# Economist says awesome things about Sanders's economic plan **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 9, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655 "2016-02-09T21:30:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/61 "2016-02-11T17:29:21Z")
Growth comes from savings. Bernie Sanders’ proposals would likely decrease savings. His plan would hamper economic growth. His plan can not “inject resources” into the economy as claimed above. His plan allocates resources that already exist. Where did he get the resources? From his hat? Is he going to mine Mars? The question is whether the government can allocate existing resources better than us. I say no. That being said, even if I were predisposed to believe consumption causes growth, i would simply point out that Sanders is a protectionist. Any benefits that could be gained from allocating resources to government activities would be minuscule compared to the impoverishment of millions overseas and lowered living standards domestically when he disrupts the division of labor and precipitates a trade war. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/62 "2016-02-11T23:46:04Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The OMB report says that the current highway system funding structure is inefficient and yet the economist is trying to say that pouring billions into this broken system will make the economy grow by hundreds of billions. What are the consequences of NOT pouring money into the system? Sure, it can always be done better, and it should be done better. However, bridges that collapse and highways that are overcrowded and electric transmission lines that can’t deliver sufficient power and potholes on the road and gas lines that leak cost money too. We can’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/63 "2016-02-12T22:38:53Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > \*\* Denmark also has greater wealth inequality than the US.\*\* …seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/64 "2016-02-16T00:39:31Z")
To clarify, I didn’t mean “Is this seriously so” but “Do you seriously believe this?” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/65 "2016-02-16T02:07:18Z")
Well, its [Gini coefficient is higher than the U.S](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth), it says here. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/66 "2016-02-16T02:18:44Z")
The premise of the op seems a bit akin to finding the one scientist who disbelieves in climate change. But the point of democratic socialism is not to provide economic stimulus. It is to have government provide the services that the free market either does poorly, with extreme inequity, or not at all. And such can be done to varying degrees without harming economic growth. In fact the argument can be made that reducing extreme inequity may foster overall economic growth over time. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2016, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/67 "2016-02-16T06:38:15Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But the point of democratic socialism is not to provide economic stimulus. It is to have government provide the services that the free market either does poorly, with extreme inequity, or not at all. Actually, that is the point of _government_. Law and order, national defence, sanitation, pollution regulation etc. (a class of goods known as [public goods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good)) are all services that, as you note, the free market does poorly, or not at all, and we need a non market solution there. Democratic socialism goes beyond that. I will let someone more familiar with the idea define it, but the point of it is not to provide services the free market can’t. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2016, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/68 "2016-02-16T12:47:23Z")
Really? Government per se includes providing the services that the free market does with extreme inequity? BTW I am not talking about some academic definition, but how democratic socialism plays out in current real world governments. In any case the point is not to be a market stimulus. That’s just “Keynes Gone Wild.” ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/69 "2016-02-17T04:43:47Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Really? Government per se includes providing the services that the free market does with extreme inequity? > > BTW I am not talking about some academic definition, but how democratic socialism plays out in current real world governments. > > In any case the point is not to be a market stimulus. That’s just “Keynes Gone Wild.” If extreme inequity was the only one you meant, that’s the only one you should have written. It’s also not very clear to me what you mean by extreme inequity. The free market provides Ferraris with extreme inequity. Democratic socialist governments don’t go around providing those do they? So your sentence is incorrect. And this isn’t a pedantic meaningless nitpick. I would genuinely like to know what services people think government should provide and why. ---
**Author:** ![dba\_Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c37758/32.png) [@dba\_Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dba_Fred)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/70 "2016-02-17T12:42:16Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > This would be a much bigger story if the economist was Milton Friedman instead of Gerald Friedman. But Gerald is a Friedman-on-the-EconomicLand! You can tell by how fringy his ideas are. \*That’s gold, Gerry! Gold! \* ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/71 "2016-02-17T12:58:10Z")
Two words: Trickle down - the US mainstream really, really took that shit seriously 😃 Days to be alive. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/72 "2016-02-27T15:42:59Z")
Seems professor Friedman mad some logic errors, at least per the NYT. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/upshot/uncovering-the-bad-math-or-logic-behind-bernie-sanderss-economic-plan.html?ref=business&\_r=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/upshot/uncovering-the-bad-math-or-logic-behind-bernie-sanderss-economic-plan.html?ref=business&_r=1) From the get go, this whole thing never passed the simple test to me. That is. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/73 "2016-02-27T16:15:31Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > Seems professor Friedman mad some logic errors, at least per the NYT. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/upshot/uncovering-the-bad-math-or-logic-behind-bernie-sanderss-economic-plan.html?ref=business&\_r=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/upshot/uncovering-the-bad-math-or-logic-behind-bernie-sanderss-economic-plan.html?ref=business&_r=1) > > From the get go, this whole thing never passed the simple test to me. That is. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Holy Paul Samuelson! Will all the defenders of this study in this thread come forward to admit that it was based on non-standard nonsense? Will any? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/74 "2016-02-27T17:07:35Z")
It probably would lead to growth or something that looks a lot like it. The question is, what does growth mean in an age of catastrophic resource depletion, and can we survive it? [http://jwmason.org/slackwire/can-sanders-do-it/](http://jwmason.org/slackwire/can-sanders-do-it/) J. W. Mason points out that what Jerry Friedman is describing is a return to the pre-2008 trend. > **[Meet the Man Who Says Bernie Sanders Can Bring 5.3% Growth](https://fortune.com/2016/02/18/bernie-sanders-economic-growth/)** > > Economist Gerald Friedman explains how Bernie Sanders' proposals could deliver 5.3% annual real GDP growth. Friedman says the discouraged workers as a whole have not aged enough to be completely unemployable. Maybe that’s optimistic, but it’s not inane. The main thing keeping us from getting back on the pre-2008 trend is that that trend was mostly bubbles. In reality, some of the “economic growth” we have now is unsustainable and based in destruction of natural resources of which our material culture & our economy are merely derivative. That said, I can see four main possibilities:[ol] [li]The CBO’s pre-2008 projections for economic growth were biophysically impossible empty promises, and nothing will get our economy to that point, but subsidized education & healthcare probably won’t hurt anything. [/li][li]The CBO’s pre-2008 projections for economic growth were vaguely related to reality, and thus give us a rough ceiling for what Bernie’s plan can do.[/li][li]Bernie’s plan isn’t actually stimulative enough to reach the ceiling, but will add a more modest amount of growth.[/li][li]Bernie’s plan will overstimulate consumption of overtaxed resources, hastening the end of the world as man has ever known it.[/li][/ol] As a social democrat, I think Bernie’s plan is worth a shot. As a Malthusian conservationist, I think we should abandon this silly democracy stuff and start euthanizing the excess population for the sake of a richer & more sustainable society. Which side I take kind of depends on my mood, and whether I’ve just been reading about the problems of naturalists in the present régime. I don’t really know what Romer & Goolsbee’s problem with it is, but if it’s that they think, “we should abandon this silly democracy stuff and start euthanizing the excess population,” I’d be surprised. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/75 "2016-02-27T17:32:06Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > However, what we have to remember is that economists are bloody idiots. Barely any of them predicted the earlier housing and financial crisis. A bigger bunch of shysters you could not meet. One of the cheerleaders of securitized adjustable rate mortgages, balloon payments and all, was, notoriously, Austan Goolsbee, who somehow got hired as an economic advisor to Obama. He is now using his reputation from that undeserved job to more effectively sneer at Jerry Friedman, as one of the pack of four saying, “Nuh-uh! Couldn’t happen!” And it’s all ridiculous anyway; as the probable reality is that Sanders’s plan would be stimulative, more stimulative than (like Hillary and the Third Way crowd) continuing to push investment in our present economy with a glut of investment (or should I say a _yuuuuuge_ ratio of investment to consumption). It’s just not likely to be _that_ stimulative. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Other Sander’s ideas such as free college and Medicare for all will not be stimulative at all. These programs are not creating any new economic value but just changing who pays. This is like trying to make a dinner with friends cheaper by not asking for separate checks. The money the government spends must be first taken out of the economy through taxes before it goes back in as government spending. Taxes are also subject to dead weight loss and the higher the tax rates the more deadweight loss. I’m going to have to disagree here. The actual deadweight loss is in educational development abandoned by students who can’t afford to pay inflated tuition rates. Educating scientists and historians, who require extensive education but who do not “make the big money” once they graduate, is creating value. On the medical care side, the real issue that Sanders isn’t talking about (and needs to) is _supply._ We could train 2x as many physicians as we do, and that would help a lot, whatever system of health insurance we have. But that requires politicians to recognize that the cap on Medicare-salaried medical residents instated in the 1990’s was _recklessly_ low. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/76 "2016-02-27T17:37:48Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I stand corrected. I saw this on Wikipedia: > > “Sanders has suggested that he would be open to a 90% top marginal tax rate” and jumped to conclusions. I see now that his top marginal tax rate would be 52%. A little higher than I think is reasonable but if it pays for health care and college tuition for everyone, I’d be willing to pay it. I thought I read 77% somewhere, but that may have been including payroll taxes, and I’m going to be a bad Doper and not hunt it down right this minute. Still, pretty similar to JFK’s top rate. I don’t know how the brackets compare in purchasing power terms. Sorry, maybe I’ll look it up tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/77 "2016-02-27T17:57:27Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This economist claims that Sanders will lead the economy to over 5% growth per year. Sanders has said his model for an economy is Denmark. During the last 50 years the Danish economy has grown over five percent in a year 3 times. The last time it did so was 21 years ago. During the same50 year period the US economy grew over 5% a year five times. During the last 20 years the Danish economy has grown faster than the US economy exactly one year. About the times we did: As Jamie Galbraith pointed out in his [letter to the Supercilious Four (PDF):](http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ResponsetoCEA.pdf) [QUOTE=James K. Galbraith] Matthew Yglesias makes an important point about your letter: “It’s noteworthy that the former CEA chairs criticizing Friedman didn’t bother to run through a detailed explanation of their problems with the paper. To them, the 5.3 percent figure was simply absurd on its face, and it was good enough for them to say so, relying on their authority to generate media coverage.” So, let’s first ask whether an economic growth rate, as projected, of 5.3 percent per year is, as you claim, “grandiose.” There are not many ambitious experiments in economic policy with which to compare it, so let’s go back to the Reagan years. What was the actual average real growth rate in 1983, 1984, and 1985, following the enactment of the Reagan tax cuts in 1981? Just under 5.4 percent. That’s a point of history, like it or not. [/QUOTE] At the risk of disagreeing with Galbraith, who knows a lot more about it than I do; I believe it is an uncontroversial point of history that the economy grew explosively then because the Fed, having intentionally plunged the USA into a brutal recession, had finally let up on interest rates. The tax cuts probably added a smidge to it. When an economy has been below full capacity, and recovers, somehow, that economy will have a few years of boom growth. We’ve been in a relatively depressed state for seven years. Ten years of boom growth is not entirely out of the question. Now, iirc, Larry Summers seems to think we’re in secular stagnation, and growth isn’t coming back. I’m not well-educated enough to understand what exactly he means by that; but even if he’s right, subsidized university might overcome it. > [@puddleglum](#): > > According to the world bank Danish GDP per capita is over 17% lower than it is in the US. Denmark also has greater wealth inequality than the US. > So this economist thinks the US can suddenly spike economic growth by copying the policies of a poorer country with slower economic growth. It makes no sense at all. Denmark has a lot of policies, though. Maybe they have a lower GDP for other reasons. Denmark is a flat little sea country, relatively densely populated, without much in the way of mining capacity. Also, if I remember right, you can’t buy Pepto-Bismol in stores in Denmark! I don’t think Sanders is going to copy that policy! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/78 "2016-02-27T18:27:55Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Growth comes from savings. Bernie Sanders’ proposals would likely decrease savings. His plan would hamper economic growth. You are wrong. We’ve tried it your way (which was also Reagan’s way, the Clintons’ way, the ‘Third Way’) for thirty-odd years. We got bubbles and unsustainable consumer debt. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > That being said, even if I were predisposed to believe consumption causes growth, It does! Again, not really a controversial claim except to rightish politicians and pretentious media slobs. > [@](#): > > i would simply point out that Sanders is a protectionist. Any benefits that could be gained from allocating resources to government activities would be minuscule compared to the impoverishment of millions overseas and lowered living standards domestically when he disrupts the division of labor and precipitates a trade war. Oh, please. How much free trade is he going to dial back? As big a deal as TPP was, it could be expected to add less economic capacity to the USA than just the first two years of Bernienomics. We are way into the level of diminishing returns on free trade agreements. That’s not a Sandersnista protectionist talking, that’s Paul Krugman, who got the [del]Nobel[/del] Swedish Banker’s Prize that we pretend is a Nobel for his work on trade. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > What a load of nonsense all around. I am gonna skip the paragraphs of you bloviating ignorantly about how economists bloviate ignorantly, not to mention you accusing them of not considering things they actually considered. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > As for Sanders proposals… They fail even as a Keynesian stimulus, because a Keynesian stimulus only ‘works’ when there is a severe shortfall of demand. The whole point is to put to work idle resources. But according to that economist, all this will happen in an environment of rapid GDP growth and very low unemployment. That’s just incoherent. If unemployment is low, then all the workers on the stimulus projects will be pulled from other jobs. No. You are trying to bait & switch “before” and “after.” Right now, there is low workforce participation, low compensation in the lower three quintiles of households. That means low demand, in that the populace lacks money with which to purchase goods and services. The idea is that the state can hire the populace to do things the market isn’t. Some of those things are things only the state really does anyway (like paying medical resident salaries, repairing viaducts, or building low-tuition universities in a bid to increase the mean skill level of the populace). Some is stuff the private sector might do, if there were more demand, but the state is more likely to get done at this point (some utilities maintenance, some blue sky research, etc.). When workforce participation is as low as it is, increasing demand for labor (ideally) increases the workforce and thus consumer demand! And this won’t happen all at once, which is why we’re talking about years of ~4% growth (~5% with population growth) instead of one year of 20%+ growth. > [@s'more Sam](#): > > Sanders and his economist buddy also seem to think that you can make education free without causing tuition to rise accordingly in a world of constrained supply. Now who’s incoherent? I’m skipping the philosophical noodling about the virtues of post-secondary education and its relevance to economic performance. Suffice to say, you are not entirely wrong, but your biases show through in that you don’t notice that it’s a jobs program for those who transmit to the next generation some more obscure parts of our culture: the professors. I think it’s better the state pay them than sucker the students into doing so. > [@](#): > > Fairy tales. If this crap worked, China wouldn’t be in trouble after their massive infrastructure spending, and Japan would be the economic collossus of the world. Britain should be in a great depression after its ‘austerity’ program, and the U.S. economy should have clobbered Canada’s, since our stimulus was much smaller as a percentage of GDP. None of that happened. Well, Britain’s economy is depressed, hence the rise of Corbyn, not to mention Simon Wren-Lewis talking about the virtues of helicopter money on his blog. This was a fun discussion. When I talk to real economists, I feel like a seven-year-old. You lot remind me that I know more than the average bloke. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/79 "2016-02-27T19:34:46Z")
Oh, a week ago, “Naked Keynesianism” blogger Matias Vernengo was [blatantly mocking Paul Krugman](http://nakedkeynesianism.blogspot.com/2016/02/getting-history-right-krugman-continues.html) over this, and it’s pretty funny: > [@](#): > > If you were in the 1930s, the historical record would suggest that an improvement in income distribution based on higher taxes on the wealthy and cheap college access to the masses would be implausible, and yet by the 1950s things had changed (see graph below). The historical record would say this was not possible. > > [graph at source] > > The guy that used the graph above said: “The middle-class society I grew up in didn’t evolve gradually or automatically. It was created, in a remarkably short period of time, by FDR and the New Deal. As the chart shows, income inequality declined drastically from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s, with the rich losing ground while working Americans saw unprecedented gains.” Unprecedented, as in never done before, or implausible. Who said that? Bernie Sanders? Gerald Friedman? No, it was Paul Krugman of course. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655/80 "2016-02-29T04:12:45Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > You are wrong. We’ve tried it your way (which was also Reagan’s way, the Clintons’ way, the ‘Third Way’) for thirty-odd years. We got bubbles and unsustainable consumer debt. My way is inflationist monetary policy and implicit bailout guarantees? Nope. That’s the way of the central planners like Reagan, Clinton, and Sanders. In any case, how would a period of unsustainable consumer debt be a period in which I had my way of encouraging growth by not hampering savings? A bizarre claim. I > [@](#): > > t does! Again, not really a controversial claim except to rightish politicians and pretentious media slobs Just name calling here. > [@](#): > > Oh, please. How much free trade is he going to dial back? How much would he want to? A lot. How much could he? Not much, considering he lost. The real protectionist threat now is Trump. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-says-awesome-things-about-sanderss-economic-plan/745655.md?page=5)