Re: Re: RE: The IMF and the Presidential Candidates

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Brad describes Stanley Fischer as saying:
> --That tax cuts would surely be accompanied by a tightening of monetary
> policy to try to keep the real GDP growth path unchanged, that such a
> shift in the policy mix would raise the value of the dollar and increase
> the U.S. current account deficit.

> --That no one looking back at the financial crises that hit countries
> running large current-account deficits in the 1990s and looking at today's
> value U.S. current account deficit could remain calm at the prospect of
> policies designed to widen the U.S. current account deficit further.

If he's so concerned about the US balance of trade deficit, why isn't he
denouncing the Fed's repeated interest-rate hikes that have encouraged the
dollar to soar, crowding out US exports? Why is he simply blaming the
government? Doesn't he realize that the government has a budget surplus?

> --That the combination in the U.S. of an extremely low private savings
> rate and what looks like a relatively high marginal social product of
> investment seemed to make the argument for budget surpluses much stronger
> than usual.

Where does he get the view that investment has a high social product? is
this simply an assumption? or is it the application of Keynesian economics,
a reference to the multiplier effects of investment? does government
investment in education, science, infrastructure, and/or public health have
a similar effect or does Fischer privilege the private sector as the font
of all that is good? if so, what  evidence does he have for this assertion?

> --That everyone should listen very closely to the criticisms of the
> current globalization process offered by Ugandan President Musaveni, one
> of the true heroes of the 1990s and a man who deserves as much credit as
> one individual can take for halting Uganda's downward spiral.

what does Musaveni say?

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine