Soy Guapo

KEYNES

Here we are… peace out! great recession

thanks to me, as you see, we’re not in a depression

Recovery, destiny if you follow my lesson

Lord Keynes, here I come, line up for the procession

HAYEK

We brought out the shovels and we’re still in a ditch…

And still digging. don’t you think that it’s time for a switch…

From that hair of the dog. Friend, the party is over.

The long run is here. It’s time to get sober!

KEYNES

Are you kidding? my cure works perfectly fine…

have a look, the great recession ended back in ’09.

I deserve credit. Things would have been worse

All the estimates prove it—I’ll quote chapter and verse

HAYEK

Econometricians, they’re ever so pious

Are they doing real science or confirming their bias?

Their “Keynesian” models are tidy and neat

But that top down approach is a fatal conceit

REFRAIN

Which way should we choose?

more bottom up or more top down

…the fight continues…

Keynes and Hayek’s second round

it’s time to weigh in…

more from the top or from the ground

…lets listen to the greats

Keynes and Hayek throwing down

KEYNES

We could have done better, had we only spent more

Too bad that only happens when there’s a World War

You can carp all you want about stats and regression

Do you deny World War II cut short the Depression?

HAYEK

Wow. One data point and you’re jumping for joy

the Last time I checked, wars only destroy

There was no multiplier, consumption just shrank

As we used scarce resources for every new tank

Pretty perverse to call that prosperity

Rationed meat, Rationed butter… a life of austerity

When that war spending ended your friends cried disaster

yet the economy thrived and grew faster

KEYNES

You too only see what you want to see

The spending on war clearly goosed GDP

Unemployment was over, almost down to zero

That’s why I’m the master, that’s why I’m the hero

HAYEK

Creating employment’s a straightforward craft

When the nation’s at war, and there’s a draft

If every worker was staffed in the army and fleet

We’d have full employment and nothing to eat

REFRAIN REPEATS

HAYEK

jobs are a means, not the ends in themselves

people work to live better, to put food on the shelves

real growth means production of what people demand

That’s entrepreneurship not your central plan

KEYNES

My solution is simple and easy to handle..

its spending that matters, why’s that such a scandal?

The money sloshes through the pipes and the sluices

revitalizing the economy’s juices

it’s just like an engine

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