we are very competitive, because of the efficiency, because of the use of technology in the areas where otherwise you’d have a lot of overheads and waste,” the shaggy haired executive said in an interview.

“Estonia is bigger than its size already … we are making an impact in the world and it will continue.”

Editor's note: This article has generated extensive discussion: NY Times correspondent Paul Krugman weighed in with this post; the president of Estonia responded (agressively) on Twitter, and GlobalPost questioned Krugman's post here. Please let us know what you think.

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Meus comentários finais.

Pois é, imaginem se um país que praticou gastança keynesiana durante anos a fio, como a maior parte dos membros da UE, pode se recuperar fazendo mais gastança keynesiana.

De vez em quando eu penso se os malucos que propõem esse tipo de "remédio" não são de fato malucos.

Mas, mesmo que o Brasil quisesse seguir uma receita alemã de austeridade -- seguida pela Estonia, em parte pela Grécia, parcialmente pela Espanha, um pouco na Irlanda e quase nada na Itália, até agora -- ele simplesmente não poderia.

A Constituição, esse monumento à estupidez econômica, diz que é proibido reduzir salários. Atenção: não estou nem falando dos salários do setor público, que portugueses, espanhois, gregos, estonianos e irlandeses fizeram, cada um a seu modo, estou falando até de salários do setor privado.

A nossa CF é tão estúpida que ela proíbe até esse tipo de coisa, ou seja, o Estado determinando como deve se comportar o setor privado. Conclusão: o cara acaba sendo demitido (aliás numa tolerância mútua e mentira deslavada entre patrão e empregado), recebe o salário desemprego e depois acaba sendo recontratado por um salário menor.

Ou seja, se fraudam as contas do Ministério do Trabalho -- que na verdade é o dinheiro de todo mundo --, se premia a esperteza safada, calhorda e criminosa, e se ajustam as coisas segundo as leis do mercado, que é assim que acontece, em última instância.

Mas o Brasil é certamente o único país do mundo em que os pagamentos por salário desemprego aumentam enquanto o desemprego está diminuindo.

Como é que vocês vão querer reformar um país assim?

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Economistas esquecem, inclusive Paul Krugman

Aos que apreciam Paul Krugman, o artigo abaixo serve para retificar algumas de suas ligeirezas. Depois que ele deixou de ser economista, para ser colunista do NYTimes, ele perdeu sua habitual presteza com os dados, e talvez até a honestidade intelectual.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Krugman and British Austerity by Sean Rosenthal on March 7, 2012 In a recent New York Times op-ed piece called "The Austerity Debacle," columnist Paul Krugman notes how policies in Britain have failed to bring about an economic recovery. In doing so, he contends that the British government's decision to "slash spending" has led to a slower economic recovery as measured by real GDP growth than during the Great Depression. However, as will be shown, the present British government has implemented insignificant spending reductions and continues to run large budget deficits while the British government of the Great Depression followed "austerity" measures much more closely than the present government. Therefore, so far as unrelated historical events provide any evidence, the historical evidence in Britain supports the view that spending cuts bring about larger economic recoveries than deficit spending does. For Krugman, austerity measures represent the source of serious economic problems in Britain. As a consequence, Krugman remarks, It turns out that by one important measure — changes in real GDP since the recession began — Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression. Four years into the Depression, British GDP had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground.… Yes, there are some caveats and complications. But this nonetheless represents a stunning failure of policy. And it's a failure, in particular, of the austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion both in Europe and, to a large extent, in the United States for the past two years. Based on a combination of economic problems in Britain and an assertion that austerity caused or exacerbated these problems, Krugman believes he has empirical support for his view that, during recessions, deficit spending promotes economic growth and cutting spending exacerbates economic downturns. Interestingly, Krugman neglects to provide any data on British government actions. In particular, although he asserts that British policies have simply been to "slash spending," he neglects that Britain ignored the advice of free-market supporters by increasing tax rates significantly, such as raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 50 percent, the capital-gains-tax rate to 28 percent, and the value-added-tax rate to 20 percent. More damaging to his view, as can be seen on tables 25 and 27 of this Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) document, British spending has experienced no significant cuts and still represents a sharp increase compared to prerecession levels. Although British spending as a percent of GDP fell mildly from 51.1 percent in 2009 to 49.8 percent in 2011, this level still signifies a massive increase in spending from 2007 levels of 43.9 percent of GDP. Similarly, although the British deficit as a percent of GDP fell from 11 percent in 2009 to 9.4 percent in 2011, this deficit still amounts to a huge surge compared to the 2007 level of only 2.8 percent and, with the exception of this recession, exceeds all other deficits in Britain since World War II. Though certainly Keynesians can look at these minor cuts in the scope of government spending as compatible with their theories of how reducing deficits affects the economy, they should emphasize for the sake of honesty that they believe a government that represents half of all the spending in an economy with an essentially record post–World War II deficit of more than 9 percent of GDP is being "austere" so that people who haven't looked at the data can make their own judgments on the merits of the claim. Although critics of spending cuts can legitimately interpret British data to fit their theories, they cannot gain further evidence through the historical comparison made by Krugman to the Great Depression. As stated above, Krugman believes that British austerity measures have caused the recovery in Britain to be slower than during the Great Depression. In making this claim, he fails to consider the actual fiscal policy of Britain during the Great Depression. After leaving the gold standard in 1931, the British government balanced its budget and reduced spending as a percent of GNP every year until 1935, reducing government spending from a high of 28.8 percent in 1931 to 24.4 percent in 1935.[1] Although not ideal — because part of the reduction included tax increases — this policy succeeded in creating small budget surpluses every year from 1929 through 1936 (except for an irrelevant 0.2 percent deficit in 1932) — leading as Krugman mentioned to a faster recovery than the current British policy of a 9 percent-plus deficit as a percent of GDP.[2] Comparing the real cuts in 1931 to the 2010 "cuts," which entailed an increase in spending in real terms, it's clear that a historical comparison would better support proponents of spending cuts than Keynesian deficit spending.[3] It is truly a strange state of affairs when economists find it reasonable to use the word "austerity" to describe both Britain's balanced budgets and spending reductions in the 1930s and its extremely large deficits without any real spending cuts in 2010. It's also unfortunate that, in making this comparison, they neglect to mention that the balanced-budget economy experienced a stronger recovery. In reflecting on British stagnation, Krugman laments that economic policy has failed to learn the lesson of the Great Depression. In particular, he states, Surpassing the track record of the 1930s shouldn't be a tough challenge. Haven't we learned a lot about economic management over the last 80 years?… I'm sorry to say, many economists decided, largely for political reasons, to forget what they used to know. And millions of workers are paying the price for their willful amnesia. Indeed, it is truly sad that many economists have advocated bad policies, and Britain and other governments have continued to raise taxes and run large budget deficits despite experience that cutting spending in Britain worked better. It's also truly sad that some economists in describing this history have experienced "willful amnesia." For instance, Krugman says that he has read Lionel Robbins's The Great Depression (1934), but he apparently forgot (or ignored) Robbins's contention that Britain balanced its budget in 1931 — that is, before the economic recovery.[4] In ignoring the lessons from 80 years ago, the New York Times columnist advocates for less effective policies than those performed at the time, resulting in a slower recovery in the present. Although historical comparisons offer inconclusive evidence at best, Krugman chose to make this specific comparison to bolster his point when, in fact, the historical comparison between Britain during the Great Depression and contemporary Britain conflicts with Krugman's interpretation. Rather than advancing the Keynesian hypothesis, the comparison of British policies over time better supports the view that true spending cuts lead to more robust economic recoveries than the allegedly "austere" policies of Britain today. Sean Rosenthal is a graduate of Georgetown University. As an avid reader of liberty, he considers his main intellectual inspirations to be Frederic Bastiat, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Rose Wilder Lane, Ludwig von Mises, Robert Nozick, and Murray Rothbard. He will be attending law school in the fall. Send him mail. See Sean Rosenthal's article archives.

Um premio Nobel tambem pode ser desonesto intelectualmente

Eu comecei a ler Paul Krugman pelos seus livros de economia, e o achava um economista razoável, mesmo inventivo.
Logo em seguida ele começou a escrever para o New York Times, em algum momento do final dos anos 1990. Achei seus artigos mais políticos do que econômicos, mas ainda assim continuei a ler.
Desde o começo da era Bush -- que, reconheçamos, não é exatamente uma sumidade em economia -- passei a constatar que os artigos de Krugman no NYT eram inacreditavelmente politizados para um economista digno desse nome.
Ele nunca retrocedeu, mesmo depois de ter ganho o prêmio Nobel.
Seus artigos mais recentes são inacreditavelmente desonestos, no plano intelectual.
Não sou o único a achar isso, como prova este blogueiro e um ex-economista chefe do FMI.

Krugman criticism from Rajan
Super-Economy
Kurdish-Swedish perspectives on the American Economy
September 20, 2010

Paul Krugman is very smart, tremendously well-informed and a skilled writer. But he lacks wisdom, judgment and character. Thus he has become not only partisan, but also exceptionally dishonest as a debater.

There is a professional ethic among economists to be intellectually honest in debates. Krugman keeps violating this rule, with articles heavy on ad-hominem personal attacks, straw-man misrepresentations of the claims of his opponent, a refusal to ever admit that he is wrong, and ignoring fact and logic whenever it suits him just to appear stronger in the debate.

Everything is about maximizing the short run argument in favor of the policies that Krugman favors, rather than finding out the truth, which is what economists are supposedly supposed to do.

For example Krugman pretends that European policies do not harm economic performance by looking at growth rates, despite the fact that he knows perfectly well that established economic theory predicts that the costs of policies that dampen economic activity appear as different levels of output, not growth paths.

Krugman's audience are unsophisticated non-trained economists, which makes all his violations of the academic rule of conduct worse.

When the policies pushed by Krugman did worse than he promised, he does not update his views. He just becomes even louder, claiming that the lack of success of Krugmaonomics just proves we need more of the exact same Krugman-style economics.

Imagine Krugman's reaction if the Bush administration people argued that the failure of their foreign policy and economic policy just proves we need more of the exact same recipe.

One of Krugman's dubious and partisan claims is that government policies to increase home ownership among poor americans and minorities had nothing to do with the sub prime-mortgage bubble. Here star Raghuram Rajan, a University of Chicago professor takes Krugman to task. Read it carefully.

If I understand the history involved correctly, the government sponsored enterprises that we have all come to know and love in the last few years invented sub-prime mortgage backed securities (MBS), which gives them a part of the blame of the crisis even if they had done nothing after this (which they did).

So, go read it all. It´s good for you.

==============

Transcrevo apenas o início e o final do artigo de Rajan.
Leiam a integralidade neste link.

Reviewing Krugman
Fault Lines Official Blog, September 16

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells caricature my recent book Fault Lines[i] in an article in the New York Review of Books.[ii] The article, and their criticism, however, do have a lot to say about Krugman’s policy views (for simplicity, I will say “Krugman” and “he” instead of “Krugman and Wells” and “they”) which I have disagreed with in the past. Rather than focus on the innuendo about my motives and beliefs in the review, let me focus on differences of substance. I will return to why I believe Krugman writes the way he does only at the end.

First, Krugman starts with a diatribe on why so many economists are “asking how we got into this mess rather than telling us how to get out of it.” Krugman apparently believes that his standard response of more stimulus applies regardless of the reasons why we are in the economic downturn. Yet it is precisely because I think the policy response to the last crisis contributed to getting us into this one that it is worthwhile examining how we got into this mess, and to resist the unreflective policies that Krugman advocates.
(...)
There is also a matter of detail suggesting why we cannot only blame the foreigners. The housing bubble, as Monika Piazzesi and Martin Schneider of Stanford University have argued, was focused in the lower income segments of the market, unlike in the typical U.S. housing boom. Why did foreign money gravitate to the low income segment of the housing market? Why did past episodes when the U.S. ran large current account deficits not result in similar housing booms and busts? Could the explanation lie in U.S. policies?

My book suggests that many – bankers, regulators, governments, households, and economists among others – share the blame for the crisis. Because there are so many, the blame game is not useful. Let us try and understand what happened in order to avoid repeating it. I detail the hard choices we face in the book. While it is important to alleviate the miserable conditions of the long-term unemployed today, we also need to offer them incentives and a pathway to building the skills that are required by the jobs that are being created. Simplistic mantras like “more stimulus” are the surest way to detract us from policies that generate sustainable growth.

Finally, a note on method. Perhaps Krugman believes that by labeling other economists as politically extreme, he can undercut their credibility. In criticizing my argument that politicians pushed easy housing credit in the years leading up to the crisis, he writes, “Although Rajan is careful not to name names and attributes the blame to generic “politicians,” it is clear that Democrats are largely to blame in his worldview.” Yet if he read the book carefully, he would have seen that I do name names, arguing both President Clinton with his “Affordable Housing Mandate” (see Fault Lines, page 35) as well as President Bush with his attempt to foster an “Ownership Society” (see Fault Lines, page 37) pushed very hard to expand housing credit to the less-well-off. Indeed, I do not fault the intent of that policy, only the unintended consequences of its execution. My criticism is bipartisan throughout the book, including on the fiscal policies followed by successive administrations. Errors of this kind by an economist of Krugman’s stature are disappointing.

Niall Ferguson vs Paul Krugman (not this kind of battle)

Não é exatamente Mr. Keynes against Professor Hayek, mas é o que se pode ter atualmente:

Niall Ferguson: Sorry Krugman, We're Not In Keynes' World Anymore
Joe Weisenthal | Jul. 12, 2010, 11:07 AM | 1,436 | comment 13

One of the biggest intellectual rivalries today is between Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and Princeton economist Paul Krugman on the subject of austerity vs. stimulus.

In this interview, Ferguson's message to Krugman is simple: We're not in Keynes' world. The US is already starting off from a position of massive debt, and thus the value of levering up and spending is minimal, while the risks of a crisis in the years ahead is significant.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-sorry-krugman-were-not-in-keynes-world-anymore-2010-7#ixzz0tUela4cx

See:
http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-sorry-krugman-were-not-in-keynes-world-anymore-2010-7

Combatendo a Krugmanmania: um austriaco

Vacas sagradas, eu já escrevi isso algum tempo atrás, são pessoas que por alguma notoriedade cuja origem não cabe agora discutir, adquirem o direito de dizer qualquer bobagem e isso é recebido com suspiros de admiração pelos beatos e ingênuos habituais, a começar pelos jornalistas e pelos professores universitários (nessa ordem, pois os segundo costumam repetir as bobagens dos primeiros).
Paul Krugman há muito tempo tem esse status, e vem exagerando no direito de acumular bobagens. Reparei nisso desde o primeiro governo Bush, quando ele começou a colaborar como colunista regular no New York Times: ainda que Bush merecesse ser criticado por um monte de coisas, inclusive por suas políticas econômicas irresponsáveis (sobretudo no plano fiscal, onde ele conduziu um dos mais exemplares keynesianismos militares desde a era Reagan), Krugman escrevia de forma totalmente política, não como economista, o que ele era supostamente.
Minha ojeriza a ele foi crescendo, até que desisti de ler seus artigos, que eram cansativos, rebarbativos e puramente bullshit.
Pois bem, no Brasil ele continua a ser admirado, beatamente, como convém às mentes simples que frequentam nossos jornais e academias.
Agora descobri um site que critica, economicamente, as bobagens de Krugman.

Leiam e pensem (o que todo mundo deveria fazer):

Krugman-in-Wonderland
William L. Anderson
Analysis and criticism of America's most prominent public intellectual and champion of Keynesian economics. I am part of the Austrian School of Economics, and I critique Krugman's writings from that perspective.

William L. Anderson
I teach economics at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland. We are located on the Allegheny Plateau, and we have cool summers and tough winters. I am the father of four children, three of them adopted from overseas, and the husband of a beautiful wife. I have two grandchildren. My family and I are members of Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA).
Complete profile

Um exemplo de post:

Monday, June 28, 2010
Krugman and the Keynesian "Stones into Bread" Fallacy
The more I read Paul Krugman's columns and papers, the more I realize just how great the gulf is between Austrian and Keynesian thought. It is impossible to sum up all of the differences between the two camps, but I do think that perhaps the disparities can be summed up in the Austrian rejection of Keynes' famous 1943 statement that expansion of credit by the central bank will create a “miracle . . . of turning a stone into bread.”

In his column today, Krugman in a roundabout fashion repeats this notion, as he excoriates the governments of the world for not borrowing, printing, and spending at a rate that he believes will keep the world economy from slipping into depression. At the heart of Krugman's exhortation is his belief that credit expansion is the same thing as creating wealth. I don't think so.

Krugman has almost a religious belief that borrowing and printing money and policies of spending for the sake of spending will pull the country out of a recession. He writes of the current mess:

...this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging economy, today’s governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies helped the world avoid complete collapse: the recession brought on by the financial crisis arguably ended last summer.

Krugman ignores the recoveries after the 1921 recession and the 1982 recession, both of which occurred in the absence of inflation and and the presence of higher interest rates. Furthermore, while the U.S. Government in both instances ran deficits, they were deficits brought on by the fall in tax revenues due to the recession, not as matters of "deficit-based stimulus" policies.

But, there is a larger issue here, and it is this: Current spending by government does not create wealth, and it is the creation of wealth that will bring us out of the depression. Borrowing from future generations (or repudiating the debt through inflation) is nothing more than making a claim on future wealth. Furthermore, Krugman's recommendations do nothing to address the current set of malinvestments which plague the economy, not to mention the huge added burden of government-imposed costs which make production of wealth more difficult.

Lest we think that Krugman is saying something new, the great Ludwig von Mises more than 60 years ago exposed this faulty thinking. He wrote:

The stock-in-trade of all Socialist authors is the idea that there is potential plenty and that the substitution of socialism for capitalism would make it possible to give to everybody “according to his needs.” Other authors want to bring about this paradise by a reform of the monetary and credit system. As they see it, all that is lacking is more money and credit. They consider that the rate of interest is a phenomenon artificially created by the man-made scarcity of the “means of payment.”

In hundreds, even thousands, of books and pamphlets they passionately blame the “orthodox” economists for their reluctance to admit that inflationist and expansionist doctrines are sound. All evils, they repeat again and again, are caused by the erroneous teachings of the “dismal science” of economics and the “credit monopoly” of the bankers and usurers. To unchain money from the fetters of “restrictionism,” to create free money (Freigeld, in the terminology of Silvio Gesell) and to grant cheap or even gratuitous credit, is the main plank in their political platform.

Indeed, it was as though Professor Mises was anticipating Krugman's arguments. No doubt, Krugman would think Mises was a fool and a charlatan, but the joke is on Krugman. True, Mises did not have a Nobel Prize; but Mises had wisdom, and that makes all the difference.
Posted by William L. Anderson at 7:19 AM

Desconstruindo alguns mitos: Premios Nobel de economia tambem dizem bobagens

O problema de alguns prêmios Nobel é que, depois que ganham, viram "vacas sagradas" e ai começam a escrever, sob demanda dos jornais, e passam a falar bobagens seguidas. Não todos, claro: gente de laboratório continua fazendo suas experiências, tratando dos seus tubos de ensaio, ou suas máquinas complicadas.
Isso acontece mais frequentemente com economistas e literatos, que, depois de ganharem um Prêmio Nobel, se acham no direito, e até no dever, de escreverem e falarem sobre qualquer coisa, mesmo as mais improváveis, e aquelas coisas que, segundo o Peter principle, se situam no limite ou além de sua capacidade.
Saramago é um exemplo típico: já falava bobagem antes, mas com o Prêmio Nobel passou a falar muito mais bobagens, em quantidades industriais.
Economistas são outra espécie: ganham o prêmio por suas pesquisas e inovações juvenis na ciência econômica, geralmente alguma nova "lei" ou equação complicada que "explica" (assim dizem) alguma relação complexa no mundo real: eles simplificam um pouco a coisa, metem tudo dentro de uma regressão linear, e zut, voilà, extraem uma fórmula mágica que parece explicar a realidade durante certo tempo (não importa se mais adiante ela deixa de funcionar, mas o ato os deixa famosos por alguns anos).
Eles passam então a agir como políticos, personalidades públicas que se permitem opinar sobre tudo, abandonando a pesquisa e até o bom senso econômico.
Paul Krugman é um desses, que levou seu militantismo "liberal" (no sentido americano, isto é, social-democrata, o que lá é considerado esquerdista, até um xingamento) aos limites da irracionalidade econômica (deveria talvez devolver o Prêmio Nobel.
Joseph Stiglitz é outro, que levou o seu combate contra o FMI aos limites das bobagens fiscais keynesianas.
Nos dois posts seguintes, com a ajuda de especialistas, vou tentar desmantelar essas duas vacas sagradas da economia.
Mas, antes vou postar um artigo de Krugman, justamente criticado no post seguinte.
Reparem que tudo o que ele diz não tem o mínimo apoio em demonstrações econômicas. É política pura. Seria reprovado num exame de primeiro semestre de Economics 101.

ANÁLISE
EUA não são a Grécia, mas podem virar um Japão
PAUL KRUGMAN - DO "NEW YORK TIMES"
Folha de S.Paulo, 22.05.2010

Deflação sugere que país pode estar a caminho de uma década perdida em estilo japonês, aprisionado em uma era longa de desemprego elevado e crescimento lento

A despeito do coral que alega o contrário, não somos a Grécia. Mas estamos cada vez mais parecidos com o Japão.
Nos últimos meses, boa parte dos comentários sobre a economia vem repetindo um tema central: as autoridades econômicas estão fazendo demais. Os governos precisam parar de gastar, é o que nos dizem.
A Grécia é usada como exemplo cautelar, e cada pequena alta nos juros que incidem sobre os títulos do Tesouro norte-americano é tratada como indicação de que os mercados estão se voltando contra os EUA devido aos nossos deficit.
Enquanto isso, há alertas contínuos de que a inflação está a caminho e que o Federal Reserve (Fed, o BC dos EUA) precisa recuar em seus esforços de apoiar a economia e dar início à chamada "estratégia de saída", apertando o crédito por meio da venda de ativos e elevação das taxas de juros.
E quanto ao desemprego quase recorde, com um dos piores índices de longa duração desde os anos 30? E quanto ao fato de que os avanços no emprego dos últimos meses, ainda que bem-vindos, até o momento recuperaram menos de 500 mil dos 8 milhões ou mais de empregos perdidos depois da crise financeira? Ah, preocupar-se com os desempregados é tão 2009...
Mas a verdade é que as autoridades econômicas não estão fazendo demais; estão fazendo menos do que deveriam.
Dados recentes não sugerem que os EUA estejam se encaminhando a um colapso da confiança dos investidores, em estilo grego. Em lugar disso, sugerem que podemos estar a caminho de uma década perdida em estilo japonês, aprisionados em uma era longa de desemprego elevado e crescimento lento.

Juros
Falemos primeiro sobre as taxas de juros. Em diversas ocasiões, ao longo dos 12 últimos meses, fomos informados, depois de alguma alta modesta nos juros, de que o mercado estava começando a reagir e que os EUA precisavam reduzir seu deficit imediatamente ou sofreriam as consequências.
Mais recentemente, muito se falou sobre a alta nos juros dos títulos de dez anos do Tesouro norte-americano, de 3,6% para quase 4%. "Medo quanto à dívida causa alta dos juros" foi a manchete do "Wall Street Journal", embora não existisse indício real de que o medo quanto à dívida fosse responsável pela alta.
Desde então, os juros recuaram para abaixo da marca que mantinham antes da alta mais recente. Na quinta-feira, os juros sobre os títulos de dez anos eram de 3,3%.
Eu gostaria de dizer que a queda nos juros reflete otimismo quanto às finanças federais americanas. Mas o que ela reflete é uma alta no pessimismo quanto às perspectivas de recuperação econômica, um pessimismo que fez os investidores fugirem de qualquer coisa que possa ser considerada arriscada -o que explica a queda no mercado de ações- e optassem pela segurança de uma aposta nos títulos de dívida pública norte-americana.

Europa
O que justifica esse novo pessimismo? Em parte ele reflete os problemas da Europa, que se relacionam menos do que temos ouvido às dívidas dos governos. Os líderes europeus impuseram uma moeda única a economias que não estavam preparadas para essa mudança.
Mas também houve sinais de alerta em casa, o mais recente dos quais no relatório da quarta-feira sobre os preços ao consumidor, que mostrava um indicador crucial de inflação em queda para menos de 1%, sua marca mais baixa em 44 anos.
Isso não deveria surpreender, na verdade: a expectativa é que a inflação caia diante de desemprego em massa e capacidade produtiva excedente. Mas é uma má notícia ainda assim.
Inflação baixa, ou pior, deflação, tende a perpetuar as crises econômicas, porque encoraja as pessoas a acumular dinheiro em lugar de gastar, o que mantém a economia deprimida e conduz a mais deflação.
O círculo vicioso que descrevi não é hipotético: pergunte aos japoneses, que entraram em uma armadilha deflacionária nos anos 90 da qual, a despeito de episódios ocasionais de crescimento, ainda não conseguiram sair. A mesma coisa poderia acontecer nos EUA.
Por isso, o que deveríamos estar realmente perguntando agora não é se vamos nos transformar na Grécia. Em lugar disso, deveríamos estar perguntando que medidas estão sendo tomadas para evitar que nos transformemos no Japão. E a resposta é: nenhuma.

Instinto de aperto
Não que é o risco não seja compreendido. Suspeito fortemente de que alguns dos dirigentes do Fed percebam com clareza o paralelo com o Japão e desejem fazer mais em apoio à economia.
Mas, na prática, tudo que podem fazer é conter o instinto de aperto monetário de seus colegas, os quais (como os dirigentes dos bancos centrais na década de 30) continuam a temer desesperadamente a inflação, a despeito da ausência de qualquer indício de alta de preço.
Suspeito, também, que os economistas do governo Obama gostariam muito de ver um novo plano de estímulo. Mas sabem que um plano como esse não teria chance de aprovação em um Congresso que foi levado ao medo pelas palavras da linha dura quanto ao deficit.
Em resumo, o medo de ameaças imaginárias impediu qualquer resposta efetiva ao verdadeiro perigo que nossa economia está correndo.
O pior vai acontecer? Não necessariamente. Talvez as medidas econômicas já adotadas bastem para realizar a tarefa e dar impulso a uma recuperação capaz de se sustentar sem ajuda. Com certeza é isso o que todos nós esperamos. Mas esperança não é plano.

Tradução de PAULO MIGLIACCI