{"id":395026,"date":"2010-03-05T15:04:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T20:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerist.com,2010:\/\/1.10002922"},"modified":"2010-03-05T15:35:23","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T20:35:23","slug":"2-dead-economists-in-an-epic-rap-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/395026","title":{"rendered":"2 Dead Economists In An Epic Rap Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/econrapbattle-thumb-165x119-37815.jpg\">         <\/p>\n<p>An oddly high-produced music video rap battle between economists John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek. It crystallizes and communicates the differences between macroeconomic and classic liberal free-market capitalism through the magic of hiphop. It seems weighted towards Hayek but it&#8217;s entertaining nonetheless, even though I&#8217;m sure Tea Party folks probably email it to their friends with lots of dancing emoticons and angel gifs. What side do you fall on, Keynes or Hayek?<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"480\" height=\"295\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/d0nERTFo-Sk&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/d0nERTFo-Sk&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"480\" height=\"295\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>In other news, Meg and I are starting an indie band called &#8220;Irrational exuberance&#8221; and Meg will play the keyboards.<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"http:\/\/static.polldaddy.com\/p\/2798672.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<noscript><br \/>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/answers.polldaddy.com\/poll\/2798672\/\">What Econ Colors Do You Sport?<\/a><span style=\"font-size:9px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/answers.polldaddy.com\">polls<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>Lyrics:<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been going back and forth for a century<br \/>\n[Keynes] I want to steer markets,<br \/>\n[Hayek] I want them set free<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it<br \/>\n[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.<br \/>\n[Keynes] No&#133; it&#8217;s the animal spirits<br \/>\n[Keynes Sings:]<br \/>\nJohn Maynard Keynes, wrote the book on modern macro<br \/>\nThe man you need when the economy&#8217;s off track, [whoa]<br \/>\nDepression, recession now your question&#8217;s in session<br \/>\nHave a seat and I&#8217;ll school you in one simple lesson<br \/>\nBOOM, 1929 the big crash<br \/>\nWe didn&#8217;t bounce back&#8212;economy&#8217;s in the trash<br \/>\nPersistent unemployment, the result of sticky wages<br \/>\nWaiting for recovery? Seriously? That&#8217;s outrageous!<br \/>\nI had a real plan any fool can understand<br \/>\nThe advice, real simple&#8212;boost aggregate demand!<br \/>\nC, I, G, all together gets to Y<br \/>\nMake sure the total&#8217;s growing, watch the economy fly<br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve been going back and forth for a century<br \/>\n[Keynes] I want to steer markets,<br \/>\n[Hayek] I want them set free<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it<br \/>\n[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.<br \/>\n[Keynes] No&#133; it&#8217;s the animal spirits<br \/>\nYou see it&#8217;s all about spending, hear the register cha-ching<br \/>\nCircular flow, the dough is everything<br \/>\nSo if that flow is getting low, doesn&#8217;t matter the reason<br \/>\nWe need more government spending, now it&#8217;s stimulus season<br \/>\nSo forget about saving, get it straight out of your head<br \/>\nLike I said, in the long run&#8212;we&#8217;re all dead<br \/>\nSavings is destruction, that&#8217;s the paradox of thrift<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t keep money in your pocket, or that growth will never lift&#133;<br \/>\nbecause&#133;<br \/>\nBusiness is driven by the animal spirits<br \/>\nThe bull and the bear, and there&#8217;s reason to fear its<br \/>\nEffects on capital investment, income and growth<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s why the state should fill the gap with stimulus both&#133;<br \/>\nThe monetary and the fiscal, they&#8217;re equally correct<br \/>\nPublic works, digging ditches, war has the same effect<br \/>\nEven a broken window helps the glass man have some wealth<br \/>\nThe multiplier driving higher the economy&#8217;s health<br \/>\nAnd if the Central Bank&#8217;s interest rate policy tanks<br \/>\nA liquidity trap, that new money&#8217;s stuck in the banks!<br \/>\nDeficits could be the cure, you been looking for<br \/>\nLet the spending soar, now that you know the score<br \/>\nMy General Theory&#8217;s made quite an impression<br \/>\n[a revolution] I transformed the econ profession<br \/>\nYou know me, modesty, still I&#8217;m taking a bow<br \/>\nSay it loud, say it proud, we&#8217;re all Keynesians now<br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve been goin&#8217; back n forth for a century<br \/>\n[Keynes] I want to steer markets,<br \/>\n[Hayek] I want them set free<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it<br \/>\n[Keynes] I made my case, Freddie H<br \/>\nListen up , Can you hear it?<br \/>\nHayek sings:<br \/>\nI&#8217;ll begin in broad strokes, just like my friend Keynes<br \/>\nHis theory conceals the mechanics of change,<br \/>\nThat simple equation, too much aggregation<br \/>\nIgnores human action and motivation<br \/>\nAnd yet it continues as a justification<br \/>\nFor bailouts and payoffs by pols with machinations<br \/>\nYou provide them with cover to sell us a free lunch<br \/>\nThen all that we&#8217;re left with is debt, and a bunch<br \/>\nIf you&#8217;re living high on that cheap credit hog<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t look for cure from the hair of the dog<br \/>\nReal savings come first if you want to invest<br \/>\nThe market coordinates time with interest<br \/>\nYour focus on spending is pushing on thread<br \/>\nIn the long run, my friend, it&#8217;s your theory that&#8217;s dead<br \/>\nSo sorry there, buddy, if that sounds like invective<br \/>\nPrepare to get schooled in my Austrian perspective<br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve been going back and forth for a century<br \/>\n[Keynes] I want to steer markets,<br \/>\n[Hayek] I want them set free<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it<br \/>\n[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.<br \/>\n[Keynes] No&#133; it&#8217;s the animal spirits<br \/>\nThe place you should study isn&#8217;t the bust<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the boom that should make you feel leery, that&#8217;s the thrust<br \/>\nOf my theory, the capital structure is key.<br \/>\nMalinvestments wreck the economy<br \/>\nThe boom gets started with an expansion of credit<br \/>\nThe Fed sets rates low, are you starting to get it?<br \/>\nThat new money is confused for real loanable funds<br \/>\nBut it&#8217;s just inflation that&#8217;s driving the ones<br \/>\nWho invest in new projects like housing construction<br \/>\nThe boom plants the seeds for its future destruction<br \/>\nThe savings aren&#8217;t real, consumption&#8217;s up too<br \/>\nAnd the grasping for resources reveals there&#8217;s too few<br \/>\nSo the boom turns to bust as the interest rates rise<br \/>\nWith the costs of production, price signals were lies<br \/>\nThe boom was a binge that&#8217;s a matter of fact<br \/>\nNow its devalued capital that makes up the slack.<br \/>\nWhether it&#8217;s the late twenties or two thousand and five<br \/>\nBooming bad investments, seems like they&#8217;d thrive<br \/>\nYou must save to invest, don&#8217;t use the printing press<br \/>\nOr a bust will surely follow, an economy depressed<br \/>\nYour so-called &#8220;stimulus&#8221; will make things even worse<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s just more of the same, more incentives perversed<br \/>\nAnd that credit crunch ain&#8217;t a liquidity trap<br \/>\nJust a broke banking system, I&#8217;m done, that&#8217;s a wrap.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve been goin&#8217; back n forth for a century<br \/>\n[Keynes] I want to steer markets,<br \/>\n[Hayek] I want them set free<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it<br \/>\n[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.<br \/>\n[Keynes] No it&#8217;s the animal spirits<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.&#8221;<br \/>\nJohn Maynard Keynes<br \/>\nThe General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.&#8221;<br \/>\nF A Hayek<br \/>\nThe Fatal Conceit<\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.econstories.tv\/home.html\">econstories.tv<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An oddly high-produced music video rap battle between economists John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek. It crystallizes and communicates the differences between macroeconomic and classic liberal free-market capitalism through the magic of hiphop. It seems weighted towards Hayek but it&#8217;s entertaining nonetheless, even though I&#8217;m sure Tea Party folks probably email it to their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}