Liberalism Works Best During Bad Times. Conservatism Works Best During Good Times.

I'm not an expert on how the economy works but I've always believed that there's a time and a place for both liberalism and conservatism. I know most of you guys are probably to the hard left or to the hard right but personally I don't know where I stand. Unless of course we have our first black liberal president running for office and a bunch of racist people don't want him in office. Then I'm a liberal. But now that Obama is officially a TWO TERM president I'm going back to my old ways of being an independent. And the reason why I'm an independent is because I believe that liberalism works best during bad times and conservatism works best during good times. When I say "bad times" I mean REALLY BAD TIMES as in Depression or close to it. We tried conservatism back during the Great Depression and it didn't work. When the economy goes under I believe that only the government can pull it out of the ditch it's stuck in. But when you get the car fully out of the ditch I believe that conservatism is the right way to go. As long as the government isn't cutting spending and allocating those savings to more spending in the form of tax cuts for major corporations or unnecessary defense spending.

 

Which is why your able to retain the fantasy about Liberalism working sometime or somewhere......

....for if you were an expert, you would realize Liberalism is 100% detrimental to any and all economies at all times.

The Free Market works....which is conservatism works and liberalism is destined for epic FAIL.
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This is an interesting topic of conversation amongst economists that has some merit. In a declining. Economies are measured using Gross Domestic Product, abbreviated as GDP (we can have a discussion of the merits of this in a different thread). It is equated as such:




or:

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports).

In times of economic downturns, the easiest way to show growth is through increasing government spending which they state will in turn spur private sector growth, as private sector spending is usually what causes the downturn. This is the Keynesian school of thought in a nutshell.

However, some Austrians believe that the least efficient method of economic growth is through government spending (G), as private sector investment not only increases the formula in multiple area,s but also in G as well (as private sector growth.

So many economists believe that although boiled down in simplest terms, there is some merit in your statement,

 

Unfortunately, both Liberalism and Conservatism CAN drive us into the ditch, and both have the capacity to keep us there for a long time. It depends on more variables than the Klugmans and Sowells of the world include in their economic-religious prospectuses.

Or spending to maintain existing, or purchase new, voting blocks - or pay back special interests - or build bridges to nowhere, etc..

BTW - to be fair, the recessionary corporate (and other) tax cuts were generally for the purpose of spurring private sector growth, not funneling even more wealth to rich/corporate America. That's why $288 billion of the $881 billion ARRA ("stimulus package") was in the form of tax incentives - i.e. to stimulate and spur growth. It's also why President Obama and the Democrats went along with the continuance of the "Bush tax cuts" during the depths of the recession, in spite of chomping at the bit to do otherwise.

Economic problems really compound (in the form of massive deficits) when you must maintain lower recessionary revenues via tax incentives to stimulate activity, while at the same time massively increasing spending, also presumably to, at least according to some theories, spur the economy. That's why we had trillion to trillion and half dollar deficits from 2009 thru 2012. It's a dangerous very tricky game they've been and still are playing, my friend.

 

You are an expert in economics then?

 

That wasn't really the case, but okay. You have to realize that the operative word you used here was "liberal" and not "black." Anyone that thinks Hillary would have had an easier time is fooling themselves. Her defenders would just be accusing all of her detractors of being sexist instead of racist.

 

I'm sure Herbert Hoover would agree with you. Conservatism didn't work during the Great Depression and it didn't work during the Great Recession.

 

"Liberalism" (in this context I assume it to mean "heavily regulated capitalism") is just a response to massive inequality of opportunity, and the wasteful economic inefficiencies and human suffering associated with it. That's why America and Europe are predominately liberal in terms of policy, hence "liberalism" is necessary and can be seen "working" in America and Europe, but it offers no long term solution. If we find a way to permanently correct for the inequalities produced by western social structures, then a free market will be desirable.

tl;dr I'm for free markets but we have to sort out inequality first.

 

Are you a professional economist? If not, then I would not make such a fallacious statement. You are simply digging a deeper hole in which you already reside. Then again, GregDavidson is also making a hasty generalization with regards to the macroeconomy, albeit his statement has a grain of truth to it. In this regard, we can replace "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" with two sets of business cycle stabilization policy. Before doing so, allow me to simply explain business cycle stabilization policy.

Business cycle stabilization policy is a set of fiscal and monetary policies that help return an economy to full employment output. Full employment output is the level of output where no cyclical unemployment, or unemployment resulting from insufficient demand, exists.

Now, the two sets of business cycle stabilization policy are expansionary fiscal/monetary measures, and contractionary fiscal/monetary measures. The expansionary policies include government spending increases, tax cuts, and buying of government bonds or financial assets on the open market. The contractionary policies include government spending cuts, tax increases, or selling of government bonds or financial assets on the open market. As a calculated generalization, we can, therefore deem expansionary policies "Liberalism", and contractionary policies "Conservatism". The former "works best" in "bad times"; the latter "works best" in "good times".

 

Opens with the race card. Yawwwwwn....

 

Addendum: Remember, this is a generalization, not a hard and fast rule. Do not misconstrue the above reasoning as being monolithic. The macroeconomy is a complex, fluid, dynamic system of interactions. Nothing is more arduous than explaining its nature.