Have you heard the latest economic sensation?

I heard it. Most of us here already knew that, right?

No, I hadn’t heard. Thanks for that!

And it’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who gets screwed by Excel

Well, as far as “turning the economics world on its head” ... have you actually seen evidence that anyone changed their mind about anything due to this revelation?
Just my own anecdotal evidence shows that folks who hadn’t bought that study’s conclusions in the first place (because of tons of information to the contrary) are just going “yep, told ya so”. And the folks who liked the study in the first place are ignoring this turnabout just like they originally ignored the tons of information to the contrary.

In the end it just looks bad for academics… people trust them less than ever.

I am no economist, but I thought that Keynes had settled this argument. Borrow and spend when the economy is doing poorly and interest rates are low. Worry about balancing the books after the economy recovers and tax revenues and interest rates are both high.

I hadn’t heard about the study until after the various refutations came in afterwards. The whole premise of high public debt affecting GDP makes no sense, since there’s no apparent causal mechanism, and no reason to think 90% (the figure from the study) has any particular significance.

The public is very confused over the matter, with most believing that public debt is an important issue—while knowing virtually nothing about macro-economics or finance.

“Debt” is a scary word, right? No one likes being debt! The government is going bankrupt! Well, except it isn’t… because it just doesn’t work that way. And yet this fear and misconception has been cynically exploited by austerity advocates, and it’s causing and will cause even more untold suffering for millions, and loss of real capital. Of course, some people are benefitting from this…

The trick to Keynes is that we have to re-balance the books after the economy recovers, which we have not been doing.

The problem with austerity is that it assumes economic problems are spending issues, not revenue issues.

Austerity creates more austerity. If the government gave bank depositors the $750 billion instead of the bank leadership, the recession would already be over. As we speak, there is much more than $750 billion sequestered by the banks. That money could have been used to protect home-owners, and people that lost their jobs from the depravity of the “banksters”.

I WANT the biggest banks to fail, I want the depositors protected and the bank officers to accept their responsibility and go bankrupt with their banks. We should have bankers and hedge fund managers homeless and on the streets, no the workers!