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> It turns out that governments are bad at running economies. Extrapolating a general theory from just two examples seems like a mistake.

gmueckl 7y ago
Well, what other experimental data is there? If these incidents are the only data points, then that's the natural extrapolation, even though it is only weakly supported.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  As someone else pointed out, the New Deal, which gave us massive infrastructure projects that we still rely on and helped set the stage for postwar prosperity.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    The impact of the New Deal on post-war prosperity is debatable, but I want to focus on two different points. First, the New Deal mobilization is small in comparison to what has been proposed in the context of the "Green New Deal." From 1930 to 1940, total government spending (at all levels), jumped from 12% to 18%. That's 6% of GDP, or about $1.17 trillion annually. It's unclear what folks who use the phrase "total war mobilization" mean. If you're talking about the Green New Deal's proposal of hitting 0 carbon emissions within a decade, that's not close to enough: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/how-much-will-the-green-new-deal-cost/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/how-much-will-the-green-ne... > Pollin, however, strongly disagrees with the resolution’s aim of getting to net zero with just a decade of investment. “I think it’s completely unrealistic and it’s not worth costing out,” he said of the Green New Deal. $1 trillion is the price tag of a much more conservative approach that puts a much longer timeline on carbon reduction: > Edward Barbier, an economist at Colorado State University, agrees that a strict timeline isn’t realistic. He advocates jump-starting the transition by investing about 5 percent of GDP over five or so years. GDP was $20.5 trillion in 2018, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, so that’s a little over $1 trillion a year. “That would push us on a path to clean energy, and a path that permanently lowers carbon emissions,” he told us. The second point I want to make is that we have much less headroom to do a "New Deal"-style project than we did in 1930. We are actually already far in excess of New Deal-era government involvement in the economy. (See my link above.) Today, government spending is at around 35% of GDP. We are in fact closer to the "total war mobilization" of World War II (where spending peaked at 45%) than to the New Deal era 18%.
    - claudeganon 7y ago
      This demonstrates nothing other to me that the complexity of Capitalist economies and their industries grows over time in such a way that requires further state intervention and support to undergird them. This is true across most of the developed world and in regimes like China and likely will only expand in the future. Especially if Capitalism is to possibly survive the destructive consequences of its externalities.

gmueckl 7y ago

Well, what other experimental data is there? If these incidents are the only data points, then that's the natural extrapolation, even though it is only weakly supported.

claudeganon 7y ago
As someone else pointed out, the New Deal, which gave us massive infrastructure projects that we still rely on and helped set the stage for postwar prosperity.
- rayiner 7y ago
  The impact of the New Deal on post-war prosperity is debatable, but I want to focus on two different points. First, the New Deal mobilization is small in comparison to what has been proposed in the context of the "Green New Deal." From 1930 to 1940, total government spending (at all levels), jumped from 12% to 18%. That's 6% of GDP, or about $1.17 trillion annually. It's unclear what folks who use the phrase "total war mobilization" mean. If you're talking about the Green New Deal's proposal of hitting 0 carbon emissions within a decade, that's not close to enough: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/how-much-will-the-green-new-deal-cost/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/how-much-will-the-green-ne... > Pollin, however, strongly disagrees with the resolution’s aim of getting to net zero with just a decade of investment. “I think it’s completely unrealistic and it’s not worth costing out,” he said of the Green New Deal. $1 trillion is the price tag of a much more conservative approach that puts a much longer timeline on carbon reduction: > Edward Barbier, an economist at Colorado State University, agrees that a strict timeline isn’t realistic. He advocates jump-starting the transition by investing about 5 percent of GDP over five or so years. GDP was $20.5 trillion in 2018, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, so that’s a little over $1 trillion a year. “That would push us on a path to clean energy, and a path that permanently lowers carbon emissions,” he told us. The second point I want to make is that we have much less headroom to do a "New Deal"-style project than we did in 1930. We are actually already far in excess of New Deal-era government involvement in the economy. (See my link above.) Today, government spending is at around 35% of GDP. We are in fact closer to the "total war mobilization" of World War II (where spending peaked at 45%) than to the New Deal era 18%.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    This demonstrates nothing other to me that the complexity of Capitalist economies and their industries grows over time in such a way that requires further state intervention and support to undergird them. This is true across most of the developed world and in regimes like China and likely will only expand in the future. Especially if Capitalism is to possibly survive the destructive consequences of its externalities.