Sorry you were disappointed not to get a reply – even more sorry that I failed to pick up on the idea that you felt you had disproved the entire theory of government spending/not saving in a deflationary slump can pay for itself with future income. I did not know that you thought you had done that – if I had, I might have interrupted a rather busy week (LD conference etc) to jump in and make a comment.

I’m still not sure where you have done that. Surely not here:

“That argument is obviously pretty sketchy though, and I wouldn’t like to hang my coat on it. So I have quite a lot of time for people who say that fiscal stimulus is relatively ineffective, and that consequently the build up of government debt needs to be reduced to allow private firms access to capital.”

To give an example from recent events: the VAT cut, the only really discretionary thing the govt has done: the CEBR, hardly a poodle, found that as a result of the cut we have had greatly increased retail sales over the counterfactual, so that its putative 12bn cost is in fact closer to £6bn (there’s a post somewhere on Freethink.org about this).

But I am clearly doing a very bad job of convincing you and must admit failure. I could try to do a long abstract thing about imagining an economy with 100 workers and 50 are idle and a central agency employs them using “savings” and the savings are found in the future incomes from the workers, but I think others – Brad DeLong in particular – do a far better job than I do:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/09/a-magnificent-seven.html

is one I have not gone through yet:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/01/time-to-bang-my-head-against-the-wall-some-more-pre-elementary-monetary-economics-department.html

amused me at the time. You have to put up with his rudeness, I’m afraid: BDL has an IQ near the impossible levels and it is worth getting through. The comments below it, in particular this astonishingly simple insight about Cochrane’s fallacy, are well worth browsing too.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/01/time-to-bang-my-head-against-the-wall-some-more-pre-elementary-monetary-economics-department.html?cid=6a00e551f080038834010536f93cd9970c#comment-6a00e551f080038834010536f93cd9970c

Sorry to fob you off with another writer. I have a week’s reading to catch up – I am honestly not wanting to be either just a trackback tart or just hit-and-run. I will happily produce giant posts on the subject of how stimulus can OCCASIONALLY work (though mostly it does not) on my blog when I get through it all.

Oh, and Skidelsky’s Keynes book is good on this: plus Krugman, Return of Depression economics, of course: the babysitting co=op.

By the way, on your last point about the stimulus returning to previous levels of growth – yes, but this is still better than the counterfactual, surely (1931). That is the comparison to make (as I tried to get Liam Halligan to admit, unsuccessfully).

Barney – that’s helpful clarification.

First, in defence of, Giles at FreeeconThinkummy, he was just exploring the commenting at length thing while at the same time putting a lot of time into establishing a readership for his own blog (and that’s a reaso for the commenting), and he did admit to me on a comments thread at his place what a time drain it all can be, though clearly having a blog like his is a business decision as much as a labour of love. I don’t think he was being in any way deliberately disrespectful, and I suspect it just fell off his to do list in the face of other comments threads he was at and his own posts. When I get involved in several threads at once I start to forget where I’m supposed to be, too (mind you, I am v old).

On the more general point, I agree with Dave that while most comments threads simply die off, what is important is the internalisation. None of keep scores on who’s won or lost a debate – it’s all just a matter of keeping on learning – facts, viewpoints and methods of self-expression – to take out into the real non-blogo world.

What I really like about TCF, and why I wanted to start to post here (which I only did last month) is the high quality of comment threads, driven by Dave’s commitment to responding in detail to just about any compos mentis comment that comes his way (and my aspiration to do so), but I wouldn’t want to see that become a formal comments policy we have to adhere to. As said, comments threads do just die out and then the ideas/arguments get picked up in other places at other times, and if that happens where there are more people to engage/be persuaded/ do something with the new info/analysis, then TCF is doing its job.

For me, when I locate a gap in my understanding, I try to get around to reading about it (currently on quantum superposition, if you would believe) – and I know quite a few others to be the same.

But even people who don’t have such an open approach to things, it’s unnecessary to push things to the conclusion where someone says “good point” because they’ll already have internalized the information, if they are worth arguing with.

However, I am still slightly peeved by the lack of response to my post. Not because I think people have a duty to reply to me, but because I don’t think anyone gets anywhere by constantly flitting to new topics, without properly looking at the older ones. The comment wasn’t really intended for you, Paul, it was more at thread about government debt. I guess what irritates me is that, so far as I can see, freethinking was just plainly wrong – as far as I am aware no one holds the position he was advancing. I think my argument clearly demonstrated that. Of course, I am prepared to admit I may well be wrong in that beliefs – but it bugs me when there is no reply at all, not even one to say “you are obviously wrong” or “good point”. I know people are busy with other blogs and other enterprises, but if these boards are actually going to further anyone’s understanding arguments need to be carried to some form of conclusion.

Moan over. Been enjoying the other threads!

A lot of posts have floated under the bridge since then. Can you be a bit more specific, especially if it was me who was not impressing you. Sometimes it’s simply the time for commenting which is lacking rather than the lack of will to reimpress, and then the post’s a few days old, and then, well, you know how it goes…………but if you can identify briefly where you think the debate remained unconcluded, that’d be helpful