Russ Roberts - Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two lyrics

[Intro] [Keynes] John Maynard Keynes [Hayek] F. A. Hayek [Keynes] Round Two [Hayek] Round 2.0 [Keynes] Same economists. Same beliefs [Hayek] New microphones [Keynes] New Mustaches Let's go. Let's go. Let's go [Keynes] Here we are, peace out Great Recession Thanks to me, as you see, we're not in a depression Recovery, destiny, if you follow my lesson Lord Keynes, here I come, line up for the procession [Hayek] We brought out the shovels And we're still in a ditch and still digging Don't you think it's time for a switch from the hair of the dog? Friend the party is over, the long run is here, it's time to get sober [Keynes] Are you kidding? My cure works perfectly fine Have a look, the Great Recession ended back in '09 I deserve credit, things would've been worse All the estimates prove it, I'll quote chapter and verse [Hayek] The econometricians, they're ever so pious Are they doing real science or just confirming their bias? Their Keynesian models are tidy and neat But that top-down approach is a fatal conceit [Hook: Chairman Ref] Which way should we chose? More bottom-up or more top-down? The fight continues. Keynes and Hayek, Second Round It's time to weigh in. More from the top or from the ground? Let's listen to the greats, Keynes and Hayek throwin' down [Keynes] We could've done better had we only spent more Too bad that only happens when there's a world war You can carp all you want about stats and regression Do you deny WWII cut short The Depression? [Hayek] Wow One data point and you're jumping for joy The last time I checked, wars only destroy There was no multiplier, consumption just shrank As we used scarce resources for every new tank Pretty perverse to call that prosperity Ration meat, ration bu*ter, a life of austerity When that war spending ended your friends cried disaster Yet the economy thrived and grew faster [Keynes] You too only see what you want to see The spending of war clearly goosed GDP Unemployment was over, almost down to zero That's why I'm the master, that's why I'm the hero [Hayek] Creating employment's a straightforward craft When the nation's at war and there's a draft If every worker were staffed in the army and fleet We'd have full employment... and nothin' to eat [Hook: Chairman Ref] [Hayek] Jobs are a means, not the ends in themselves People work to live better, to put food on the shelves Real growth means production of what people demand That's entrepreneurship, not your central plan [Keynes] My solution is simple, and easy to handle It's spending that matters, why's that such a scandal? Money sloshes through the pipes and the sluices Revitalizing the economies juices It's just like an engine that's stalled and gone dark To bring it to life we need a quick spark Spending's the life blood that gets the flow going Where it goes doesn't matter - just get spending flowing! [Hayek] You see slack in some sectors as a general glut But some sectors are healthy, only some in a rut So spending's not free, that's the heart of the matter Too much gets wasted as cronies get fatter The economy's not a car, there's no engine to stall No expert can fix it, there's no "it" at all The economy's us, we don't need a mechanic Put away the wrenches, the economy's organic [Hook: Chairman Ref] [Keynes] So what would you do to help those unemployed? This is the question you seem to avoid When we're in a mess, would you have us just wait? Doing nothing until markets equilibrate? [Hayek] I don't wanna do nothing, there's plenty to do! The question I ponder is: Who plans for whom? Do I plan for myself, or leave it to you? I want plans by the many, not by the few Let's not repeat what created our troubles I want real growth, not a series of bubbles Stop bailing out losers Let prices work If we don't try to steer them They won't go berserk [Keynes] C'mon! Are you kidding? Don't Wall Streets gyrations challenge your worldview of self-regulation? Even you must admit that the lesson we've learned is More oversight's needed or else we'll get burned [Hayek] Oversight? The government's long been in bed With those Wall Street exec's and the firms that they bled Capitalism's about profit and loss You bail out the losers, there's no end to the cost The lesson I've learned: it's how little we know The world is complex, not some circular flow The economy's not a cla** you can master in college To think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge [Keynes] You get on your high horse, and you're off to the races I look at the world on a case-by-case basis When people are suffering I roll up my sleeve And do what I can do to cure our disease The future's uncertain, our outlooks are frail That's why free markets are so prone to fail In a volatile world, we need more discretion So state intervention can counter depression [Hayek] People aren't chess men you move on a board at your whim Their dreams and desires ignored With political incentives, discretion's a joke Those dials your twisting? Just mirrors and smoke We need stable rules and real market prices So prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis Give us a chance so we can discover the most valuable ways to serve one another [Hook: Chairman Ref]