We are all Keynesians now

Enrique Diaz-Alvarez enrique at anise.ee.cornell.edu
Mon Jun 8 07:10:52 PDT 1998


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> It's striking how ineffectual the Japanese ruling class looks in the
> face of this crisis, unable to come up with a program or get the state to
> do its bidding - in contrast with the U.S., where $200 billion (present
> value) can be spent on the S&L bailout with hardly any political debate.
>
I don't think this is a fair comparison. 200 billion is less than 3% of US GDP. The Japanese bail out would require on the order of $600 billion, which is more than 25% of Japan's GDP. I don't know if the US ruling class would have been able to come up with $2-3 trillion at the drop of hat.


> Doug

-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 758 8962 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique



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