
How I Became a Keynesian  - yarapavan
http://www.tnr.com/print/article/how-i-became-keynesian
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mynameishere
_When it takes the form of hoarding, the link between saving and promoting
economic activity is broken, or at least frayed._

Hate to comment on something submitted so many times, but the above use of
"hoarding" no longer applies. There was a time when people actually took
physical money or gold and hoarded it...hid it away. With the gold standard,
this amounted to a drop in the money supply. Such deflation has well-
understood problems. It isn't possible now. When you "hoard" money in your BAC
account, BAC loans it out at anywhere from 5 to 25 percent interest and life
goes on. This isn't the 1930s.

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lupin_sansei
Everyone here who fancies themselves as an economic pundit seriously needs to
read Economics in One Lesson:

"“Saving,” in short, in the modem world, is only another form of spending. The
usual difference is that the money is turned over to someone else to spend on
means to increase production. So far as giving employment is concerned,
Benjamin’s “saving” and spending combined give as much as Alvin’s spending
alone, and put as much money in circulation. The chief difference is that the
employment provided by Alvin’s spending can be seen by anyone with one eye;
but it is necessary to look a little more carefully, and to think a moment, to
recognize that every dollar of Benjamin’s saving gives as much employment as
every dollar that Alvin throws around."

<http://jim.com/econ/chap24p1.html>

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vomjom
That's not completely true.

Spending increases the velocity of money (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money> ) which can, in the short
term, increase employment.

~~~
lupin_sansei
Saving/investment also increases employment as the borrowers use it to
increase their capital (buy more machinery etc), which needs extra employment.

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lionhearted
Already submitted twice before, most recently here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863344>

A little background on the author in this comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863705>

~~~
RevRal
I'm curious, as I have only recently started contributing here -- how tolerant
is HN with reposts?

~~~
anshulk
As far as I understand, unless they are years apart or circumstances have
changed remarkably enough to warrant a new discussion on the same topic,
reposts are generally avoided. In the cases where a repost is warranted, a
comment with a link to the old discussion would be appreciated.

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nickpinkston
It's funny to hear people refer to themselves as Keynesian, Neo-classical, or
even Austrian like one school actually has all or even most of the answers.
It's more than possible that current economic theory is much like current
physics in that there are many theories that work part of the time (quantum
physics vs. relatively) but universal theories elude us. I'd doubt there's a
physicist who's only a Quantumist...

