Thursday, March 29, 2012

What I really wish mainstream economists would stop doing...

I wish certain economists, like Paul Krugman, would stop failing to critically think about what arguably more realistic economists (like Steve Keen) have to say.   Krugman writes an entire article criticizing because of his  assumptions (of his models) that Keen doesn't make in his because they are not realistic (exogenous money for one vs. circuit theory).  Additionally, Krugman seems to be stuck in the dark ages using what I take to be some loanable funds argument suggesting loans are a wash in terms of aggregate demand because there is some pool of 'savings' from which loans are made.   That is a strange thing for a so called Keynesian to do, but he does.  Keen's point is that there is no such thing as some fixed amount of loanable funds.  Banks can create its own loanable funds - that's the endogeneity of credit!  That is why banks are important to model - and excluding them from a model is idiotic.

It would be helpful if Krugman actually sat down and talked to someone like Steve Keen and wrote an article based on that.

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