Paul Krugman, monetarista

Paul Krugman je vrlo uznemiren što Mitt Romney ne vidi genijalnost Bazuka Bena i njegovog uzora Helikopter Miltona, već ponavlja besmislice austrijskih aristokrata Šumpetera i Hajeka o tome kako se prosperitet ne može stvoriti štampanjem para. Posebno ga nervira što Romney kao i Šumpeter štampanje para naziva "veštačkim stimulusom", opasna besmiclica koju je Friedman bio iskorenio ali se ona eto vraća sad. I obavezna paranoja: Romneyeva izjava nije politička i vezana za kampanju, kako bi čovek pomislio, nego je to dubinski znak kako je Mankiw, njegov savetnik, prestao da bude fan Friedmana i počeo da čita Hajeka i Šumpetera, i sad "pumpa" Romnyja njihovim teorijama:

How times have changed. Back in 2004, Greg Mankiw declared, in the Economic Report of the President, that

Aggressive monetary policy can reduce the depth of a recession.

But now, after the Fed has finally moved a bit in the direction of doing something about the Lesser Depression, Mitt Romney – supposedly advised by Mankiw among others – is outraged:

[T]he American economy doesn’t need more artificial and ineffective measures. We should be creating wealth, not printing dollars.

That word “artificial” caught my eye, because it’s the same word liquidationists used to denounce any efforts to fight the Great Depression with monetary policy. Schumpeter declared that

Any revival which is merely due to artificial stimulus leaves part of the work of depressions undone

Hayek similarly decried any recovery led by the “creation of artificial demand”.
Milton Friedman – who thought he had liberated conservatism from this kind of nonsense –must be spinning in his grave.