"Had I Gone Crazy or Had They Gone Sane?" - The Diigo Meta page

• 08 Aug 08
  

  juremes sss

  Whether it was right or wrong, "Reaganomics" had a logic. Each policy would aim at one problem. Tight money would cure inflation. Low taxes would stimulate saving and work effort. Small government would "crowd in" investment. Free trade would make us efficient. Smart people believed this and they had the authority of respected economists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek to back them up.
  
  But now those ideas are dead, buried, abandoned. Deregulation brought us miseries in finance, transport, energy and the climate. Free trade agreements dole out favors to big farmers and big pharma. The financial crisis finished off what was left of monetarism, the idea that the Fed should only worry about inflation. And everyone has given up on waiting for low taxes to unleash the creativity of the ultra rich.

  • Whether it was right or wrong, "Reaganomics" had a logic. Each policy would
    aim at one problem. Tight money would cure inflation. Low taxes would stimulate
    saving and work effort. Small government would "crowd in" investment. Free trade
    would make us efficient. Smart people believed this and they had the authority
    of respected economists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek to back
    them up.

    
    

    But now those ideas are dead, buried, abandoned. Deregulation brought us
    miseries in finance, transport, energy and the climate. Free trade agreements
    dole out favors to big farmers and big pharma. The financial crisis finished off
    what was left of monetarism, the idea that the Fed should only worry about
    inflation. And everyone has given up on waiting for low taxes to unleash the
    creativity of the ultra rich.

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