The Economic Crisis (The Fall of America & the Western World)

[Kirkland Laing]

I wouldn't describe any centrally planned economy as reminiscent of Hayek's principles and definitely not any in Europe. American's problem is they fully embrace Keynes philosophy of deficit spending to stabilize markets but ignore the part where he talks about running a surplus once the markets turn back up.

Centrally planned economies are economies where erery aspect of the economy is controlled and run by the government. North Korea is an example of a planned economy. Economies throughout Hayek and other Austrians' lives that they studied and based their theories on have been mixed economies where the economy is mainly private but has a government/public sector.

I agree about the Keynesian bit but the fact that governments never* run a surplus in good economic times doesn't negate the fact that Keynesian policies are now obviously the only way to deal with zero interest rates/poor economic growth situations like the current one.

*Actually Spain and Ireland were running large surpluses before the 2008 meltdown. After five years of cuts Spain currently has 26% unemployment and Ireland has 15% and would have 25% but so many Irish have emigrated again, fucking their economy up for future decades.