Fight of the Century
EconStories
[Intro: Keynes & Hayek]
John Maynard Keynes
F. A. Hayek
Round two
Round 2.0
Same economists
Same beliefs
New microphones
New mustaches

[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 choose?
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 butter, 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]
Which way should we choose?
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
[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 economy's 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]
Which way should we choose?
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]
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 class you can master in college
To think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge

[Hook: Chairman Ref]
Which way should we choose?
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]
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]
Which way should we choose?
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
Write the lyrics for a rap song made in 2011, titled "Fight of the Century", by artist "EconStories".