Podcasts about keynsian

In this episode, Cedric sits down with Lawrence Lepard, to catch up on the state of the economy in 2024, where we are with the ETFs and Bitcoin.  Larry Lepard first purchased BTC in 2013. Partner of Fund focusing on "sound money". Partner of Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. Outspoken advocate for sound money and ending The Federal Reserve and the Keynsian driven lie. Sponsors: River is the Bitcoin exchange of choice for the long-term investor. Use this link to get started and earn up to $100 in BTC when you buy Bitcoin at River. Theya is a simple and secure multi-sig vault for BTC self custody. Download the app on your phone today and go multi sig to secure your Bitcoin for generations. GET SIX MONTHS FREE HERE: theya.us/cedric Affiliates: Use the code Matrix for 10% off your tickets for Bitcoin Day Miami on May 11. Bitcoin Day Miami is designed to forge lifelong connections between expert speakers and all good people anywhere on their Bitcoin journey It also has quickly become my favorite bitcoin conference. Bitcoin Day Miami brings you high-caliber speakers that are only seen from a distance at the big shows and instead brings everyone together in the same room for a strategic day of vision and action. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to level up your Bitcoin game! Get your tickets today at https://bitcoinday.io/miami24  Aupa energy bars: A new kind of energy bar, live life untamed, Question everything. Use the code MATRIX at eataupa.com for a discount off your purchase. Hodlers Official is the Team Bitcoin merch and memorabilia company for Bitcoin's biggest fans! Go to hodlersofficial.com today and get your Team Bitcoin gear and use the code MATRIX for 10% off your entire purchase! The Florida Beef Initiative - Discover their premium beef selections, like the Florida Pasture Beef Box, and join a movement that's restoring Florida's local economy one juicy, grass-fed, succulent steak at a time. Visit The Florida Beef Initiative to be part of the change. Cedric can help you set up your multi-sig vault, estate plan, collaborative custody, or be of service via The Bitcoin Adviser. Book some time to talk on my calendar.  Follow Larry on Twitter Follow Cedric Youngelman on Twitter Follow The Bitcoin Matrix Podcast on Twitter Finally if you could write a five star review for The Bitcoin Matrix Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts that would really help get the word out and help new listeners find the show. And thank you for listening!

With the CPI coming in slightly cooler than expected and producer prices unexpectedly falling, a lot of people think the Fed pivot is now in play and we will soon see an end to monetary tightening. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the possibility of a pivot, market reaction, and most importantly, the possible ramifications. You can visit the show notes page here: https://bit.ly/3KZq9wD TOPICS DISCUSSED -Mainstream ignorance and Keynsian claptrap -NY Fed president either ignorant or lying -An overview of March CPI -Has the Fed really beaten inflation? -The Fed's nasty position -US budget deficit already over $1T Tune in to the Friday Gold Wrap each week for a recap of the week's economic and political news as it relates to gold and silver, along with some insightful commentary. For more information visit https://schiffgold.com/news.

On March 17, 2023, Balaji Srinivasan wrote a tweet thread that started with a simple, shocking bet that the price of one Bitcoin would reach $1,000,000 in the next 90 days. Balaji is an American entrepreneur and investor. He was the co-founder of Counsyl, the former Chief Technology Officer of Coinbase, and former general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. ARK CEO and CIO Cathie Wood agrees that the price of a Bitcoin could reach $1M, but ARK's prediction on when this might happen is very different. In today's episode, Cathie and Balaji discuss their current and future outlook on the United States and global economies, the cryptocurrency ecosystem and their reaction to the recent volatility surrounding the regional banking crisis.   “The economy…It's like altitude right, if your altitude is [up] here you can take a certain set of maneuvers, if your altitude is close to the ground you cannot take the same set of maneuvers.” – @balajis Key Points From This Episode: An introduction to Balaji and his prediction that Bitcoin could reach $1M in the next 90 days Cathie sets up her initial argument that we are in a deflationary environment What we can learn from Argentina; when it was printing money while simultaneously raising interest rate Balaji argues that there are only three true currency pairs in the world today Balaji's belief that there is a desire to exit the American financial system and that the financial system itself is inherently hard to predict Cathie shares her thesis that that the velocity of money is starting to flatten The potential for a “hard landing” in the economy How the recent regional banking crisis effects Cathie and Balaji's predictions on inflation Balaji compares the Federal Reserve (Fed) Funds rate to Bitcoin's issuance schedule How the 1980s compare to today in terms of inflation and interest rates Cathie provides a brief history on the guiding force behind Fed policy What could potentially happen to the use cases of Bitcoin should it rapidly increase in value Balaji's belief that the world is running backwards in time but that the outcome will be different Why consumers have started to move money away from banks and instead have focused their attention on trying to earn yield on their money Why today's economic events could be considered black swan events Balaji states that we may not have a widespread bank crisis, but instead we could specifically have a central bank crisis The potential that the Fed could be looking at the wrong indicators How the very existence of Bitcoin might defeat Keynsian economists theories at their core Why deflation might be a good thing for Blockchain technology Why Balaji believes states should continue to support cryptocurrencies “Fiat currency”, as referred to in this podcast, means traditional, government-issued currency, such as the US dollar.

Summary: FSN has always analyzed economics, but we are currently facing economic insanity. The gold standard is now more relevant than ever, and Nathan Lewis comes on the show to talk about global phenomena that have been taking place; the world market economy has experienced much change over the years, and a Keynsian governmental perspective is prevalent. Tune in for more. Highlights: -Lewis has been writing for 17 years now. He started with what was known and expanded -We've seen inflation kick in, and expansion of the government into the economy -The Magic Formula outlines the fundamental recipe that made the whole world wealthy: stable money and low taxes -Between 1994 and 2016, nominal GDP in US dollars in China grew by 26 times because they had the ‘magic formula' -This tapered off when China took a more authoritarian stand -We've been in an economic predicament with the Chinese for many years, and have more recently discovered this -The flood of new labor onto the world market economy came due to the lifting of communism and strict trade agreements -Advances in communication allowed more things to be produced in China rather than the US, which created struggles for US workers -We should have all the components of a major industrial economy contained in the United States -China does have a legitimate claim to Taiwan -The Canadian trucker movement is spreading -There are now Austrian devotees that see the value in free markets -The internet can amplify these messages and make them more universal -We're kind of in the era of Keynsian government with big governments Useful Links: Financial Survival Network New World Economics Nathan Lewis – Time to Cut the Federal Government in Half Nathan K. Lewis – Is the Gold Standard Our Salvation?

Summary: Global health restrictions are somewhat declining—is this a net plus for the economy, or are we too far down the rabbit hole for it to make a difference? I have Martin Armstrong on the show to discuss what's to come for the economy; we are in a unique situation, and in this episode we discuss different economies across the globe and potential outcomes. Highlights: -Global health restrictions are somewhat declining—is this a net plus for the economy, or are we too far down the rabbit hole for it to make a difference? -Keynsian economics has completely failed—raising/lowering interest rates and increasing the money supply isn't helping our cause -International flows are still coming into the market and chasing stock -There has been a collapse in the confidence of the government Useful Links: Financial Survival Network Armstrong Economics The Latest Updates from Martin Armstrong for 2022.02.01 The Latest Updates from Martin Armstrong – 2022.01.30

Quantum Economic theory is a brand new kind of economic school of thought that is currently being developed before us through blockchain enlightenment. It is up to us to develop Quantum Economics going foreword.

JMART CAST is J-Mart's Monday Morning Podcast. Like Bill Burr but bettah :PToday's episode is about:Christmas celebrations with my and my wife's familybuilding a toy dinosaur with my sonbaking bread at my neighbour's housewarfarin is rat poison and medicineTrudeau videoend of nation statesBitcoin updateAustrian vs Keynsian economicsConnect with J-Mart on Social MediaInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/jmartfit/​Twitter - https://twitter.com/jmartfitFacebook page - https://fb.me/jmartmoves​Medium page - https://jmartwrites.medium.com/Newsletter - newsletter@jmartfit.comYou can also check out my State of Health Podcast (health education geared) on the platform of your choice:Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/state-of-health/id1540500767Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/280adseGOPdxg6cZZrTqbR?si=gBPeEknXR0y7gW1DuZpSxQAmazon Music - https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/01bb34c0-00a2-45e2-8627-95c32aba7c0e/state-of-healthStitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/state-of-healthGoogle Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5yZWRjaXJjbGUuY29tL2QzZGIwODYxLWJmODItNDc0Mi1iZGYzLWMyZDAxODQ4ODY2Ng==Referral LinksShakepay - Sign up with my link and we'll each get $10 to buy crypto:https://shakepay.me/r/HNT0N6QWild Meadows Farm — https://wildmeadowsfarm.ca/register?referral_code=V2OMFtc5XYJdBlockFi — https://blockfi.com/?ref=153dfa59Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/state-of-health/donations

This is part 2, a continuation from yesterday's show. Braxton from New Orleans asks: It feels like we are certainly departing from the status quo of the past 10-20 years. I have taken cash out of some of my small rental properties but struggle to re-deploy in more investment properties because prices continue to be pushed upward. There is a mountain of liquidity and increasing competition for investment at low yield. My personal view is we may see near term inflation, but I am concerned we could also be at the doorstep of another debt crisis like in 2008. It appears as though speculative mania has taken over in many markets. How do you view the inflation vs deflation risk and balance you near term investment decisions? If there is inflation it would make sense to buy assets as the housing rents should keep pace with prices, however if there is deflation retaining cash may make more sense. I would like to know how you are thinking through this scenario as each path will likely have very different outcomes. I think we are going to experience a period of stagflation, a combination of economic stagnation combined with inflation. Stagflation is caused when something artificial causes economic contraction. Efforts to stimulate the economy are held back because the artificial cause is still present. The result is an economy that is flooded with cash, but nowhere to go. The result is inflationary despite the economic contraction. That means prices will fall in some sectors of the economy, but not all. The artificial event of course is the pandemic this time around. Governments the world over are ordering businesses to close and to not conduct business in order to protect human life and the healthcare system. Keynsian economists believe that stimulus will be inflationary and that retrenchment is deflationary. But that’s not necessarily true as we saw in the late 1970’s after the OPEC oil embargo. Any talk of deflation is of short term deflation. Nobody’s talking of a protracted depression like we saw in the 1930’s. I have no doubt that we are in a long term inflationary trend. This has been true since the early 1970’s. So the question is really whether a deflationary interlude would be devastating for you as an investor or not. The key to positioning your portfolio to handle a deflationary period is to make sure you have sufficient covering equity, and that you have sufficient monthly cash flow, or ample cash reserves. Your third question is whether we’re going to experience another debt crisis. A 2008 style residential real estate crash is possible, but not very likely in my view. The banks are much better capitalized and the Fed has basically told their member banks that they will buy up the toxic debt if it appears. It would take a big rise in interest rates in order for loan rates to become unaffordable, which would trigger a drop in real estate prices. For now, the Federal Reserve has issued guidance for the next couple of years that rates would remain low. When you do the math on the excess reserves that the banks have on deposit at the Fed, there’s more than enough cash there to handle a massive default on real estate. As of earlier this week, the new Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen who was previously Chair of the Federal Reserve has been the cheerleader for even more aggressive printing of money. We may be facing a sovereign debt crisis at some point in the future, but not a real estate debt crisis. I believe the US government is going to print money until the population or the rest of the world loses confidence in the dollar. At that point, we will experience rising interest rates in order for the US to sell its bonds. If the US doesn’t succeed in restoring confidence in the dollar, then the US will lose its position as the global reserve currency and will get reset into some other monetary system.

Dawn Carpenter is the creator and host of What Does It Profit? - a podcast that explores how we can reconcile capitalism's demand for profit with the long term well-being of people and the planet, She is a former investment banker who had a mid-career pivot to studying applied ethics, the nature work, and the responsibilities of wealth. Dawn and Jenna discuss the rights and responsibilities corporations have to both shareholders and stakeholders, and how those dynamics have evolved from the postwar Keynsian period through the neoliberal era to the crossroads we seem to be at today.We'll be back with a full episode next week. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving from our team to yours and we hope you enjoy this interview.Additional InformationWhat Does It Profit?Related EpisodesWhat neoliberalism left behindWhen business bleeds into politics 

Today we sit down with Bheki Mahlobo, an economics student and active bitcoiner from South Africa. Bheki appears in the new bitcoin documentary Banking on Africa - which is great and you should definitely check it out. Bheki discovered Austrian economics in high school and has gone on to study economics, albeit of the Keynsian variety, at university but describes how he studies Austrian economics on his own. We discuss the state of the economy and of bitcoin in South Africa and running a full node! Citizen Bitcoin on TwitterCitizen Bitcoin PodcastCitizen Bitcoin Layer One merch collectionBitcoiner's BestMusic: Moon in the Sky by HobotekBheki on Twitter

The format of this show is that each show is centered around one guest. The guest happened to be our good friend John Sneisen along and the interviewer was my good friend Kirk Chisholm. Then after the main portion of the show is produced, Kirk invites back panelist to discuss what their guest (John Sneisen) had to say.   Since John is my friend and since it was very early in the morning.  I wasn't in the mood for any talk praising the government or Keynsian economics and I sort've let loose.  Kirk is the managing principal of my firm and the other ladies were nice but let me know what you think.    PS no accompanying Video aside from video teaser on youtube.  

Samuel Gregg discusses the anti-Keynsian fusionist everyone should know: Wilhelm Röpke.

Squares have caught on to the inevitable recession. Here is why we agree and disagree.

In this episode, we chatted with Pierre Rochard, who co-founded Nakamoto Institute & co-hosts the noded podcast. We chatted on a variety of topics ranging from the evil of keynesian economics to Lightning Network & so much more. Topics Discussed : 1) How Pierre Got into Bitcoin [ 00:50 ] 2) Pierre’ Journey of Nakamoto Institute & Noded Poscast [ 7:00 ] 3) Where does Keynsian economics fail? [ 9:25 ] 4) Lightning Network & steps to ensure that centralisation doesn’t come into play [ 15:57 ] 5) How Important Is Lightning For Bitcoin To Succeed [ 19:52 ] 6) Lightning residency & cool projects seen there [ 22:37 ] 7) Biggest threats to Bitcoin adoption & possible government interception [ 29:22 ] 8) Key management wallets [ 39:19 ] 9) What’s hampering Bitcoin growth [ 44:36 ] 10) What’s the role of Bitcoin maximalism [ 51:17 ] 11) Altcoins [ 1:01:30 ] 12) Institutional Interest & how do they view Bitcoin [ 1:05:40 ] ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Relevant Links : Nakamoto Institute : https://nakamotoinstitute.org/ Noded Poscast : https://noded.org/ Pierre's Twitter : https://twitter.com/pierre_rochard ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Subscribe to "Inchained" : http://youtube.com/arnavvohra7 for future videos on Blockchain & Cryptos. ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬●

Long a vocal critic of empty-headed and dangerous government initiatives and fiscal policies, Dr Paul has been warning against a government that is corrupt, bloated, and not inclined to act in the interests of the citizens.  Before these issues became trendy, Dr. Paul was a vocal critic of unsustainable federal debt, government spying on citizens, shaky Keynsian-based economic policies, never-ending war, and nonsensical drug policy..  He was the US Representative for the stae of Texas'14th and 22nd  congressional districts, representing the 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1985, and then the 14th congressional district, which included from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, Paul ran for the Presidency of the United States, first as the Libertarian Party nominee in1988 and as a candidate in te Republican primaries of of 2008 and 2012.    

THE "BATTLE OF IDEAS":  FROM FDR TO LBJ TO REAGAN The debate between the left and the right has often been called, "The Battle of Ideas."  For Progressives, the pinnacle of their power was reached when President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Great Society and War on Poverty programs of the early 1960s.  Johnson saw himself as a Progressive in the mold of FDR, who guided the United States through the deprivations of the Great Depression through a series of interventionist policies, most of which proved to be largely ineffective, but were great public relations for activist and interventionist government.  It gave the public the impression that their elected leaders were making every effort to alleviate their suffering.  How well the programs were working was almost besides the point and without having a better idea, the Republicans were seen as anachronistic, almost brutish. The Left rejoiced when Johnson declared War on Poverty.  Their ideas would finally be put to the test and all the world would be able to witness the results.  This form of activism had many political advantages, not the least of which was one the Founders warned as a signal of the end of the Republic itself.  Benjamin Franklin is thought to have said, "When the people find they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."  The political advantage to this is that it allows politicians to demonize anyone opposing these policies. During the intervening half century, politicians did just that.  Faced with program cost overruns, corruption and abuses of all kinds, the Progressives defended against any attempt at reform and improvement of these programs.  Nevertheless, the programs were failing to achieve the desired results.  Even the dire predictions of the inevitable moral hazards posed by these programs from Progressives were shouted down. Perhaps the most famous of these were the warnings of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who saw liberalization of welfare assistance as deleterious to the health of the nuclear family.  Moynihan reasoned that if welfare allowances were increased with the number of children in a home without a male, father figure or breadwinner, then the family unit would be destabilized.  Financial benefits would be greater to a home without a father present and fathers would be driven out of the home in order to gain a greater benefit.  This is what is meant by a moral hazard. A moral hazard is when a law creates a perverse incentive.  Obviously, creating financial incentives which unintentionally drive fathers out of the home is not what the creators of these welfare programs wanted, but that is what they got.  Moynihan was ridiculed for predicting this result, which he believed would affect the black family to a much greater degree simply because blacks were disproportionately poorer than whites and therefore more likely to be eligible for the program benefits. The last half century of experience has proven Moynihan correct.  Certainly there are many factors affecting fatherlessness, but the impact of perverse incentives on low income and poor black families cannot be overstated. This is just one example, but there are many others which reflect how the ideas of the Left have failed with disastrous consequences for the country.  By the end of the 1970s, America was ready for a change and they got it with the election of Ronald Reagan. President Reagan was the most conservative President since Calvin Coolidge.  He entered office after a period marked by generations of Progressive Presidents.  Hoover, FDR, 1Truman, JFK, LBJ and Nixon would all identify as either left or right Progressives.  Harding, Coolidge and Eisenhower were not Progressives.  Reagan entered office standing against decades of  Progressive history, with the task of undoing its damage.  Considering the daunting task it was, Reagan put a significant dent into the Progressives momentum.  The fantastic success of his economic policies was astonishing.  Though today's Progressives do level criticism at Reagan's economic performance, it's hard to argue with the results:  almost 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth and near full employment. The success of the Reagan Presidency marked the first time Progressive policies suffered a major repudiation through the successful implementation of conservative public policy.  At its core, Reagan's economic policy employed so called "supply side economic theory."  At the risk of oversimplification, the theory treated the macroeconomic inputs of labor and capital as responsive to the change in their prices.  Therefore, as the theory goes, if policy could lower the price of both labor and capital, we should witness greater demand for both.  Through lowering marginal tax rates on labor and capital, coupled with regulatory reform, the cost of both could be reduced.  Increased demand for labor means jobs.  Increased demand for capital means investment.  The two combined together equals growth.  Supply side economics worked. Progressives have been touting the Keynsian model for economic growth since the Great Depression.  The efficacy of the Keynsian model was doubted even by FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morganthau.  The Keynsian model targets demand for goods and services in the aggregate.  It relies on government spending in deficit.  Essentially, the theory states that a dollar spent by the government trickles its way down through the economy in such a manner that it generates more than a dollar of economic activity.  The difference over the amount originally spent by the government is called, "the multiplier effect."  The only trouble is, Keynsianism does not appear to work, or at best is of very limited utility. In 1939, the aforementioned Henry Morganthau, in the company of Democrats from the House Ways and Means Committee, made the following statement: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.  I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!" More than anyone else, Henry Morganthau, Jr., was the man most responsible for the Keynsian policies that funded the New Deal. Despite all of its shortcomings, politicians on both sides of the aisle embraced Keynsian economics.  Keynsianism, involves Congress appropriating and spending money targeted toward programs designed to address problems.  Often, even when the efficacy of a government program is dubious, spending has a greater political benefit than not spending.  When progress toward solving problems is not likely to be had, politicians will settle for the optics of appearing to be doing something constructive.  It is in this way that government spending becomes a crutch or an addiction for both the politician and the constituent.  In the absence of a better answer, spending on poorly designed and ineffective government programs became deeply entrenched into our government structure and body politic.  With Reagan, there seemed to finally be an answer coming from the right.  An answer that not only worked, but seemed popular.  In his bid for re-election in 1984, Ronald Reagan won a 49 state landslide.  But Reagan's success was limited to macroeconomic policy.  He did little to reform the Progressive welfare state and its mentality of government dependency.  That would come six years after Reagan left office. 1994:  THE REAGAN VICTORY IN THE 'BATTLE OF IDEAS' In 1994, with a newly minted Democrat President in the White House, Bill Clinton, the mid-term elections witnessed an historic event.  The Republican Party won a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.  Led by Newt Gingrich, a Republican Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, Gingrich proposed a "Contract with America."  This was the conservatives response to those many consecutive decades of dysfunctional left progressive programs that were rotting due to poor design and moral hazard. After several attempts, the Contract with America was signed into law by Bill Clinton.  Welfare rolls and government dependency was cut in half.  People formerly on the government dole were employed and self sufficient.  Not everyone celebrated the success of the Contract with America.  Its success revealed just how deeply entrenched welfare statists had become. When governments establish bureaucracies and programs, those bureaucracies and programs develop constituents.  When those bureaucracies and programs are aimed at solving a social ill, like poverty, a counter-intuitive dynamic can result:  if the problem were solved, there would be no need for the program or bureau.  This runs counter to the way people think and behave.  A bureau created to address poverty will cultivate a constituency comprised of the poor.  How would such a bureau measure its success?  Would it measure it by the number of people it could find who are eligible for their program?  Or would it measure success by how many people it lifted out of poverty, away from government dependency and toward self sufficiency?Experience has shown us that bureaucracies behave much like people do and strive for self-preservation at a minimum.  This is not surprising since bureaucracies are comprised of people. This presents us with a gigantic problem.  From the early 20th century until the present day, the Federal government has been shaped by a permanent bureaucracy, largely put in place by Left Progressives to address certain domestic social problems.  Over several generations, those programs and bureaus have created an entrenched constituency invested in the perpetuation of the social problems as much or more than their resolution.  This contradiction and its side effects are exacerbated by poorly designed programs which fail to achieve their goals and often create permanent dependent constituents. If this were the only problem, Americans would still have their hands full.  Ronald Reagan's Presidency and the later Contract with America, have clearly cut a pathway toward correcting this problem.  The challenge is not only in government itself.  Tens of millions of Americans have been raised on the notion that government will be their caretaker and they have been taught to feel entitled to it.  The Contract with America began to reverse that thinking until 2006, when the Democrats retook the House and Senate and worked quickly to undo all those reforms. The "Battle of Ideas" ended with the consecutive successes of the Reagan economic policy and the Contract with America.  From that moment in the late 1990s forward, the political atmosphere in America turned toxic.  Americans noticed its toxicity, but seemed less observant as to its proximate cause.  Focusing on personalities of political leaders and less on policy, most of the public failed to notice something a few political observers couldn't miss:  Conservative solutions worked far better than Progressive ones.  As the 20th century came to a close, the Progressive Left hardly felt the need to panic.  Clinton was a successful two-term President, even though his administration was plagued with scandal.  The economy prospered greatly while he was President, owing to much good fortune:  the continuation of Reagan era economic policy, the "Peace Dividend" resulting from the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist bloc, and the advent of the internet.  With the 2000 Presidential election just over the horizon and Vice President Al Gore, the heir apparent to Clinton, the Progressive Left was unconcerned their dominance on the American political landscape would be challenged.  It didn't work out that way. THE GREAT DIVIDE AND RE-EMERGENCE OF LEFT PROGRESSIVES The 2000 Presidential race will go down in history as the closest race ever.  George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by acquiring just one more electoral vote than needed to win, 271.  The controversy was made even greater by the fact that Bush's brother was governor of the State of Florida, where a recount dragged on for weeks until the Supreme Court decided that the race was over and Bush won Florida by just over 500 votes and with it, the Presidency.  It was a very bitter pill to swallow for the Democrats. In politics, grudges can last a very long time and the 2000 race was no exception.  Today, 17 years later, many Democrats still believe Bush was not legitimately elected President.  The division resulting from the 2000 race had a wider impact than it would ordinarily have for reasons soon to be described.  Inasmuch as Bush was thought to have been fraudulently elected, everything Bush did while President was also thought to be fraudulent as well.  Eight months into his Presidency, the 9/11 attacks and the national response to it, brought Americans together briefly.  That unity was shattered after the United States failed to find an active WMD program in Iraq.  Democrats sensing weakness, accused the President of lying in order to draw the country into a war in Iraq, an extremely serious charge.  Such a thing, if true, is traitorous.  Although this charge whipped up many Democrat supporters into a frothy frenzy, they weren't serious.  In 2006, after the Democrats took back control of both the House and Senate from the Republicans, they never took any steps toward impeaching President Bush.  It's difficult to imagine why they wouldn't after accusing the President of being a traitor. The issue of the Iraq WMDs served to radicalize the Democrat Party from a left leaning party comprised of a mix of moderate so called "blue dog" Democrats, Liberals and Left Progressives.  By the 2006 mid-term elections, the party was firmly in control of the most extreme elements of the Left Progressives.  Even the Democrats' 2000 Vice Presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman,  was considered "too conservative" for their party and banished from it.  Less than a handful of years earlier, Democrats thought Lieberman was good enough to be President, if anything untoward were to happen to Al Gore. When the 2008 election cycle was in full swing, Americans wanted change.  More than change of party, Americans were restless and wanted more drastic change.  The Democrats were primed to nominate a full blown Leftist Progressive.  Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met that requirement, but Obama was a fresh face, whereas Clinton was a well known quantity.  Obama defeated Clinton and won the Presidency easily over a sclerotic John McCain. When Obama assumed the Presidency in 2009, the economy was hemorrhaging jobs and the contraction of GDP in the most recent quarter was greater than had been seen in decades.  In that crisis, the President was given great leeway to boost the economy.  But Obama was hardly an experienced veteran in national politics or macroeconomic theory.  If anything, Obama was a street organizing academic from Chicago.  That's where he had the most experience and that's the experience and background he relied on.  The key members of Obama's cabinet and the plethora of other economic advisers were all out of the academic world with few, if any, having any business experience upon which to rely.  It was a recipe waiting to become an unmitigated disaster.  All the components for a catastrophic policy failure were present: An inexperienced leftist ideologue in the Presidency A team of advisers who were mostly inexperienced leftist ideologues, as well. All of them wedded to the failed notion of Keynsian solutions All of them true believers in the cause of Left Progressivism A country deep in crisis Within the first month of being in office, President Obama passed a Stimulus Package without a single Republican vote.  He could do that because the Democrats controlled the House with a comfortable margin and the Democrats held a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.  The Stimulus package cost more in a single year than either war in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost from the day those two conflicts began until that time.  This enormous expenditure was supposed to stimulate the economy to robust growth and regenerate millions of jobs.  Of course, it didn't. Compounding injury upon insult, a large portion of the Stimulus Package's appropriations became part of the baseline budget for the agencies receiving the funding.  This meant that a large share of the Stimulus Money would be spent out of federal agencies year after year until the Congress passed a new budget.  This was Keynsianism on a scale we have never witnessed.  By the time Obama left office in 2017, he had doubled the national debt, adding nearly $10 trillion dollars to the total without much to show for it.  The economy had not grown.  Low wage private sector jobs were created, but not the kind of jobs needed to sustain a growing economy.  This grand experiment in Leftist Progressive economics was a catastrophic failure. Obama's Left Progressive experimentation was only just beginning.  The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, was supposed to insure all Americans without disrupting those who already had insurance and doctors and preferred what they had.  That promise turned out to be a fraud. PROGRESSIVISM'S SECOND AMERICAN FAILURE By the 2010 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost in historic landslides at every level of government.  State legislative chambers switch control, Republicans were back in control in the House and many governorships were lost to the Republicans.  Despite admitting his party was "shellacked", Obama never moderated; a sign of a true believing ideologue.  Conventional wisdom blamed anger over the passage of Obama's health care overhaul, The Affordable Care Act(ACA), or Obamacare, as the reason for such a sweeping loss of seats.  But voter anger over the ACA hardly explains losses at the state legislative level.  The reasons lay deeper.  Voters were losing confidence in the elected political leadership's ability to effectively address issues of concern.  The 2010 mid-term elections was a statement to the Left Progressives of the Democrat party that voters didn't like the direction the country was heading.  Those kinds of messages, however, are lost on elitist ideologues like Barack Obama who zealously believe in their ideological prescriptions.  It would be one thing if those prescriptions had never been attempted, but they had been tried previously in the US and elsewhere, and simply didn't work. Herein lies the problem with true believing ideologues:  No amount of failure deters them.  They pursue their ideological agenda with a religious fervor.  Their failures are inevitably accompanied by alibis.  One excellent example are the true believers in Marxism.  Even through the fall of the USSR and the rest of the Eastern European Marxist states, true believers today claim those nations weren't truly Marxist at all.  In fact, they believe they never were Marxist.  This is denial because for the seven decades the USSR was in existence, no Marxist ideologues anywhere were making such claims.  Only when the USSR collapsed and more liberal, capitalistic and open societies took their place, did the ideologues make their dishonest claim. The Progressive Left in the United States is every bit as wedded to their ideas as those heartbroken European Marxists trying to make sense out of a failed and corrupt ideology.  The danger comes when those true believers have access to the levers of power.   WHAT CAUSES AN IDEOLOGY TO SUCCEED OR FAIL Ideologies when used as organizing principles for societies, succeed or fail to the extent they are successful interpreting basic human nature.  Karl Marx failed to properly interpret the basic human condition. Marx's ambition was to explain all of reality with what he called scientific socialism.  If correct,  his theories of Nature could apply to human society, too.  His theories were provably false, however. Essentially, Marx believed all of Nature, including human society, was governed by three laws.  These were the Laws of Opposites, Negation and Transformation.  Without getting too buried in the weeds, these laws were supposed to explain motion, life cycles, proliferation and change.  Marx believed his laws could be observed and applied to the behavior of atoms as well as humans in society.  Rather than explain Nature's laws, Marx's Laws only presumed much of what it supposedly claimed to explain.  Furthermore, Marx's theories of motion, proliferation and change were repudiated by observations to the contrary.  In other words, science itself proved "scientific socialism" to be false. Perhaps Marx's biggest mistake was believing human nature, if it evolves at all, can evolve quickly and sufficiently enough to be noticeable.  Adherents to Marx's philosophy have gone even one step further and believed human nature itself could be engineered.  The attempts to do so in the 20th century led to the death of over 100 million people. Progressivism suffers from the same malady as Marxism, but is decidedly less virulent.  Progressives believe in progress, naturally.  But Progressives never define progress.  They only tell us it's inevitable, but they can't tell us the direction we are going.  Progressives also seem to have internal contradictions in their ideology.  For example, if humans are progressing, then we should expect social ills like racism to eventually wither away.  If such were the case then laws protecting certain racial minorities could one day be repealed.  Progressives find this idea repellent and argue that we must always have anti-racial discrimination laws because they say we will always have racial discrimination.  But if humanity is truly progressing, racial discrimination must eventually come to an end.  If Progressives assume that racial discrimination will always be with us, then what is Progressiveism really all about?  Progressivism seems to be rather subjective and political in this regard. Also, it is not quite true that human society is always progressing.  During the Roman Empire, Roman homes had running water and indoor plumbing.  After the Roman Empire fell in the late 5th Century, Europe was without indoor plumbing for a thousand years.  That advance in technology was lost for an entire millenium.  So, it can hardly be said that human society makes continual forward progress.  Like Marxism, Progressive ideology also has a fatal flaw. Conservatism works because it's not an ideology in the truest sense of the word and it comes closest to the pin in its interpretation of basic human nature.  How does it do this?  Well, first of all, Conservatism doesn't have a view of how the world ought to be.  It understands the world as it is.  This is very different from both Marxism and Progressivism, which have a very specific view of what society should look like.  Secondly, Conservatism acknowledges that human beings will always act in their own self interest, at least as a primary impulse.  Our first impulse as human beings is not to act for the collective, as the Utopian Socialist or Marxist might say,  but for the individual self.  Finally, unlike Marxism and Progressivism, Conservatism does not hold that human nature is changeable.  You could say that Conservatives find that human nature today is not very different from those of our ancestors who wrote on cave walls 10,000 years ago. Conservatism, though not perfect, works best because it interprets the world it sees rather than to change the world.  It organizes societies around Man's basic nature to act in his self interest, rather than endeavor to change Man's nature into something else.  Economic and social relationships are organized around this reality.  The results are largely harmonious, prosperous and successful societies.  Conservatism has its imperfections, but when compared to the problems in Marxist or Progressive societies, they are minor. WHERE WE ARE TODAY Everything I have pointed out here is known to the Left Progressives, Marxists, Communists and others on the Left.  They know their ideas have failed, but they have not accepted failure.  At the same time, they are well aware of the success of Conservatism.  But remember, to an ideologue, their ideology is like a religion.  They aren't going to abandon it.  Instead of retreating into a period of introspection and reflection, they are doing all they can to seize as much power through indoctrination and propaganda as possible.  Their efforts become for hysterical and radical and in some cases even violent because their only weapon against ideas that actually work for the betterment of society is fear and intimidation whose direct object is to silence the opposition. The great social experiment into Left Progressivist government has gone on for almost 100 years.  Along the way, there have been some good ideas like weekends, and  paid vacation time for employees, but many bad ideas too, like Prohibition.  It is time for the Progressives to move aside and let Conservatism work instead of impeding it.  They aren't likely to do so because they have learned from the success of the Ronald Reagan Presidency and the later Reagan Revolution in Congress that Conservative solutions work and they represent an existential threat to the Progressive Left agenda which has been a dismal failure for many decades.  So, in some sense, their fanatical hysteria understandable.  They know that Conservative policy implementation would be very likely to be successful and gain broad popular support.  Their opposition to Conservatism has a great deal to do with preserving their power and less with the good of society.  Progressives are in both political parties.  It's part of the reason so little ever seems to change in our national politics. The principles of the Progressive Left amounts to a counter-revolution to our Founding.  They seek to fundamentally transform the United States into a centrally planned authoritarian state controlled by one political party.

In this week's episode, Ema and Julia discuss Post Keynsian economics with special guest Josh Clemson, a fellow Oberlin College economics major. Post Keynsian is similar to the original Keynsian economics that emerged following the great depression, in that it highly encourages government spending and discourages high interest rates. However, Post-Keynsianism is unique in its founding of 'macroeconomics', which is an economic term for studying the aggregated economy, and its rejection of many of the norms of neoclassical economics, like equilibrium our old friend, Homo-economicus.

We will look at some of the elements of this consensus, at how the desire for stability influences corporate policy, and some of the consequences of the Keynesian consensus.