Well, unsurprisingly the country that did not follow the keynesian ideas and just refused to pay the debt, Iceland, has been the first country to get out of the depression and the unemployment is going dow to normal levels. The situation is still dire, but all the indicators are improving.
I'm not a Keynesian but I see this comment made rather often. One problem with Keynesianisn is that we have never tried it. In the business cycle, government is supposed to deficit spend during the bottom part of the business cycle and pay it pack during the good times. We have only borrowed and borrowed and never paid it back. This is not Keynesianism.
All we have is perpetual debt growth.
Well, thats not true. According to Krugman there has been two real keynesian stimulus plans in history. The one the USA made at the Great Depression and the one Japan made after their housing bubble pop. You can see the restults of both, the depression kept going.
But one has to ask if the keynesian plan is even posible. Because if you give the politicians the power to go into debt and spend because all this academics are justifying it, well, surprise surprise, the politicians will go into deb and spend. The theory is wrong at the basic levels, but even accepting it, one should conclude that its impossible to enforce.
