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That just explains the appeal of Keynesian economics to corporations and the government. The problem is that we kinda need to worry about the long term affects

• pessimizer 13y ago
  Only dealing with an indefinite long term is the same as not dealing at all. The fact is, during that entire indefinite period, people will be experiencing life in the present. The consequences of the means have to be justified by the benefits of the ends.
• smacktoward 13y ago
  It's not an argument for only dealing with the short term, it's an argument for not hand-waving away problems like "X million people can no longer earn a living" with responses like "oh, in the long run that will sort itself out."
• dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Dealing with the short term is really appealing, but it typically has the worst long term affects. At the same time, focussing only on the theoretically-projected long-term effects while neglecting the near-term effects is really appealing, but then we keep getting changes motivated by long-term (=infinite horizon) effects that never are acheived because what we are always dealing with the short-term results of the most recent change that come from real-world friction on the way to the theoretical infinite horizon effects. To deal with the real world, we need to concern ourselves both with the long-term effects and the path to them.