I did a live blog of the debate between Paul Krugman and Steve Moore at Freedomfest on July 10, and now there is a first person account from Steve Moore himself. Here are the bits on Keynes and the stimulus:

Last week I debated New York Times columnist and Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in front of 2,000 people at FreedomFest in Las Vegas. It was billed as the economic showdown of the year, and the major theme was socialism vs. capitalism.

Given the financial turmoil in Greece, Puerto Rico, Argentina and most of the eurozone, it would be hard to think of a worse time for Krugman to be defending big government. . . .

The first issue we squared off on was “stimulus.” My point was that Obamanomics gave America the weakest recovery in at least three generations and is running $2.5 trillion in GDP and 8 million jobs behind the Reagan recovery.

Krugman’s response was that the 2008 financial crisis was so catastrophic that 2% growth was the best we could expect. Except that even the Obama administration admits that the recovery turned out weaker with the stimulus than we would have seen without it.

During the debate Krugman called John Maynard Keynes one of the two greatest economists of all time. But when Keynesian economics was put to the test by Obama, it crashed. . . .

My big takeaway from the debate is that advocates of free-market capitalism need to aggressively call out the Krugman-Obama-New York Times-Hillary Clinton-IMF crowd for bringing misery and decline to so many places around the world with their wildly irresponsible debt and spending policies. They’re on the run because their model is imploding right before our very eyes here in the U.S. and around the world.

Perhaps worst of all, their obsession with income inequality and spreading the wealth is only making the poor poorer, and driving the middle class downward, as even Clinton herself acknowledged this week. Krugman and his followers are on the losing side of history. No wonder he didn’t want this debate televised.

I also think that Keynesian economics is under pressure because of the disastrous outcomes everywhere the stimulus was tried. But I hardly think we have seen anything like the knockout blow that is needed. Lots of people still defend Keynes and the stimulus. In fact, next month I will be in a debate in Melbourne on the stimulus versus “austerity” where the other side will be taken by the Chief Economist of one of our major banks (as part of the Policy in the Pub series run by the Economic Society of Victoria – details to follow). Whatever may be Steve Moore’s impression, my own judgement is that Keynesian economics has ended up more entrenched than ever, as bizarre as that may seem. However, do read the comments thread that comes with Steve’s article since there are plenty of people who understand perfectly well how rotten to the heart Keynesian theory is.

[My thanks to Allan in San Francisco for sending this along – I, however, am happily now back home.]