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Contributors are their own.    Macro Santa And The Austerity
Grinch  Wanted: Santa Claus  Lock up Santa: The stimulus gifts
under the tree come at a heavy price to our children. Image by
kevin dooley via Flickr  The year is nearly over. The holidays
have arrived. The news media is stirring with visions of holiday
consumer spending sugar plums, terrifying debt crisis, and
depression. ‘Tis the season for John Maynard Keynes! That’s
right, there’s no better time to reflect on the maestro of
modern macro and more importantly his many modern followers.
Each year the public enjoys a sleigh full of Keynesianism shoved
down our collective chimneys by a media obsessed with Christmas
consumer spending because “we have a consumer economy”, or so
we’re told. Nothing gets that so-called “marginal propensity to
consume” into high gear like the holidays!  Indeed, Lord Keynes
is our modern Macro Santa.  Lik