The mirage of recovery By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
Over recent days, observing a sudden increase in car sales and record profits of "bankrupt" banks, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has announced that recovery of the US economy was under way. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the same message and even "globalized" his prediction of a recovery for the world economy. President Barack Obama saw "glimmers of hope". While these three top US policymakers were rushing to announce recovery, economist Paul Krugman exuded skepticism, saying "do not count your recoveries before they are hatched".
US policymakers' optimism seems to be founded on their grandiose reflationary programs. Obama has launched an The mirage of recovery
By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
Over recent days, observing a sudden increase in car sales and record profits of "bankrupt" banks, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has announced that recovery of the US economy was under way. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the same message and even "globalized" his prediction of a recovery for the world economy. President Barack Obama saw "glimmers of hope". While these three top US policymakers were rushing to announce recovery, economist Paul Krugman exuded skepticism, saying "do not count your recoveries before they are hatched".
US policymakers' optimism seems to be founded on their grandiose reflationary programs. Obama has launched an
unprecedented stimulus package at US$787 billion, followed by the largest US fiscal deficit ever, at $1.85 trillion, or 13% of gross domestic product (GDP). Underlying the stimulus package and the fiscal deficit was a Harvard income multiplier of 1.5, implying an increase in the US real GDP by about $4 trillion, or a record 30% per year. The basic economics advocated by the Obama team were simple: trillions of dollars in stimulus package and government expenditures would boost real aggregate demand for consumption and investment and automatically lead to economic recovery and full employment. Their mechanical multiplier model provided a strong reason for Obama to announce a premature economic recovery.
Bernanke's optimism is the result of the aggressive monetary policy that he forced under the George W Bush administration and has continued to expound under Obama, irrespective of the devastation it has caused to the banking sector and subsequent fiscal bailouts. Bernanke has gained the reputation of the doctor of the "Great Depression" and proponent of monetary anarchy. For him and his school of thought, inflation seems to be of little concern. His aggressive monetary policy has sent the US economy, and with it the world economy, into financial collapse and recession.
US policymakers' optimism seems to be founded on their grandiose reflationary programs. Obama has launched an The mirage of recovery
By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
Over recent days, observing a sudden increase in car sales and record profits of "bankrupt" banks, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has announced that recovery of the US economy was under way. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the same message and even "globalized" his prediction of a recovery for the world economy. President Barack Obama saw "glimmers of hope". While these three top US policymakers were rushing to announce recovery, economist Paul Krugman exuded skepticism, saying "do not count your recoveries before they are hatched".
US policymakers' optimism seems to be founded on their grandiose reflationary programs. Obama has launched an
unprecedented stimulus package at US$787 billion, followed by the largest US fiscal deficit ever, at $1.85 trillion, or 13% of gross domestic product (GDP). Underlying the stimulus package and the fiscal deficit was a Harvard income multiplier of 1.5, implying an increase in the US real GDP by about $4 trillion, or a record 30% per year. The basic economics advocated by the Obama team were simple: trillions of dollars in stimulus package and government expenditures would boost real aggregate demand for consumption and investment and automatically lead to economic recovery and full employment. Their mechanical multiplier model provided a strong reason for Obama to announce a premature economic recovery.
Bernanke's optimism is the result of the aggressive monetary policy that he forced under the George W Bush administration and has continued to expound under Obama, irrespective of the devastation it has caused to the banking sector and subsequent fiscal bailouts. Bernanke has gained the reputation of the doctor of the "Great Depression" and proponent of monetary anarchy. For him and his school of thought, inflation seems to be of little concern. His aggressive monetary policy has sent the US economy, and with it the world economy, into financial collapse and recession.
posted by temporal at 5/05/2009
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