Keynesianism & Eugenics
Guest post by Azizonomics.
The theory of output as a whole, which is what The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state.
John Maynard Keynes
In looking at and assessing the economic paradigm of John Maynard Keynes — a man himself fixated on aggregates — we must look at the aggregate of his thought, and the aggregate of his ideology.
Keynes was not just an economist. Between 1937 and 1944 he served as the head of the Eugenics Society and once called eugenics ”the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists.” And Keynes, we should add, understood that economics was a branch of sociology. So let’s be clear: Keynes thought eugenics was more important, more significant, and more genuine than economics.
Eugenics — or the control of reproduction — is a very old idea.
In The Republic, Plato advocated that the state should covertly control human reproduction:
Japanese debt-The end of the road?
The individual mind usually focuses on a few subjects only. Over the past weeks investors have focused on JPM, Grexit and Facebook, but let’s not forget about Japan’s downgrade. Yes, domestic investors are the main buyers of Japanese debt, and they have been “loyal”. The question is though, how much more debt can/want they take down. By Edward Hugh.
The recent decision by Fitch Ratings to downgrade the Japanese sovereign by one notch, from from AA minus to A plus, has all the outward appearance of being a predictable non event.
As the Reuters article reporting the decision puts it, ”Credit downgrades usually do not have a lasting impact on markets in Japan because its government bonds are mostly held by domestic investors”.
Yet something somewhere fails to convince me that this nonchalance is really justified . Something tells me that this process of rising debt and falling credit ratings cannot go on and on forever, and that at some point we will reach what Variant Perception’s Claus Vistesen calls “the end of the road”. In which case, we could start to ask ourselves, what then gets to happen next? Certainly there is nothing in conventional economic theory which can help us anticipate the answer, since this kind of end of the road point has not been forseen, anywhere, unless I am mistaken.
Macro Talk
Talking Macro with Schnapp.
On the economic outlook and the grim future Europe faces.
Spain-It just gets worse
Summer is approaching rapidly, with hopefully “turistas” willing to spend the much needed euros in Spain. Somehow, the news just don’t want to start on a positive note. The big elephant in the European room sure is moving. Various news in local El Pais press over the past few days. Spain is crying.
Bankia to ask for a further 19 billion euros in bailout funds
Central bank chief asks to appear in Congress over Bankia
Catalonia urges central government to provide support to pay debts
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