Why Does Stimulus Work? A Follow-Up

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Just a quick note: a few days ago I linked to a John Cochrane post in which he suggested a big difference between the Old Keynesian and New Keynesian explanations for why fiscal stimulus works. Aside from any other disagreements that liberal economists might have with Cochrane, I was curious about whether his description was correct. Well, for those of you who have been sitting on the edges of your seats waiting for an answer, now we have one. Robert Waldmann (here) and Paul Krugman (here) basically say that Cochrane’s story is so fundamentally confused that it’s all but impossible to even criticize it. “Cochrane’s fantasy has so little connection with reality that it is hard to discuss,” says Waldmann. “He can’t be bothered to actually figure out how the models work,” says Krugman. So that’s that. No punches are being pulled in this cage match. Just thought I’d pass it along.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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