I've read most of Gerstler's book now and I can say unequivocally that yours is better. I did learn from him, but his focus is too much on the intellectual history of neoliberalism and too little on the appeal it has to voters motivated more by racial and ethnic hatreds and desire for authoritarian government by "the right people". And so far, he hasn't asked himself just why this is. In short, I think he overstates the success of neoliberalism as an intellectual project and understates the underlying social factors which caused it to be adopted (and which would abandon it in an instant if it didn't serve those purposes).
Granted that some inflation > 2% PCE was necessary for a quick recovery from the pandemic, do you agree with perfect hindsight that the Fed should have started visibly "doing something" about inflation by the time the TIPS started to move significantly above 2.3% CPI? And instead of just saying that inflation was "temporary" shouldn't the Fed have added "becasue we are going to make sure it is just temporary." The sight of the Fed predicting inflation just like any other market participant was disconcerting.
I found some resonance in your comment about keeping in mind the Pakistani man who tied the knots in your “Persian“ carpet when you clean it. Of course, the market worshiping types would say that after the carpet is sold to the dealer (who sells it to the wholesaler, who sells it to the retailer, who sells it to you), all obligations to the Pakistani had been both liquidated and satisfied in full and you owed him not the slightest thought thereafter, and thinking otherwise is mere hippie BS.
Today a piano tech is at my house tuning my 1927 Steinway Model L which he had just restrung and for which he had reconditioned the action (lubricated joints, reshaped hammer felts, etc.). I had interviewed a number of techs who wanted to do all sorts of things to the piano, changing the pin block, changing the soundboard, completely replacing the action, and the like. None of those sounded right to me. I chose the young man who is working on the piano today because when I interviewed him he seemed to truly respect the craftsmanship that went into the piano nearly 100 years ago, and wanted to preserve as much as possible the effort the original workmen put into it. That seemed right to me. Morally right. Just like your carpet.
"The [neoliberal] idea is that taxes [need to] be lower on the rich so that the job creators will be incentivized ..."
Correct as a description but I'm still trying to find a word for the view, "taxes [need to] be low enough on the rich so that the job creators will be not be dis-incentivized."
And even the bastard view above was still not supposed to create a larger deficit (And don't tell me anyone really believed that we were so far past the apex of the Laffer curve that the Reagan/GWB/Trump/Ryan cuts would pay for themselves. THAT was unadulterated demagoguery.
I've read most of Gerstler's book now and I can say unequivocally that yours is better. I did learn from him, but his focus is too much on the intellectual history of neoliberalism and too little on the appeal it has to voters motivated more by racial and ethnic hatreds and desire for authoritarian government by "the right people". And so far, he hasn't asked himself just why this is. In short, I think he overstates the success of neoliberalism as an intellectual project and understates the underlying social factors which caused it to be adopted (and which would abandon it in an instant if it didn't serve those purposes).
Granted that some inflation > 2% PCE was necessary for a quick recovery from the pandemic, do you agree with perfect hindsight that the Fed should have started visibly "doing something" about inflation by the time the TIPS started to move significantly above 2.3% CPI? And instead of just saying that inflation was "temporary" shouldn't the Fed have added "becasue we are going to make sure it is just temporary." The sight of the Fed predicting inflation just like any other market participant was disconcerting.
I found some resonance in your comment about keeping in mind the Pakistani man who tied the knots in your “Persian“ carpet when you clean it. Of course, the market worshiping types would say that after the carpet is sold to the dealer (who sells it to the wholesaler, who sells it to the retailer, who sells it to you), all obligations to the Pakistani had been both liquidated and satisfied in full and you owed him not the slightest thought thereafter, and thinking otherwise is mere hippie BS.
Today a piano tech is at my house tuning my 1927 Steinway Model L which he had just restrung and for which he had reconditioned the action (lubricated joints, reshaped hammer felts, etc.). I had interviewed a number of techs who wanted to do all sorts of things to the piano, changing the pin block, changing the soundboard, completely replacing the action, and the like. None of those sounded right to me. I chose the young man who is working on the piano today because when I interviewed him he seemed to truly respect the craftsmanship that went into the piano nearly 100 years ago, and wanted to preserve as much as possible the effort the original workmen put into it. That seemed right to me. Morally right. Just like your carpet.
"The [neoliberal] idea is that taxes [need to] be lower on the rich so that the job creators will be incentivized ..."
Correct as a description but I'm still trying to find a word for the view, "taxes [need to] be low enough on the rich so that the job creators will be not be dis-incentivized."
And even the bastard view above was still not supposed to create a larger deficit (And don't tell me anyone really believed that we were so far past the apex of the Laffer curve that the Reagan/GWB/Trump/Ryan cuts would pay for themselves. THAT was unadulterated demagoguery.