Comments on: Winston Churchill and the financial crisis

By: philip mccormack

philip mccormack — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:12:32 +0000

FLAVIO, JONATHAN, Keynes a gift from the gods for profligate politicians and central bankers. You know, I know. Economic evidence amassed by professorfekete.com against the quantity monetary theory is overwhelming. Keynes is a charlatan, a saint of the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Fekete – read his documentation, its free, and history if written without bias would give him a Nobel Prize. His original work on gold, interest and bonds, his resurrection of the Real Bills Doctrine and Social Circulating Capital is a masterpiece.If you can refute it let me know. Philip

By: Flavio Graf

Flavio Graf — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:26:29 +0000

” if so famed for proving Keynes so utterly wrong?”

Maybe just for the same reason that Roman citizens enjoyed the circus and getting bread thrown at them.

Fiscal and monetary discipline has never been -and most likely will never be- popular. Politicians know that. Keynes has been a gift of the gods for politicians: finally they got a theory to back their irresponsible spending sprees!

By: Jonathan Harris

Jonathan Harris — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:40:34 +0000

Richard

Thanks for the link to the article.

Flavio – Thanks for the reference to Hazlitt; like Richard’s link short for the blog. Churchill also said “Criticism is easy, achievement is difficult” and “It is always more easy to discover principles than to apply them”. Hazlitt made a profession from criticizing Keynes. I think the former’s namesake the playwright is arguably better known. Why should that be so, if so famed for proving Keynes so utterly wrong?

By: philip mccormack

philip mccormack — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:26:29 +0000

Steven Kates has got it right.Keynesianism has been and is a total disaster for what is left of the free world’s finances, all at the taxpayers expense. When governments issue fiat paper money regardless of country; Russia, China, Canada, US, it ALWAYS ends in disaster. Jonathan read an incorruptible economist Professor Antal Fekete, not government and central bank lackeys like Keynes and many other economists. Freedom without gold impossible. Churchill also said judgement of peers is necessary for democracy. It is impossible to get Trial by jury for a defendant in tax cases brought by the government in Britain, Canada etc. Read Fekete, beautiful prose. Please Email me,

By: Flavio Graf

Flavio Graf — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:50:04 +0000

Jonathan, Maybe Steven published a quote because it’s a post in a blog. Are you aware that blog postings are short?

Just like Richard says, there is plenty of evidence and research done on the subject. I can suggest you read “The Failure of the New Economics” by Henry Hazlitt. It has 500 pages, you’ll not be short of the evidence you seek.

By: D.R. Myddelton

D.R. Myddelton — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:40:59 +0000

Surely one of the main things ‘wrong’ about Britain going back on the gold standard in 1925, when Churchill was Chancellor, was the rate at which convertibility was restored?

Ricardo had said 100 years earlier that after the currency had depreciated by more than a certain amount, it would be folly to go back at the old exchange rate.

Churchill didn’t claim to be an economist and could be forgiven of not being aware of what Ricardo had said. Keynes did claim to be an economist (though his mastery of economic history was, shall we say, idiosyncratic) and it is less easy to forgive his ignorance.

By: Pre WWII things were different « Freethinking Economist

Pre WWII things were different « Freethinking Economist — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:30:41 +0000

[...] just about everyone except robably Richard Wellings of the IEA accepts that Britain going back on the gold standard under Churchill was one of the worst economic [...]

By: Richard Wellings

Richard Wellings — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:53:15 +0000

Jonathan – Steven Kates provides evidence of the failure of Keynesianism in a longer piece here: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2009/02/the-dangerous-return-to-keynesian-economics

He looks at Japan during the 1990s as well as the Great Depression.

By: Jonathan Harris

Jonathan Harris — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:28:49 +0000

Interesting use and interpretation of quotations, history and Churchill.

Churchill stated “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations”. You have been educated. The educated usually produce supporting evidence.

What economic evidence from The Great Depression and the current Credit Crunch, Financial Crisis and recession supports the assertion that “Keynesians’ dogma has been fallacious and they have been utterly wrong”?

Churchill served as Chancellor between 1924 and 1929 – in the run up to the Wall St Crash. He was out of government in the 1930’s. Hayek, Keynes and Friedman identify cause. What policy prescription would Churchill, Friedman and Hayek advocate?

By: D.R. Myddelton

D.R. Myddelton — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:52:57 +0000

The quotation from Churchill expounding the ‘Treasury view’ 80 years ago contrasts possible short-term political advantages with likely long-term economic damage. No surprise in which side Keynes was on.

Last week’s Pre-Budget Report represented one of the worst examples of this in post-war British history. For fear of damaging the Labour government’s chances in next year’s election, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister continued to publish optimistic forecasts and to funk giving details of necessary significant future cuts in government spending.

Maybe government spending should not be cut today. But the markets do want a credible plan for reducing borrowing tomorrow.