The best ways to get us out of this? (a) Have the government put people to work, and (b) have the government create more safe assets--more Treasury bonds--for people to hold. The first puts people to work. The second gives businesses and households more safe assets to hold so that they will be happy with their safe asset portfolios. Thus they will then stop trying to accumulate more safe assets, they will spend their incomes, and that will put more people back to work too.
If our big problem were too much debt we would not be here, in depression. Too much debt generates inflation. ... We had a "shortage of liquid cash money" recession in 1982; we had a "shortage of long-duration bonds" recession in 2002, and now we are having a "shortage of safe assets" recession.
---Brad DeLong
No comments:
Post a Comment