Comments on: Britain Follows Germany in Departing from Keynesian Economics – U.S. Looks Socialist in Comparison http://lipskip.com/britain-follows-germany-in-departing-from-keynesian-economics/ Government is the Problem. Not the Solution. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:05:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Lord Keynes http://lipskip.com/britain-follows-germany-in-departing-from-keynesian-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-3016 Lord Keynes Tue, 21 Sep 2010 04:59:07 +0000 http://lipskip.com/?p=989#comment-3016 The belief that Germany's recovery and 2.2% growth in Q2 2010 can be explained by austerity or free market policies is pure nonsense: http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/09/germany-success-of-keynesianism-and.html The facts are these: (1) Germany had two Keynesian stimulus packages that pumped about €80 billion ($104 billion dollars) into the economy. It’s recovery from recession in Q2 2009 was caused by these Keynesian measures. At about 1.6% of GDP, the German stimulus was larger than the G-20 average. (2) The successful “Kurzarbeit” (“short work”) program gave direct government subsidies to German industries to keep people employed by working shorter hours. You could not have a more obvious instance of the distortion of the free market than this program, but it was clearly highly successful. (3) The 2.2% growth in Q2 2010 was mainly from export growth, but here the key factor was <i>massive</i> Keynesian deficit spending in China - which led to a surge in Chinese consumption of German goods. The belief that Germany’s recovery and 2.2% growth in Q2 2010 can be explained by austerity or free market policies is pure nonsense:

http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/09/germany-success-of-keynesianism-and.html

The facts are these:

(1) Germany had two Keynesian stimulus packages that pumped about €80 billion ($104 billion dollars) into the economy. It’s recovery from recession in Q2 2009 was caused by these Keynesian measures. At about 1.6% of GDP, the German stimulus was larger than the G-20 average.

(2) The successful “Kurzarbeit” (“short work”) program gave direct government subsidies to German industries to keep people employed by working shorter hours. You could not have a more obvious instance of the distortion of the free market than this program, but it was clearly highly successful.

(3) The 2.2% growth in Q2 2010 was mainly from export growth, but here the key factor was massive Keynesian deficit spending in China – which led to a surge in Chinese consumption of German goods.

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