>Taking macroecon next quarter in a liberal uni
>Textbook is Krugman
>Trump, and other candidates, will probably come up in class.
What should I expect, /pol/? How can I prepare for this?
>>68467456
Most economics professors are inherently conservative, and lean towards libertarianism--it's not so much ideological, but more of a personality trait I've found.
Don't be a pushy know-it-all. Your professor will probably be perfectly happy, maybe even excited, to answer a question if you simply as "what is the main controversy surrounding Keynesian economic theory?" There's a good chance it wasn't even up to him to chose the textbook.
>>68467456
>Keynesian economic theory
What is this, and what is good/bad about it?
>>68467969
http://fee.org/articles/the-failure-of-keynesian-economics/
>>68467969
pic related is just a funny strawman, but it makes me laugh so here you go.
I'm REALLY oversimplifying things, but it basically has to do with believing the government should moderate the natural boom and bust cycle of the market--so slowing things down the highs, and propping up the lows. Theoretically, this will avoid the dangerous extremes (people are mostly worried about the lows). They can do this with tax rates, monetary policy, and direct investment (or withholding the same)
>>68468570
Except it doesn't work
Also they literally paid people to dig ditches and fill them back in during the great depression, so your meme isn't really exaggerating so much
Austrian economics is your friend
>>68469104
>Except it doesn't work
Eh, we seemed to bounce out of the recession pretty quickly. What about it doesn't work? What works better? What would you rather have those ditch diggers do, starve? Take free money?
>>68469104
Direct government spending CAN work in a true depression scenario, when very little wealth is otherwise moving within the system. In that situation, literally putting coin in consumer pockets is still better than simply opening up a government bread dispensary.
But Keynesianism as a general strategy for any kind of economic conditions is about as close to a planned economy as you get in a capitalist system, which is to say "bad".
>>68469104
Austrian economics is only relevant as a meme on /pol/, friend. No one seriously considers Austrian economics as a school.
>>68467789
I can attest to this for lower level to mid level economics courses where the principle-based material is inherently conservative. As you move up, there tends to be more ideological impact from the professor because the principles can break down.
Also OP, you will probably end up covering a good chunk of Federal Bank work instead of government work for macro.
>>68469104
I prefer the Chinese model. If bankers over-leverage the securities market and cause a crash, they get the death penalty. If all of the Middlebury lacrosse players on Wall Street--and more importantly: their bosses--knew they were going to get a bullet in the back of head if they fuck up, you would see more restrained markets, and the government could otherwise be fairly laissez faire, aside from some quantitative easing, and market freezes to avoid impulse fire sales.
Anyway, I think that's better than paying thousands of bureaucrats who were the bottom 20% of their class, and couldn't actually get a wall street job, to constantly regulate an industry filled with people smarter than they are, and have a central banking system that's constantly trying to track the economy like a Soviet politburo officer.
>>68470458
>Also OP, you will probably end up covering a good chunk of Federal Bank work instead of government work for macro.
What does this mean? Should I prepare?
>>68470651
Macro ends up going more into Federal Bank policy than government policy. 'Liberal' economists in the mainstream tend to deal more with what government should do.
I support Trump and am anti-kike, but you're full retard if you think Austrian economics are anything but meme tier with a few exceptions. Krugman knows what he is talking about when it comes to economics.
>>68471416
>Federal Bank policy
Examples?
>>68471560
Monetary Policy. Money supply control, inflation targets, etc. Is this an intro class or intermediate? Intro will probably cover basic stuff like supply and demand, GDP, inflation measures. It's hard to get into liberal stuff with intro courses because the principles which this is based on are inherently conservative if you want efficiency. Your professor will probably tell you that often we want to make a tradeoff between efficiency and equality based on philosophical reasons, but I don't think you'll have a professor that goes full on Liberal on you.
Krugman's textbook is actually quite objective compared to his rhetoric. Hell he even recognizes that price floors create surpluses.
Just remind everyone that Trump majored in Economics while everyone else was a Politics major (sans Carson and Yeb! who majored in Psychology and Latin American Studies respectively).
