Tettleton's Chew may live under a bridge, but a lot of economists agree with him about this point (not all obviously). I must admit I think, in the long run, it is better if the private sector creates jobs.

However Tettle, once there is a recession, government spending cannot decrease, else it will only get worse. Once the private sector is strong enough, then government layoffs can happen without an adverse affect. Example: The Great Depression. Two instances, on in 1929 and another in 1936 show why this is the case.

First off, in 1929-30 the government (at all levels, federal, state, and local) tried to keep a balanced budget and laid off workers. The recession just kept getting worse and worse. Once FDR initiated his massive spending campaign, things began to shape up and the economy began to improve.

In 1936, much of the funding for FDR's programs was either cut or ran out, and many programs at the state level and local level ran out. Also Social Security taxes began to be collected. This decrease in spending coupled with the increase in taxes drove the country into a second recession. Had those two instances not occurred, the economy would have fully recovered well before WW2.

Another important difference is the amount of fiscal "space" in our budgets then and now. Back then, we went into the recession with almost no public debt as a percentage of our GDP. Now, we have a huge public debt, which constrains our options. Economists haven't really found an answer to this situation yet (or so my professor says)

History makes a mockery of liberal obsession with big government driving the American economy.
Take the end of WWII for example.

The Keynesians, led by Paul Samuelson, predicted massive unemployment caused by a massive reduction of wartime spending and the return of millions of men to the labor force. Many Americans feared the Great Depression would return.

Of course the reality was that government spending decreased rapidly and enormously and the private absorbed the returning servicemen in a great post-War boom.

As government sector spending decreases private individuals get to keep more of their own money, and of course private individuals spend money much more efficiently than government could ever dream of doing.

It's so simple, but of course liberal economists ignore the empirical evidence of history and continue to think that taxing one individual and using that revenue to pay another individual to dig a hole and fill it back in is productive enterprise.

No wonder the economy is not expanding under the massively inefficient policies of the current administration. The private sector is utterly suffocated.

The massive spending of the government during the New Deal and WWII didn't end the Great Depression either.
Unless of course you call the massive rationing of cars, tires, gasoline, stoves, sugar, coffee, meat, rubber, cheese, and even typewriters is "prosperity" and marked the end of the Great Depression.

In reality the Great Depression did not end until massive government intervention in the economy that completely suffocated the private sector ended. When that happened the Great Depression finally ended and American economic prosperity returned.

Once again, Tettleton...

I will take you seriously when you stop piling the sum of your politicalm rage upon the White whale Hump of the Democratic Party.

I hate to break it you, Ahab, but the GOP is jsut as much to blame for this mess.



It's both sides--and teh moment you admit to a bias and committ to it with such ferocity as Ahab to Moby Dick, your argument suffers Ahab's fate and goes down in a whirlpool of senseless and aimless rage and idiocy.

You were already shown to be wrong on this. But you ignore data so I'm not going to bother with you.

I'm curious where the education promised in the title is. All I see is an attack on liberal fiscal policies without any real educational value at all.

Liberal policies have taken up the baseless government to destroy jobs, they demand a stimulation of the economy. Every time, a great erection in government spending results in a recession of the mind (where else will that economic blood go?).

heh, "great erection" But anyways, the OP is a useless statement, not anything to do with education. Any "liberals" the way you define them would respond against your remarks and have done so, while any true conservative would be ashamed at you as I am that you fail so completely at delivering the point. As Albert Einstein said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Or something like that.

Is the OP title a reference to the book "Economics in one lesson" by Henry Hazlitt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_in_One_Lesson

President Obama and the Democrat passed $2.5 Trillion dollars in new spending since January of 2009.
That is $8,000 for every American.
These policies increase the unemployment rate from 7.7% on January 20, 2009 to 9.5% today.

Just imagine how many jobs an $8,000 tax cut for every American would have created.

Same $2.5 Trillion dollar deficit, but the unemployment rate would be 9.5%.

Reagan's ERTA tax cuts created a deficit and jobs.
Obama's spending created a deficit and destroyed jobs.

"As Albert Einstein said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Or something like that."
That would be much more astute if Tettleton had even tried to explain anything. He hasn't.
Once again, he's just asserted his ideological point of view, and stated it as though it's fact, and that settles the matter.
Perhaps a more apt soundbite would be "If you're just going to arbitrarily assert your viewpoint, and not back it up or explain anything, you can fuck off."
Once again I see a fiscally conservative argument that says something like "Clearly America's huge government is exactly why we're in such economic trouble!" an argument that completely ignores the fact that virtually every country in the industrialized western world has larger government than the US, and with the exception of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (and Italy isn't far off from meeting the same fate), virtually all of them are are in better economic shape than the US.
How do you respond to that point?
Ugh.

Oh, and cue the argument from a bunch of right wingers that Spain, Greece and Portugal are the most socialist countries in Europe. This is an absolute load of tripe.
The sort of gold standard work on welfare state politics was performed by Gøsta Esping-Andersen, which originally divided welfare states into three categories, Liberal (the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand), Corporate-Conservative (Most of Europe) and Social Democratic (Scandinavia, essentially). Then he had to introduce a separate welfare model, Mediterranean to explain Spain, Italy and Greece, countries whose welfare policies are based primarily around promoting families, and are characterized by a historical attempt to implement Social democratic policies in a corporate-conservative model, which predictably led to economic disaster. I suspect this is the source of the idea that Greece and Spain are incredibly socialist countries, though this view is misleading. My point is essentially, don't come replying to this post claiming that the problem for Greece and Spain is their so called "Cradle to grave welfare states", because those don't really exist, and every attempt to implement policies like that have been bungled massively.

Blah, I've been side tracked. Basically my point is, if laissez-faire economic policy is the only way to recover from a financial crisis, and the only way to see economic growth at all, then why are countries with bigger, more expansive governments than the US in better shape, coming out of the economic crisis?

Hi Tettleton, I'm still waiting on your response to the question of "What happens when a cigarette company deicdes they can make more money by lacing their cigs with a tiny tiny bit of coke and not telling anyone".

Anyway, could you like link your facts please? Otherwise: God imposed 1.5 trillion tax per American child. This amounts to 3,000 trillion tax per american corporate taxpayer.

"The private sector is utterly suffocated. "
I lol'd.

"God imposed 1.5 trillion tax per American child. This amounts to 3,000 trillion tax per american corporate taxpayer."
SHIT! This is all Obama's fault. hurr durr.

"You were already shown to be wrong on this. But you ignore data so I'm not going to bother with you."
Logic isn't really his strong suit I think...

@ goldfinger

You cannot draw a link between the Great Depression and today's recession. In the 1930's, we could borrow vast sums of money without consequence. Today, our backs are against the wall. We have to cut government spending and let the economic chips fall where they may. You can't just wave a magic government wand over this. This situation can only be unfucked the hard way.

In my experience you can never get economists to agree on anything. All they have achieved in the entire existance of what some of them laughably call a science is to generate stockpiles of flimsy "evidence" to support an endless stream of contradictory theories. One can conclude from this that the only sure fire way of improving a nation's economy is to sack all the economists and force them to work in a proper job producing something useful.

Octavious + 1

I would draw a distinction between academic economists and economists working for a business.
Academic economists don't have a dog in the fight and can spew useless rhetoric like the Sophists they truly are.
Business economists working for banks, insurance companies, multinational corporations, and the like have a dog in the fight and find themselves unemployed rather quickly when their forecasts prove inaccurate.
The economists of Presidential administrations face the same consequences as business economists.
Obama's economists have driven from 7.7% to today's levels and the voters unemployed many Democrats in 2010 as a result.
You can spew all the hollow rhetoric you want, but the failure of Obama's economic policies to produce jobs will make him a one-term president.
Arguing why Obama's policies failed is a task for the academic sophists who endlessly rant about that.
President's who fail economically don't get reelected. Obama is a dismal failure economically.
Let the excuses flow forth like a flood of manure from a herd of ignorant cattle.

We're in the middle of the worst recession since the great depression. We simply don't know what would have happened without Obama's economic policies. We might not be seeing stellar amounts of growth and so forth, but unless we can show that things would have been better without his policies, calling Obama a failure is a tricky argument to make. And you keep calling for him to cut taxes, taxes are already at an all time low. The solution to every economic problem isn't just to cut taxes into oblivion.

The recession Reagan faced was worse than this one.
Reagan faced higher unemployment, double-digit inflation, and astronomical interest rates.
Eisenhower faced three recessions during his administration.
Obama is inept.
He said that "Congress has run up the credit card" in a news conference this week.
The guy can veto bills and he says Congress has run up the credit card?
Obama is a 47 year-old one-term senator who is out of his depth.
I'm calling on Obama to do the job he was elected to do, deal with the economy first.
Taxes are not at an all-time low by the way.
Debt is at an all-time high.
Raising taxes isn't the answer to the debt problem.
Cutting spending is the answer to the debt problem.
Obama is the classic tax and spend liberal and America has never had one in power at a worse time.
The 2012 election will finish the job that the 2010 election started and put an end to this nonsense.

I mean I don't know how many times it has to be pointed out that taxes haven't been lower since 1958, and Obama's stimulus cut taxes for middle income Americans, and he was criticized by liberals for extending the expensive Bush tax cuts. The only one out of his depth is you.

Reagan *caused* the 1982 recession. Deliberately. Unemployment was at a record high. Get that straight. It was their strategy to bring down inflation. Because, you know, unemployment is a price worth paying for Republicans. Always has been.

Clinton raised taxes in the early 1990s when the economy was slow, it led to growth. Reagan raised taxes in 1982, it led to growth. You're out of your element, TC.

Oh and Jimmy Carter created more jobs per year more than any post-war President ever. Fact. George W. Bush had by far the worst jobs record of any post-war President and has a lot to do with the fact that job growth continues to be anemic. Democrats throughout post-war history create more jobs than Republicans. Republicans are shitty at running the economy. Even Eisenhower was terrible.

"the empirical evidence of history"????

Don't make me laugh buddy - history is theater.

To sit here and say "these two things were happening - one caused the other" is the worst kind of fallacy.

We're all a figment of Thucy's imagination.

Thucydides, don't take charge of anything important anytime soon.
If you do you have to look at the bad times, decide what caused them, and make choices.
You quaint "history is theater" rhetoric won't cut it.
Also refusing to make a decision on cause and effect won't cut it either.
You can look at the history of individual states in America since the financial meltdown.
High tax and High debt states are competing with lower tax and lower debt states.
Duh!