President Joseph Biden has some extremely smart men and women advising him on economic issues. The only one I knew even the slightest little bit personally is Janet Yellen, the secretary of the Treasury.
Long ago, when I worked for the government, she was young but universally well regarded. As far as I know, she still is well regarded, although neither of us is still young ---alas.
If I may say so, she's behind what I think of as a fine, even somewhat conservative, fiscal program. The Biden-Harris-Yellen plan is barely a quiver in the tectonic plates that move this Earth’s economies.
Basically, "Bidenomics" is Keynesianism with a goodly dose of racial pandering thrown in.
This is not new.
It’s not seditious; much of it makes sense.
It was generated and documented by the great English economist, John Maynard Keynes, as a way of fighting the Great Depression.
Keynes said that while Adam Smith said a nation’s economy would always revert to full employment equilibrium even after a large economic blow, that might not always be true.
There might be some "rigidities" in the economic system that kept full employment equilibrium from returning. The only way to fight this problem was for government to run deficits that jacked up demand for a prolonged period.
After this, the economy would return to a full employment equilibrium.
The failure of the national and world economies to revert to full employment equilibrium was only able to be fought with and by significant and continuing stimulus of demand by government deficits.
This spending would be in the form of "large" public works programs such as bridges and highways and canals.
The program did not work on anything like the scale that was needed. By the eve of Pearl Harbor, there was still roughly 15% unemployment, an unheard of number by today’s standards.
But it bore a catchy name ("New Deal") and was loved by the left-wing media. (At that time, as incredible as this sounds, there was still a sizable "right-wing" media.)
Ever since 1933, the phrase "New Deal" has become a talisman for the Democratic Party in political campaigns and opening phases of Democratic administrations.
To read more of Ben Stein's article visit The American Spectator.
Ben Stein is a writer, an actor, and a lawyer who served as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration as the Watergate scandal unfolded. He began his unlikely road to stardom when director John Hughes as the numbingly dull economics teacher in the urban comedy, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Read more more reports from Ben Stein — Click Here Now.
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