That's kind of funny. Some people call “spending policy” fiscal policy. “Spending policy”, how very, very apt for the times.

Sachs' thesis that policy shifts produce bubbles, which in turn cause larger economic pain down the road is interesting, but his argument is mostly grounded in: 1) conflating monetary policy with spending poilcy and 2) a bunch of assertions that aren't backed by any real evidence (to be fair, it is a short piece). Given #2, all I'm really left with is Jeffrey Sach's good name that what he's asserting is reliable. His role in taking “pre-ruined” economies and re-ruining them in all sorts of new and interesting ways, and his generally dreadful book “The End of Poverty” (sorry, not enough time today to get into why this re-packaging of failed 1950s development ideas is so bad – oh wait I guess that's enough) all I'm really left with is his name and my so-called “switch”. He's not a bad man, just not someone who, after producing a piece like this, should be taken seriously.

That's kind of funny. Some people call “spending policy” fiscal policy. “Spending policy”, how very, very apt for the times.

Sachs' thesis that policy shifts produce bubbles, which in turn cause larger economic pain down the road is interesting, but his argument is mostly grounded in: 1) conflating monetary policy with spending poilcy and 2) a bunch of assertions that aren't backed by any real evidence (to be fair, it is a short piece). Given #2, all I'm really left with is Jeffrey Sach's good name that what he's asserting is reliable. His role in taking “pre-ruined” economies and re-ruining them in all sorts of new and interesting ways, and his generally dreadful book “The End of Poverty” (sorry, not enough time today to get into why this re-packaging of failed 1950s development ideas is so bad – oh wait I guess that's enough) all I'm really left with is his name and my so-called “switch”. He's not a bad man, just not someone who, after producing a piece like this, should be taken seriously.

Anyway, are you able to follow and evaluate an argument or do you just have a good guys/bad guys switch that determines what utterances you thoughtlessly accept and reject?

In my balls, I feel like I'm all for it. Because, well, in the son of the enlightenment sense, I”m a liberal. In the other sense – I just barely made it through econometrics for dummies – I'm a libertarian.

But, Inflation is a regressive tax. Sin taxes are regressive taxes. (Etc., Etc., Etc.,) Square these circles and I'm on board. Shit, personally? I'm conflicted.

Is that the argument, Paul? A few might say that the massive influx of liquidity has begun to do the trick (yeah, chicago! boo, everyone else!) and we should consider getting ready to stop future “stimulative” expenditures.

Inflation is a somewhat regressive taxation, no?