the economy: does more government help or hurt?
DESCRIPTION
Slides from the like named public forum presented at the Kansas City Public Library, Plaza Branch, on September 16, 2014TRANSCRIPT
Stephanie Kelton, Ph.D.Chair, Department of Economics
University of Missouri, Kansas CityKC Public Library, Plaza Branch
September 16, 2014
Be Careful…..
For Example….
How to Help the Economy
Limit the size of government
Do anything else
Lucy Laffer Charlie Brownback
Unshackling the Spirit of Initiative
The poor won’t work because they have too much money and the rich won’t work because they have too little.”
~John Kenneth Galbraith
Let’s Do It, Art!
“If you build it, they will come.”
“We’ve had conversations with people and think it’s nice, but we haven’t seen any rush to hire new
people or build new facilities,” Robinett said. “There’s still the tendency to wait for the demand first. It’s unusual to take the approach to build up
the supply and expect the demand to come.”
~Tom Robinett, VP for Government AffairsOverland Park Chamber of Commerce
Is it Helping?
Better Question: Whom is it Helping?
• Growth in private sector jobs lags national average by a full percentage point
• KS is behind MO, OK and CO• Kansas Legislative Research
Dept. estimates total $4.5 billion decrease in revenue by 2018
• The bottom 20% are paying about $166 more in taxes, while the top 1% are paying $19,786 less
Capitalism is a system that only works when there are enough customers, spending enough money, to keep sales and profits growing
The Great Recession
Hemorrhaging jobs
How Government Helps A Countercyclical Shock Absorber
How Government Hurts• When the economy starts to
weaken, unemployment rises and the deficit increases
• The impulse is to fight against it (with austerity) to keep the deficit in check
• But that only makes things worse
• Like turning the wheel in the opposite direction in skid
• You have to turn into the skid to regain balance
Our “Economy” is Measured in Sales
Customer Killers
Plea for Austerity
FOREIGN
Private
Government
(Some of) Our Problems
Top 10%
Even a “Recovery” No Longer Improves the Majority
Not Enough Jobs, Given Demand
Workers Get Less & Less
What to Do?
• Federally-funded jobs program modeled on the WPA, CCC, NYA
• Infrastructure• Education (Pell example)• Student Debt• Research & Innovation
Thank You!
@StephanieKelton
Those are just some of things that government can do to help lay a foundation for long-term prosperity.