libertarians-and-stoya:

sugashane:

libertarians-and-stoya:

I mean Bernanke isn’t the Keynesian that Krugman is.

If anything, I’d put him up there with Mankiw and honestly Mankiw isn’t as insufferable as Krugman is.

But yeah I mean Bernanke is just mainstream.  It’d be wrong to say he’s as Keynesian as other popular economists are.

Bernanke is a typical consumption-and-debt based Keynesian. Borrow money, spend money, don’t save too much, manipulate rates to get desired results. 

Krugman is borderline insane. Create bubbles to off-set previous bubbles? Economic impact of natural disasters is good? We need to prepare for an alien invasion that doesn’t exist in order to revive the economy? 

Krugman probably drives around smashing windows and slashing tires just to try and raise the GDP. The dude’s a radical. 

Bernanke is the first academic to be the head of the Fed in a long time.  That alone is a plus.

Interest rate targeting is basically what you do with central banks anymore.  You can’t target the money supply and inflation expectations can be held nearly constant so long as no one fucks up (oops QE2,3,4).

Yeah, Krugman is insane.  He also gets paid by the NYTimes to spread his lunacy, which is worse.

Yea, I agree. I don’t think Bernanke is the evil tyrant of the world as so many libertarians see him as. He just does what his job is supposed to be, control rates and drive different financial actions via asset purchases and liquidity changes. 

Now, the existence of the fed, that’s an issue for me. But as far as what Bernanke has done while at the helm, it’s no different than what any other knowledgeable Keynesian would do. 

(via libertarians-and-stoya-deactiva)