Today’s G-20 meeting has been advertised as a showdown between the U.S. and Europe over more spending “stimulus,” and so it is. But the larger story is the end of the neo-Keynesian economic moment, and perhaps the start of a healthier policy turn.
For going on three years, the developed world’s economic policy has been dominated by the revival of the old idea that vast amounts of public spending could prevent deflation, cure a recession, and ignite a new era of government-led prosperity. It hasn’t turned out that way.
Now the political and fiscal bills are coming due even as the U.S. and European economies are merely muddling along. The Europeans have had enough and want to swear off the sauce, while the Obama Administration wants to keep running a bar tab. So this would seem to be a good time to examine recent policy history and assess the results.
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Keynesian economics are and always have been smoke and mirrors. The very simple facts of the matter are; that every dollar printed which is not justified by corresponding increase in the gross national product, steals value from all previously existing dollars. Those dollars we have saved for our retirement are being stolen by those responsible for inflation. It is not accidental. It is preventable. It is a calculated and deliberate theft!