Tom Woods Tom Woods
Search
Economist Warns: Romney and Ryan Will Abolish Everything!
Sep 18th, 2012 @ 01:55 pm › Tom Woods
↓ Skip to comments

OK, so I just said it’s one of the establishment’s jobs to pretend the public has a real choice come election time. Here’s Princeton professor and establishment economist extraordinaire Alan Blinder:

“But with Messrs. Romney and Ryan, it’s out with Franklin Roosevelt and in with Ayn Rand.”

The University of Missouri’s Peter Klein responds:

This attempted bon mot illustrates the vapidity of American political and economic discourse. Paul Ryan says a few nice things about Ayn Rand, F. A. Hayek, and even Mises, and this makes him a devotee of “unfettered markets”! Blinder offers few specifics to illustrate Romney and Ryan’s deviations from the Rooseveltian consensus. He mentions the Ryan budget — that radical document proposing to slash federal spending from 22% of GDP to 20% of GDP, some $5 trillion of annual largesse, by 2040, which is practically tomorrow! A veritable John Galt, that Paul Ryan. And Blinder reminds us that Romney and Ryan have pledged to repeal Dodd-Frank, without which we would have a completely unfettered, unregulated, free-market banking sector. Get ready for dog-eat-dog! The list goes on — Romney and Ryan want the government to provide Medicare vouchers, rather than pay Medicare bills directly, which certainly sounds like a total free market in medicine to me.

Categories: Blog
  • Anonymous

    I’m not subscribing to the Wall Street Journal, but man, in the tease are a couple of whoppers. ”
    The Rooseveltian consensus embodied three main elements: a modest social safety net to protect vulnerable Americans from some of the downsides of unfettered markets, Keynesian-style policies to shorten recessions,”

    The “modest” social safety net, which is $100 trillion plus underfunded.

    The “Keynesian-style” policies sure are doing great in shortening recessions.

  • http://twitter.com/ContrarianRex Contrarian Rex

    It figures that you would fault Romney and Ryan for not be supportive enough for deregulated markets that have enabled the Fed reserve banking cartel and predatory transnationalist corps to plunder the American public. Yeah, i suppose they don’t hate the poor and working classes enough to be real austrian libertarians. But don’t worry, they will start more costly internecine wars to make up for it. You know the neocons are good for that much.

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    Belief in capital as heterogeneous means you hate the poor?

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    Also, if markets were truly deregulated, there wouldn’t be a Federal Reserve banking cartel. Your comment makes no sense.

  • http://twitter.com/ContrarianRex Contrarian Rex

    no, there would be a BIS banking cartel. Robert Zelig is drooling over the opportunity to demolish the Fed so a gold backed one world currency can be implemented to enslave us all for good from the BIS. Too bad austrians can see that far.

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    Zero chance of that. Zelig favors a gold-price rule, not a gold standard.

  • http://twitter.com/ContrarianRex Contrarian Rex

    http://www.zerohedge.com/article/world-bank-president-robert-zoellick-calls-return-old-money-gold-standard my appologies for spelling zoellick’s name wrong, but you knew i meant pres of world bank.

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    You left out the part where he clarified himself, said he absolutely did not support the gold standard, but supports a gold-price rule. He said this the very next day.

  • vox

    Thank God this Rex guy is clearing all this up for us Tom. I’m about to give up reading Rothbard, ’cause this guy from left field has us Austrians pegged! LOL

  • Luke Sunderland

    Ok, here we go again….

    1.) How exactly have deregulated markets led to the Fed? The Fed is the embodiment of regulation.
    2.) Please explain how Austrian economists hate the poor when they are virtually the only ones calling for the poor to have more purchasing power.
    3.) Please point out one Austrian libertarian who wants more war.

  • Joel Poindexter

    This whole thing reminds me of something Anothony Gregory wrote the other day: “You’d think between the antiwar radicalism of Obama and the laissez faire anarchism of Bush, we’d have a libertarian paradise by now.”

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    Now that is hilarious.

  • JohnTheFascist

    Alan Blinder…..has an economist ever been named more aptly?

  • http://twitter.com/ContrarianRex Contrarian Rex

    I’d be willing to wager that his “correction” was really just an attempt to avoid controversy. With indefinite QE and no industrial base to spur any kind of recovery whatsoever, it just a matter of time that dollar ceases to be accepted by the rest of the world. And what else could they possibly have in mind? Bitcoin? Gold and silver.

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    They have zero incentive to re-fasten the very fetters they worked so hard to remove.