STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Keynes Cocktail Is No Joke
By Staff News & Analysis - July 19, 2011

Austin Driven to Drink Keynesian … Does the economy have you feeling muddled? Let's put that muddler to better use. Climb aboard the Keynesian Economics bar crawl in Austin! – CNBC

Dominant Social Theme: That Keynes is some funny guy.

Free-Market Analysis: This really isn't funny to us. We've kinda lost our sense of humor, at least about John Maynard, Keynes, Keynesianism, The Fabian Society, the Bloomsbury group … and all the rest. We're seeing the results of Keynesianism all around us and it isn't pretty.

A few months ago there seemed to be a genuine Keynesian revival. It was a kind of sub-dominant social theme, as if the elites were beginning another campaign to remake Keynes' credibility. We began to read articles – even in the "soft" libertarian press – about how Keynes really didn't mean for his theories to produce the current havoc. They'd been misapplied, you see.

But what did Keynes expect? He began his career as a central banker, working for the Bank of London and his general theory handed over the keys to the vault – complete with equations – to the State. He provided Leviathan an entire ready-made justification for the worst kind of meddling. We don't see why he would be indignant about it. He planned it that way.

What are the results of modern Keynesianism? Well, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's been trying hard to make Keynes' theories work without much success. The whole idea that government can administer an economy has kind of fallen by the wayside. What's left behind are smoldering ruins. The US has some US$200 trillion in obligations and not a chance in hell of paying it out.

A big devaluation is coming; people will probably die as a result. They'll starve to death in the dark, unable to find work or live on the constantly dwindling benefits the government continues to offer with less and less enthusiasm. Thanks, Dr. Keynes – we'll take a pass on the bar crawl.

Mike Litt is grateful to Keynes as well, according to CNBC. He's the "genius" behind the launch of a "Mixed Economy" cocktail to be made available at three different Austin bars on July 23rd. (See above excerpt.) CNBC finds it's as funny as Litt does (go figure).

It may take you three bars to understand John Maynard Keynes. Be sure to bring a tax attorney and a designated driver. "Rampant Free Market Ideology Has Put the Idea of a Mixed Economy 'on the Rocks'" is Litt's pitch, which he's promoting on social media, twitter.com/amixedeconomy and on its own website – amixedeconomy.com.

"Seventy-six people have RSVP'd so far on the Facebook page to attend the bar crawl," Litt tells me. "That should improve the economy, at least for that night." The Mixed Economy cocktail is made of vodka and pomegranate juice, a "socially-minded drink" that "aims to spur discussion and increase support for Keynesian thought."

It's come to that? You have to get people drunk to increase support for Keynes? Litt submitted the idea as part an Austin art event. His website, iLoveMikeLitt.com, describes his efforts and those of his friends as "an outlet to put together cultural events that we think would be fun and awesome."

According to the article, Litt is a "self-described progressive who support veganism … non-profits … and the need for government intervention. "Participants in the bar crawl will receive a picture of Keynes and a recipe. They'll also get an "explanation of his economic model …

"If markets and individual actions alone don't produce the results we want as a society, we can take collective action through institutions like government to make adjustments. That's the idea behind a mixed economy." Too bad Litt never read Human Action or he'd know mixed economies don't work. They always end up invalidating price discovery and then the whole thing inevitably tumbles down.

As for Keynes, there's no hope that the algorithmic nonsense he was peddling will leave the premises altogether. He's the State's favorite economist because he wrote a book as heavy as a door-stopper to explain that the State had a role to play in private markets.

The book (General Theory) is incomprehensible; his theories are wrong; they don't work in practice, but because he proposed that Leviathan could be aided in its quest to build a better tomorrow by printing money, he will be in favor virtually forever or until the whole rotten edifice tumbles (which could be very soon).

Keynes' was a forerunner of modern, forward-looking statistical analysis, which has virtually taken over the field of economics. But like so many professions in the modern-era, it's based on a fallacy. We know that is impossible to make specific projections about the economy and human behavior – except very generally – because once government plans are put into action to address the perceived problems human behavior CHANGES. That's why government laws are always running into "unintended consequences."

Anyway, Keynes' big idea – one that took several thousand pages to write and to prove (and even then he was wrong) was that government could save money for the bad times and then ameliorate business cycle downturns by spending it to cushion the downturn. It was actually an idea built on the Austrian concept of the business cycle; only it gave the State and central banking a role to play.

In actuality, of course, regulatory democracies NEVER ever "save." Governments are run by people who are anxious to loot as much money as they can before their terms run dry. Thus, there is no money for the "rainy day" that Keynes was supposedly focused on.

Instead of spending money already saved, governments using Keynesian methodologies turn the printing presses on. This is what Bernanke is doing now, and has done twice. A third time may boost the price of gold and silver in to the stratosphere, while bankrupting elderly middle-class Americans who depend on the interest of their savings to live. The idea is to stimulate the employment market. But neither government nor central bankers can turn around a sour economy. The distortions have to work themselves out over time.

After Thoughts

Keynes was doubtless just doing his job, fulfilling his role in the power elite pantheon. Somebody had to provide a justification for central banking and Keynes was the fellow to do it. He was a secretive Fabian, after all; he believed in the rule of the manipulated-many by the clever few. Fabianism is all about lies and deceit; so he did what was necessary, but that doesn't mean he believed a word of it.

Posted in STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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