The ultimate vindication of Republican supply-side economics

[DSGE]

If the Fed is forced to set and achieve a clear target path for nominal spending, demand-side recessions become non-existent. If for any reason there's a shock to nominal spending - that is, a shock to monetary velocity - the Fed would be forced to offset it by adjusting monetary policy to return nominal spending to target.

Isn't that one of the foundations of the Chartilism Keynesian school of macroeconomics?

If by that you mean MMT, that's one fringe group I'm not particularly familiar with. It's one of the foundations of Market Monetarism though.

 

[stans]

Thanks for your interest. Reduce Unemployment with Little Price Increase

Old Keynesian, huh. The problem with Old Keynesianism is that it's... well, old. Being an Old Keynesian is about as silly as being Austrian school, in that those old theories don't contain the 75 years of economic knowledge accumulated since then. On the other hand, congratulations on recognising that business cycles can be nominal. That's a vitally important step.

So the big Keynesian insight is that Say's law doesn't necessarily hold in the short run of a monetary economy. The result being that it's possible for demand to be "insufficient", and we get demand-side recessions and unemployment. Although not actually explicitly mentioned by Keynes in the General Theory, today we identify the cause of Say's law not holding being imperfectly flexible nominal wages and prices. A fall in nominal spending - be it because of a contraction of the money supply or an increase in the demand for money - means that nominal wages and prices must fall. But stickiness of those variables causes output to fall instead in the short run, until nominal variables fall to restore equilibrium. That's demand-side recessions in a nutshell.

Despite money being at the forefront of demand-side business cycles, Keynes didn't really pay much attention to monetary policy. The preferred way, he thought, to manage aggregate demand, if everybody was contracting their nominal spending, was to have the government be willing to expand its nominal spending. However, then Milton Friedman came along, published A Monetary History of the United States, and brought everybody's attention to how vitally important money is to business cycles. Everybody changed their mind. Famously, Paul Samuelson's textbook changes dramatically through editions starting from recommending fiscal stimulus for managing demand to the supremacy of monetary policy. There were other valuable insights as well, but I'm rambling now.

The point I started off intending to make is, we've identified demand side recessions as occurring due to a fall in nominal spending. Why bother with all this fiscal policy garbage? There's a plain and simple solution. An NGDP (nominal spending) level target for the central bank. If the Fed is forced to set and achieve a clear target path for nominal spending, demand-side recessions become non-existent. If for any reason there's a shock to nominal spending - that is, a shock to monetary velocity - the Fed would be forced to offset it by adjusting monetary policy to return nominal spending to target.

Thanks for your response. I hope that you read the article description in the prefix. The article was written to allow someone unfamiliar with economic principles to identify economic cause and effect so that they could make an informed decision about the probable results of current or proposed economic policy. In order to verify my proposed method to “reduce unemployment and improve the economy”, I had to systematically validate the economic components that I specified. Each validation is based upon multiple historical economic event outcomes.

The method makes use of Keynesian theory which I felt that I had to validate. Fortunately for my argument, the great depression was only time in history, that I know of, in which there was little or no technological advance that benefited general economies (little research and development money is spent in hard times) and simultaneously only a single country applied Keynesian principles to become the only country in the world to escape from the economically disastrous clutches of the depression. This was a singular economic laboratory in which most, if not all, of the important extraneous economic variables were removed from consideration.

You pointed out that Keynesian theory pre-dates 75 years or so of the economic data that has been accumulated since then. You also went into a detailed discussion on the use of Say’s law. At the end you said that the point that you were trying to make was that “If the Fed is forced to set and achieve a clear target path for nominal spending, demand-side recessions become non-existent.” I don’t see how the Fed can control nominal spending by controlling interest rates or money supply so I’m a bit confused about your argument. Both short and long term rates are at historical lows right now and the money supply is more than ample, yet we’re still recovering at a snail’s pace. Anyway, as I indicated earlier, this article/method is not about economic theory arguments but conclusions based upon historical outcomes.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

. If for any reason there's a shock to nominal spending - that is, a shock to monetary velocity - the Fed would be forced to offset it by adjusting monetary policy to return nominal spending to target.

This of course just creates mal-investment and further recession or depression.

 

[Foxfyre]

Keynes has been justified at times in his theories, but I think it is important to understand what pure Keynesian theory is. It is NOT government bernevolence or entitlements or social spending. It IS a jump start of the economy through short term government spending on private sector projects that result in real jobs (i.e. people actually producing things) in something that needed to be done. Such spending is intended to be of short duration with the money quickly repaid to the national treasury.

The stimulus was not Keynesian on numerous levels. It was not targeted at private sector or for real jobs producing something that needed to be done. It was not short term and there was little or no plan for any of it to be repaid. Any revenues that would be generated for the public treasury would not materialize until many years, even decades, down the road.

 

[stans]

Keynes has been justified at times in his theories, but I think it is important to understand what pure Keynesian theory is. It is NOT government bernevolence or entitlements or social spending. It IS a jump start of the economy through short term government spending on private sector projects that result in real jobs (i.e. people actually producing things) in something that needed to be done. Such spending is intended to be of short duration with the money quickly repaid to the national treasury.

The stimulus was not Keynesian on numerous levels. It was not targeted at private sector or for real jobs producing something that needed to be done. It was not short term and there was little or no plan for any of it to be repaid. Any revenues that would be generated for the public treasury would not materialize until many years, even decades, down the road.

Assuming that you're talking about my proposal: It took 3 years for Germany to go from a 35% unemployment rate to to a 5% rate, probably the quickest recovery on wolrld history. Sorry that's not fast enough for your arbitrary time period. A jump start of the economy is exactly what I proposed. I said that corporate taxes should be raised for 2 or 3 years in the proposal section of the article if you read it. Repayment time is, and always has been, up to the politicians in power.

You think that building the autobahn, and railroads and waterway upgrades (called infrastructure) were unnecessary? Who worked on it? Not the military which was too small.
Germany had a workforce of 19 million and the military went from 100,000 in 1933 to 400,000 in 1936. Over 4 milliion jobs were created in those 3 years. Guess that you didn't read that part either.

The point is not whether the German "economic miracle" (not my words, but from one of the references) was Keynesian or not but that it worked and that we could emulate the policies used and reasonably expect a rapid recovery.

You have this mistaken idea that the government has to be repaid. That's not how it works. How long has the US government been in debt? Since the revolutionary war? Money had to be borrowed to fight it. I know for sure that we've been in debt since the beginning of WWII and we've developed the richest and most powerful country in man's history over a 70 year period with a rising national debt. It's debt to GDP ratio that counts, not rising debt.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Keynes has been justified at times in his theories, but I think it is important to understand what pure Keynesian theory is.

Keynes literally saw himself as an apostle of truth. As such a huge ego maniac he had no theory really. What he had was an ego that told him he was a genius who, if given all the levers of power, not just monetary levers, could right the ship of state. There was nothing concrete left behind hence he lives on having insulated his 180 math IQ from any possibility of being proved wrong. At most you could say he made tons of plausible suggestions about various macro economic tricks that might be employed. There was very little specific about which tricks, when, what combinations, how much, when to slow down, stop etc. If you doubt it read the General Theory.

The most you can say now is that his name stands for little more than idiotic, pump-priming, mal-investment!

 

[regent]

Any truth to Scott Galupo's article that Reagan practiced Keynes when president?

 

[itfitzme]

Any truth to Scott Galupo's article that Reagan practiced Keynes when president?

The budget deficits increased considerably.

Budget……President
Year…………Budget…………Receipts…………Deficit
--------------------------------------
1980…………Carter………… $517,112………-$ 73,830
1981…………Carter………… $599,272………-$ 78,968
1982…………Reagan…………$617,766………-$127,977
1983…………Reagan…………$600,562………-$207,802
1984…………Reagan…………$666,438………-$185,367
1985…………Reagan…………$734,037………-$212,308
1986…………Reagan…………$769,155………-$221,227
1987…………Reagan…………$854,288………-$149,730
1988…………Reagan…………$909,238………-$155,178
1989…………Reagan…………$991,105………-$152,639

Is that deficit spending or supply side tax cuts?

 

[itfitzme]

A fall in nominal spending - be it because of a contraction of the money supply or an increase in the demand for money - means that nominal wages and prices must fall. But stickiness of those variables causes output to fall instead in the short run, until nominal variables fall to restore equilibrium.

Nice summary

I was reminded of David Hume's On Money (1752);

"A nation, whose money decreases, is actually, at that time, weaker and more miserable than another nation, which possesses no more money, but is on the encreasing hand. This will be easily accounted for, if we consider, that the alterations in the quantity of money, either on one side or the other, are not immediately attended with proportionable alterations in the price of commodities. There is always an interval before matters be adjusted to their new situation; and this interval is as pernicious to industry, when gold and silver are diminishing... The workman has not the same employment from the manufacturer and merchant; though he pays the same price for every thing in the market. The farmer cannot dispose of his corn and cattle; though he must pay the same rent to his landlord. The poverty, and beggary, and sloth, which must ensue, are easily foreseen."

Mathematically, for

NGDP(&#916;M<0) = NGDP(&#916;M>0)

P(&#916;M<0) > P(&#916;M>0)

therefore

Q(&#916;M<0) < Q(&#916;M>0) .

It is nice and concise, that is the attraction. Though, admittedly, it seems like a little bit of an abuse of notation. There must be a better way but damned if I can think of it. It is also missing the "short run" vs "long run". Any mathematicians in the house? Is there an appropriate way to express price stickiness in mathematical notation?

With a little playing around, it became clearer that the short run vs long run response is as shown:

http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy42/thefitz3/NGDPwF1.gif

On the falling side, where money supply is contracting, NGDP is falling. Price lags behind quantity.

Time 0 : Money supply, price and quantity are stable.

Time 3 : Money supply falls to new level
Quantity falls with M=NGDP = P0*Q

Time 5 : Production is ahead of sales so stock
is increasing due to previous sales projection.

Time 7 : Price begins to fall to unload excess stock.
With price falling, quantity increases with constant M=NGDP

Time 8+: Price continues to fall and quantity rises
until stability is reached.


The curves were built by choosing the price at each time and letting Q fall from M=NGDP/P. This makes sense and P becomes nothing more then the decision of sales decision.

Where the quantity and price are shown in the diagram may be "flipped", that is with price settling higher and quantity lower. It is only an approximation at the long run equilibrium point as it is all a factor of the the bidding in the market.

At a macro level, it is the aggregate of all the production markets, so is no clear equilibrium point.

At a micro level, it is the processes that effect the supply and demand curve. The final level of price and quantity is a function of additional factors including production and demand parameters.

Tracing it upward through the supply chain it is demand shifting demand as it proceeds upward. Demand shift at the consumer level causes demand to shift all the way upstream. At each supply level, production falls and, surely layoffs occur (sloth, as Hume puts it).

That is as much as I can say definitively. Other things, like if the supply curve is forced to shift temporarily to make up for losses incurred do to the initial unloading of stock as below production costs is a bit tricky. There are options that can be taken including shorting supply and under producing which can help increase prices. And, of course, there is a natural tendency for efficiency to increase when NGDP falls. We saw that during the Dec 2007 recession. Taking RGDP/(employment) proves that. So the supply curve does shift a bit to the left.

That quantity overshoot and settling is much as a critically damped feedback system performs. The price acts as an over damped feedback system does. I suppose, if we want to go further, we can note that the NGDP and M are a Heaviside step function. Springs with shock absorbers are mechanical equivalents. Electrical control circuits do the same. The economy at both a micro and macro level is certainly a feedback system, though I don't see any utility in anything more then just recognizing the obvious similarities.

I can't get anything more out of it. Any reason to conclude it is otherwise?

 

[itfitzme]

...important to understand what pure Keynesian theory is... It IS a jump start of the economy through short term government spending on private sector projects that result in real jobs (i.e. people actually producing things) in something that needed to be done. Such spending is intended to be of short duration with the money quickly repaid to the national treasury.

As generally told, it is "Pay people to dig holes and fill them up." I had to go find out if that is exactly it. What he said was a bit more detailed.

From Keynes "The General Theory..." Book 3, Chapter 10, Section 6 pg.129

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing."

This surely sounds more like the "Pay people to dig holes and fill them up" then it does "projects that result in real jobs." Though, he does say real jobs would be better. And surely they are better.

In fact, this is little different then the government minting coin from gold and private owners of gold mines digging it up and bringing it into be coined. It is more controlled and Keynes makes no mention here of amount or duration. The simple fact that CPI, population and standard of living are expected to increase necessitates the continuous increase in the money supply. While we currently depend on the curiosity of the fractional banking system, simply printing money is not precluded. And as such, what Keynes is describing is entirely appropriate in the right measure of the bank notes being extracted at a rate that is appropriate for the necessary rate of change in NGDP.

In terms of short term stimulus, I remain unconvinced about the ability of the economy to remain at it's new equilibrium point after the stimulus has been removed. I not saying that it won't, just that I haven't been convinced. I sure would appreciate something that would reveal this as I tend to believe that what would happen is the economy would settle into some equilibrium between where it was and where the stimulus pushed it.

 

[DSGE]

It is nice and concise, that is the attraction. Though, admittedly, it seems like a little bit of an abuse of notation. There must be a better way but damned if I can think of it. It is also missing the "short run" vs "long run". Any mathematicians in the house? Is there an appropriate way to express price stickiness in mathematical notation?

Well if you want highly rigorous stuff that does short and long run as well as formal price stickiness, I'd suggest checking out the New Keynesian DSGE models. They're a bit of a pain in the arse though.

For just a small oversimplified model I'd take the equation of exchange, MV = PY, turn it into percentage changes

%dM + %dV = %dP + %dY

then do something like, say the central bank fixes the money supply (maybe with a gold standard) and prices are slow to adjust. For simplicity, say prices don't adjust at all in the short run. This gives us %dM = %dP = 0

%dV = %dY

So any shock to the demand for money translates to a short run shock to real output. If we wanted to achieve output stability - assume variables have been detrended so that %dY = 0 means detrended output doesn't grow, or equivalently, real output grows along its balanced growth path - we'd need to get:

%dM + %dV = 0

=> %dM = - %dV

or, for output stability we need the central bank to offset any shocks to the demand for money.

Now this is a little mickey mouse model, it's not dynamic and so doesn't include anything about expectations. But we can still get a mildly powerful conclusion from it:

NGDP = PY. Since P is sticky, if NGDP falls, there will be a corresponding fall in real output in the short run. The solution therefore is nominal stability. Keep nominal GDP on its (in this model) trend path (in dynamic models it'd be keeping NGDP on its expected path).

So I think for you and I to agree, we need a few things:

1) Do we agree that stable NGDP will prevent demand-side recessions?
2) Does this mean we should have the central bank target NGDP rather than inflation?
3) Can the central bank actually achieve an NGDP target?

That is as much as I can say definitively. Other things, like if the supply curve is forced to shift temporarily to make up for losses incurred do to the initial unloading of stock as below production costs is a bit tricky.

Yeah, I don't think there's any way to actually do that though. But why address the symptom (falling real output) and not the cause (falling NGDP). We don't want to have to be reacting with ways temporarily get a little extra aggregate supply if we can just stop NGDP from falling instead.

There are options that can be taken including shorting supply and under producing which can help increase prices.

What? What's "shorting supply"? Under producing? The entire problem with falling NGDP is that it creates falling real output. The solution isn't to just make real output fall. Unless i've misinterpreted...

And, of course, there is a natural tendency for efficiency to increase when NGDP falls. We saw that during the Dec 2007 recession. Taking RGDP/(employment) proves that. So the supply curve does shift a bit to the left.

That's not what I see:

RGDP / Civilian Employment

And why on earth would a fall in NGDP cause an increase in TFP? The only thing I can think of that you'd be talking about is maybe an effect where in normal times firms have lots of workers and those workers can be frequently idle, but in recession times the firm sheds workers and so the "output per worker" looks a lot higher. This isn't an actual shift in productivity though, because there's been no real shock to productivity, it's an illusion caused by the utilisation rate of labour.

 

[The Rabbi]

Any truth to Scott Galupo's article that Reagan practiced Keynes when president?

The budget deficits increased considerably.

Budget……President
Year…………Budget…………Receipts…………Deficit
--------------------------------------
1980…………Carter………… $517,112………-$ 73,830
1981…………Carter………… $599,272………-$ 78,968
1982…………Reagan…………$617,766………-$127,977
1983…………Reagan…………$600,562………-$207,802
1984…………Reagan…………$666,438………-$185,367
1985…………Reagan…………$734,037………-$212,308
1986…………Reagan…………$769,155………-$221,227
1987…………Reagan…………$854,288………-$149,730
1988…………Reagan…………$909,238………-$155,178
1989…………Reagan…………$991,105………-$152,639

Is that deficit spending or supply side tax cuts?

Neither. That's the Democratic Congress spending their little hearts out. Remember that revenue to the government increased tremendously. But spending, as authorized by Congress, increased even more.

 

[editec]

Keynes has been justified at times in his theories, but I think it is important to understand what pure Keynesian theory is.

Keynes literally saw himself as an apostle of truth. As such a huge ego maniac he had no theory really. What he had was an ego that told him he was a genius who, if given all the levers of power, not just monetary levers, could right the ship of state. There was nothing concrete left behind hence he lives on having insulated his 180 math IQ from any possibility of being proved wrong. At most you could say he made tons of plausible suggestions about various macro economic tricks that might be employed. There was very little specific about which tricks, when, what combinations, how much, when to slow down, stop etc. If you doubt it read the General Theory.

The most you can say now is that his name stands for little more than idiotic, pump-priming, mal-investment!

YOu make it rather clear that you know nothing about economics or history, man.

You are quite literally now making shit up to support your POV.


Go read a book, lad.

 

[DSGE]

The method makes use of Keynesian theory which I felt that I had to validate. Fortunately for my argument, the great depression was only time in history, that I know of, in which there was little or no technological advance that benefited general economies (little research and development money is spent in hard times) and simultaneously only a single country applied Keynesian principles to become the only country in the world to escape from the economically disastrous clutches of the depression. This was a singular economic laboratory in which most, if not all, of the important extraneous economic variables were removed from consideration.

Uh, not sure which history you're reading. "The only country in the world to apply Keynesian principles to become the only country in the world to escape from the economically disasterous clutches of the depression"? Except they didn't. First off, the depression in the US was the deepest and longest in the world, despite fiscal stimulus. Second, the widely accepted explanation for the depression is that of Friedman & Schwartz in A Monetary History of the United States: The Fed allowed the money supply to collapse. Countries which eased monetary conditions by leaving the gold standard and devaluing their currency began to recover reasonably quickly. Japan left in late 1929, Britain and Australia in 1931 and the US in late 1932. Countries which didn't engage in fiscal stimulus recovered quickly after engaging in monetary stimulus. The one country that engaged in rampant fiscal policy, the US, experienced the slowest recovery. There's good cause to think that such government intervention was responsible for that slowness [Cole & Ohanian (1999)].

Also, how does that matter? Whether or not fiscal stimulus works is irrelevant, since monetary stimulus works just as well but is much easier to implement.

You pointed out that Keynesian theory pre-dates 75 years or so of the economic data that has been accumulated since then. You also went into a detailed discussion on the use of Say’s law. At the end you said that the point that you were trying to make was that “If the Fed is forced to set and achieve a clear target path for nominal spending, demand-side recessions become non-existent.” I don’t see how the Fed can control nominal spending by controlling interest rates or money supply so I’m a bit confused about your argument. Both short and long term rates are at historical lows right now and the money supply is more than ample, yet we’re still recovering at a snail’s pace.

Well firstly, the money supply isn't more than ample. The Fed injected $2.5 trillion, sure, but they're paying interest on it. It's hard to claim that that money is expansionary if banks can just park it in their accounts with the Fed and earn more interest than they'd get buying securities. But since monetary policy is a bit of a complicated subject, let's just start with what we need. Do you agree that if the Fed were able to control nominal spending with monetary policy, we wouldn't need fiscal stimulus?

Anyway, as I indicated earlier, this article/method is not about economic theory arguments but conclusions based upon historical outcomes.

Right, but conclusions based on historical outcomes have unanimously favoured monetary stimulus to fiscal stimulus. In fact, if a central bank is targeting something like inflation (like the Fed do), the fiscal multiplier is roughly 0. Fiscal expansion just gets offset by tighter monetary policy.

 

[editec]

We supply-sided ourselves into a freakin serious depression.

Nice work, Randians.

 

[stans]

The method makes use of Keynesian theory which I felt that I had to validate. Fortunately for my argument, the great depression was only time in history, that I know of, in which there was little or no technological advance that benefited general economies (little research and development money is spent in hard times) and simultaneously only a single country applied Keynesian principles to become the only country in the world to escape from the economically disastrous clutches of the depression. This was a singular economic laboratory in which most, if not all, of the important extraneous economic variables were removed from consideration.

Uh, not sure which history you're reading. "The only country in the world to apply Keynesian principles to become the only country in the world to escape from the economically disasterous clutches of the depression"? Except they didn't. First off, the depression in the US was the deepest and longest in the world, despite fiscal stimulus. Second, the widely accepted explanation for the depression is that of Friedman & Schwartz in A Monetary History of the United States: The Fed allowed the money supply to collapse. Countries which eased monetary conditions by leaving the gold standard and devaluing their currency began to recover reasonably quickly. Japan left in late 1929, Britain and Australia in 1931 and the US in late 1932. Countries which didn't engage in fiscal stimulus recovered quickly after engaging in monetary stimulus. The one country that engaged in rampant fiscal policy, the US, experienced the slowest recovery. There's good cause to think that such government intervention was responsible for that slowness [Cole & Ohanian (1999)].

Britains unemployment rate oscillated closely around 25% from 1933 to 1936, dropped off in 1937 picked up a bit in 1938 and was near 25% in 1939. Is that what you call rapid recovery?
http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/economics/history/paper16/16www.pdf p.9 fig 6
http://www.scva.ac.uk/education/resources/pdfs/14.pdf

 

[stans]

Also, how does that matter? Whether or not fiscal stimulus works is irrelevant, since monetary stimulus works just as well but is much easier to implement.

You pointed out that Keynesian theory pre-dates 75 years or so of the economic data that has been accumulated since then. You also went into a detailed discussion on the use of Say’s law. At the end you said that the point that you were trying to make was that “If the Fed is forced to set and achieve a clear target path for nominal spending, demand-side recessions become non-existent.” I don’t see how the Fed can control nominal spending by controlling interest rates or money supply so I’m a bit confused about your argument. Both short and long term rates are at historical lows right now and the money supply is more than ample, yet we’re still recovering at a snail’s pace.

Well firstly, the money supply isn't more than ample. The Fed injected $2.5 trillion, sure, but they're paying interest on it. It's hard to claim that that money is expansionary if banks can just park it in their accounts with the Fed and earn more interest than they'd get buying securities. But since monetary policy is a bit of a complicated subject, let's just start with what we need. Do you agree that if the Fed were able to control nominal spending with monetary policy, we wouldn't need fiscal stimulus?

Why isn't it working now? Money supply is more than ample now, it's just not being used the way you'd like to see it used to support the theory. Our system is, the Fed creates the money and banks choose to lend it out or not. The Fed makes money available but it's not expansionary the way the banks are using it. The Fed isn't controlling nominal spending now so under present conditions fiscal stimulus is needed. You claim that money is (should be) expansionary, not me.

 

[stans]

Anyway, as I indicated earlier, this article/method is not about economic theory arguments but conclusions based upon historical outcomes.

Right, but conclusions based on historical outcomes have unanimously favoured monetary stimulus to fiscal stimulus. In fact, if a central bank is targeting something like inflation (like the Fed do), the fiscal multiplier is roughly 0. Fiscal expansion just gets offset by tighter monetary policy.

You're too wrapped up in monetary theory. We're not talking about historical outcomes in
general. We're talking about two unique cases. One is the rapid recovery of Germany from the depression and the other is Carnegie's technique building US Steel (as it was called after he sold it.)

 

[Foxfyre]

I think too Stans probably ought to read a different history re Germany's recovery from the Great Depression. It was not the rosy picture he seems to think it was. Germany did do better than the more socialized European nations in recovery from the current recession mostly because it did not dramatically increase its national debt in ill advised and reckless government spending. Therefore it has pretty well returned to its normal which is still a fairly lack luster economy with "permanent" unemployment at a much higher level than most thinking Americans accept as normal. It currently is at 7.4% which is pretty good for them.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

We supply-sided ourselves into a freakin serious depression.

Nice work, Randians.

Higher taxes, to end the depression! LOL!