Spend or save for economic growth?
Last weekend I watched the debate between Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson on Fareed Zakaria’s show GPS. Paul Krugman is a Nobel prize-winning economist and author with an expertise in international economics, and Niall Ferguson is a historian with a specialty in economics with a conservative approach to economics which include replacing a graduated income tax with a 35% sales tax and replacing public social security with a privatized system. So it’s no surprise that these two have been engaged in a debate over how best to save the global economic system. In some ways, they epitomize the ongoing debate on the subject.
To recap the astrological background, in 2008 we moved from an expansive Pluto in Sagittarius economy driven by optimism, debt and spending to a contracting Pluto in Capricorn economy. For the previous fifteen years, the more people spent the more business was done, and the more jobs there were, and the more money was available for spending. But Pluto in Capricorn is not expansive – it does not support an economy based on spending money that does not exist. It’s practical and realistic, and sheds light on areas of illusory economic fallacies.
Here is the transcript from the CNN segment where both Krugman and Ferguson have an opportunity to defend their position. Krugman has argued from the beginning that more stimulus money is needed. Borrowing is cheap now, and stimulating the economy will help create jobs. Zakaria, who in my view is one of the smartest people alive today, points out the American corporations are exceptionally healthy right now, and sitting on lots of cash, and asks the question “Why are they not hiring more workers?” Ferguson’s response […]