Krugman finds a doozy
May. 6th, 2009 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoFrom a post on Krugman's blog:
The similar thing is to what I'll call the odder beliefs of the Ron Paulistas: Going back to the gold standard would be good, as would dumping the Federal Reserve.
See, there's this thing called comparative advantage. Not all countries left the gold standard at the same time; not all countries developed central banks at the same time. If gold helped a country, and "fiat currency" hurt it, then one should have been able to see that, and no other countries would be foolish enough to follow suit. Same with central banking.
Economic history went exactly the other way, though. Hell, even the Swiss finally gave up on the gold standard.
Combine this with Krugman's example, and you get the following principle: Republicans are all in favor of the free market -- right up until the market disagrees with them.
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Originally posted at my business affairs blog, Not That Kind of Operation.
"Opponents of (climate change as a factor in policy) generally believe that market economies are wonderful things, able to adapt to just about anything — anything, that is, except a government policy that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Limits on the world supply of oil, land, water — no problem. Limits on the amount of CO2 we can emit — total disaster.
The similar thing is to what I'll call the odder beliefs of the Ron Paulistas: Going back to the gold standard would be good, as would dumping the Federal Reserve.
See, there's this thing called comparative advantage. Not all countries left the gold standard at the same time; not all countries developed central banks at the same time. If gold helped a country, and "fiat currency" hurt it, then one should have been able to see that, and no other countries would be foolish enough to follow suit. Same with central banking.
Economic history went exactly the other way, though. Hell, even the Swiss finally gave up on the gold standard.
Combine this with Krugman's example, and you get the following principle: Republicans are all in favor of the free market -- right up until the market disagrees with them.
*^*^*
Originally posted at my business affairs blog, Not That Kind of Operation.
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