Question

The following lyrics discuss whether the government stimulus efforts in response to the 2008 financial crisis worked and also argue points about government policy during the Great Depression and the subsequent recovery. What are the major areas of disagreement on these issues as illustrated in the lyrics?

[Keynes] Are you kidding? My cure works perfectly fine. Have a look. The recession ended in ‘09.I deserve credit. Things would have been worse. All the estimates prove it. I’ll go chapter and verse. We could have done better if we’d only spent more. Too bad that only happens when there’s a world war. You can carp all you want about stats and regression. Do you deny that world war cut short the Depression?

[Hayek] Wow. One data point and you’re jumping for joy. The last time I checked wars only destroy. There was no multiplier. Consumption just shrank as we used scarce resources for every new tank. Pretty perverse to call that prosperity. Ration meat. Ration butter. A life of austerity. When that war spending ended, your friends cried disaster. Yet the economy thrived and grew faster. Creating employment is a straightforward craft when the nation’s at war and there’s a draft. If every worker were staffed in the army and we’d have full employment and nothing to eat. Jobs are a means, not the end in themselves. People work to live better, to put food on the shelves. Real growth means production of what people demand. That’s entrepreneurship, not your central plan.

Answer 1