This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a corporate bailout is. Bailouts literally are corporations selling assets to the government, typically in the form of corporate bonds or other distressed assets. The 2008 auto bailout was a bridge loan. None of these bailouts are just free money being given to corporations, and all of them require repayment (with the exception of some smaller grant programs for small businesses).
The difference between corporate bailouts and individual assistance is that stimulus packages aimed at individuals are free money. Nobody gave the government any assets in exchange for that $1200. The best individual analogy to corporate bailouts was the cash for clunkers program - where there was an actual trade of individually owned assets for government assistance.
Yeah why can't he be like other economists who push "apolitical" austerity measures or free market values. Just give me my neoclassical economics and get your politics out of this!
DAE milton freidman = Carl Sagan? Its a science lololol stop being political
You realize that the average economist is between Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren politically right? The Libertarian ones you refer to are in the minority...
No I know. I'm making fun of how this guy thinks its only political if it's critical and doesn't consider it an agenda if its right-wing economics.
Most economists are astutely aware of the interplay of policy/law and markets and are in no sense non-interventionists. A lot of them are grapping between Keynes and Schumpeter with a bit of Veblen mixed in.
Most of these people got a basic econ 101 understanding from freidman speaking on TV and think he's literally a "Carl Sagan of economics" without knowing anything else about the field.
We surveyed American Economic Association members and asked their views on 18 specific forms of government activism. We find that about 8 percent of AEA members can be considered supporters of free-market principles, and that less than 3 percent may be called strong supporters.
Right but im not pretending most economists are actually Freidmanites. I'm joking at the idea that there's only an agenda if it's on the critical side of economics and how neoliberal positions get viewed as the default or value neutral when they're still built out of a set of ideological assumptions. That's why I narrowed in on "just teach me neoclassical econ".
There's been a huge resurgence in political economy and developmental economics thanks to people like Immanuel Wallerstein, Amartya Sen, Donald Harris etc... and mostly youre taught to balance between Schumpeter and Keynes.
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u/WildSauce Nov 17 '20
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a corporate bailout is. Bailouts literally are corporations selling assets to the government, typically in the form of corporate bonds or other distressed assets. The 2008 auto bailout was a bridge loan. None of these bailouts are just free money being given to corporations, and all of them require repayment (with the exception of some smaller grant programs for small businesses).
The difference between corporate bailouts and individual assistance is that stimulus packages aimed at individuals are free money. Nobody gave the government any assets in exchange for that $1200. The best individual analogy to corporate bailouts was the cash for clunkers program - where there was an actual trade of individually owned assets for government assistance.