The permanent income hypothesis questions this ability of governments. However, it is also true that permanent income theory is concentrated mainly on long-run dynamics and relations, while Keynes focused primarily on short-run considerations. The emergence of the PIH raised serious debates, and the authors tried either to verify or to falsify the theory of Friedman—in the latter case, arguments were directed mainly towards stressing that the relation between consumption and disposable income still follows (more or less) the mechanism supposed by Keynes. According to some hints dropped in the literature, PIH has the advantage (among others) that it can help us resolve the (alleged) inconsistency between occasionally arising large-scale fluctuations of disposable income and the considerable stability of consumption expenditures.