Keynesians Winning in Explaining Economies in Deleveraging Shock: Krugman has the Story in Money for Nothing at the New York Times

We read Paul Krugman not because he is always right,
and indeed he admittedly does not always claim to be,

but Krugman stands out in the ranks of the world's top economists in rejecting voodoo economics, gullible wishful thinking and unproven politically-colored economic dogmas and pet theories, preferring to subject his own ideas to the actual empirical evidence. Krugman prefers an economics that is "evidence-based" rather than one based on some economic "school".

Read how the Keynesians are winning in explaining economies in "deleveraging shock", as Krugman has the story in Money for Nothing at the New York Times. One need not be a Keynesian. One needs to look at the facts to see that Keynes was right in major essentials, while others were wrong.

Compare the sensible things that Krugman writes to the abysmal theoretical economics written at Krugman-in Wonderland by a proponent of the largely reality-removed Austrian School of Economics, a theoretical school of economics somewhat comparable in its inflexible dogmatism to modern American "voodoo economics" of the American extreme right wing.

As noted at the Wikipedia about the theories of "Austrian School" classicist Friedrich Hayek:

"Jeffrey Sachs argues that among developed countries, those with high rates of taxation and high social welfare spending perform better on most measures of economic performance compared to countries with low rates of taxation and low social outlays. He concludes that Friedrich Hayek was wrong to argue that high levels of government spending harms an economy, and "a generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness."

It is in fact rather astounding that such muddled economic thinking as can be found in the Austrian School is "made in Europe", a Europe whose modern astounding progress since WWII can be thanked to exactly the opposite kinds of economics as proposed by Hayek or compatriot Ludwig von Mises, who wrote dreamfully and in error that:

"The captain is the consumer…the consumers determine precisely what should be produced, in what quality, and in what quantities…They are merciless egoistic bosses, full of whims and fancies, changeable and unpredictable. For them nothing counts other than their own satisfaction…In their capacity as buyers and consumers they are hard-hearted and callous, without consideration for other people…Capitalists…can only preserve and increase their wealth by filling best the orders of the consumers… In the conduct of their business affairs they must be unfeeling and stony-hearted because the consumers, their bosses, are themselves unfeeling and stony-hearted."

In contrast, Steve Jobs, who made Apple the most profitable high-tech product-selling company in the United States is famously quoted as saying that "It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want."

Jobs was apparently very right and von Mises very wrong. Consumers are the suckers in the system, not "the captains".

Similarly and currently in the patent wars, what can be bought or not in retail shops is being decided by the patent laws and how these are being interpreted by the courts and the legal system. The consumers are not the ones deciding what they will be able to buy in the future.

So much for the so-called "Austrian School of Economics".
There is a good German saying for that school and it is "weltfremd".

EU Cookie Law, Patent Lobbying and Business Compliance: An Evidence-Based Approach is Needed

We already warned everyone about the coming problem of the EU Cookie Law one year ago (at EUPUndit here) and then recently (at EUPundit here) as well.

Unfortunately for them, too few people read LawPundit or EUPundit, preferring blogs and websites that concentrate on quirky off-beat legal questions of little practical value or that focus on politically sensational ephemeral events.

So now, there you have it. The problem is on everyone's doorstep. What to do? We ourselves have adopted the free SilkTide solution (EUPundit here).

We might point out in the context of solving problems raised by the EU Cookie Law that an "evidence-based" approach should be preferred. "Evidence-based" is the new watchword in law, politics, science and humanities -- at least so we allege, because we have been at the forefront of this development in our postings for years -- indeed, we have even started the first Pinterest board to be titled "Evidence-Based".

Specifically, on point, at Out-Law.com at Cookie law disaster should force companies to emulate patent world lobbying, says expert we find written:

"Businesses must engage the media and arms of government more effectively. Like the patent lobbyists they must make clear evidence-based connections between the value of innovative technologies dependent on the use of personal information and the benefits these technologies bring to society."

We would pin that article to our Pinterest board but Out-Law.com, for all of its pioneer posting efforts, is still behind the times and has no Pinterest-capable image that represents its website.

By the way, we do not agree at all -- in many cases -- that patent lobbyists have established evidence-based connections for the overly broad patent protection that the law mistakenly grants today, but there is no doubt that the evidence-based approach must find increasing application at all levels of policymaking and rulemaking in a world dominated by hype that often has little or no actual evidence-based support.