On Sep 22, 2014, at 4:21 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Marv Gandall <[email protected]> wrote: > Shinzo Abe’s Japan is the most recent and ambitious experiment in Keynesian > pump-priming to reflate a stagnant economy. It’s been watched with keen > anticipation by politicians, bankers, and policymakers in Europe and > elsewhere frustrated by the failure of austerity to restore growth in their > own economies to pre-recession levels. > > But now hope for a Japanese recovery is turning to disappointment, as its > economy once again begins to contract. While prices have risen and > unemployment has dropped, consumer spending and the domestic economy continue > to languish. > > > A couple of questions: > - Is this really Keynesian or some kind of neo-monetarist policy?
As you well know, left of centre Keynesians support monetary easing and fiscal stimulus to revive a depressed capitalist economy, while conservative austerians are dedicated to tight money and a balanced budget. leaving the system to purge itself of its “excesses” by eliminating jobs, driving down labour costs, and liquidating insolvent firms. The Abe administration, however it may situate itself politically, was in the first camp when it campaigned for, and subsequently launched, a large stimulus package while simultaneously pressuring the BOJ to engage in a massive program of quantitative easing. Certainly the pantheon of leading Keynesians in the US thought the policy of the new government represented a turning point in Japan’s decades-long stagnation. See, for example, these encomia to the promise of Abenomics by Stiglitz, Keynes, and Dean Baker: See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/opinion/krugman-japan-the-model.html?_r=0 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/shinzo-abe-and-soaring-confidence-in-japan-by-joseph-e--stiglitz http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/26/japan-recovery-us-deficit-hawks > - If prices have risen and unemployment dropped, why is this policy > considered a failure?? Because wages and economic growth have not recovered. Most jobs being created belong to the poorly-paid “precariat”, and the economy contracted sharply during the past quarter. > Also, who is it considered a failure by? The long article I posted will answer that question for you. > Aren’t we falling into the neoclassical trap where GDP growth is the only > metric of successful economic policy? Who has made that claim? We can agree that the metric which matters most is the standard of living of the working class measured in the first instance by the availability of well-paying and secure jobs, but we can also agree that there is a correlation between that and economic growth. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
