IN NEED OF A CONE OF SILENCE
Sitting in a restaurant having breakfast. Overhearing a conversation next to me. A woman is planning her divorce over the next two years; including how she will increase her expenses, quit her job, take all the cash, run up the credit cards, lie to her husband in the process so that he doesn’t suspect anything. She’s asking her friend for advice on how long she can probably prolong the situation to get the maximum return.
Source date (UTC): 2011-12-21 11:45:00 UTC
http://www.capitalismv3.com/index.php/glossary/#schumpeterian%20intellectualsECONOMISTS AS THE ACOLYTES OF TOTALITARIANISM
“Once people decided that they wanted to make a living from giving economic advice, they needed customers. The government was the obvious target. The new class of professional economists said that politicians could spend the taxpayer’s money willy-nilly, even on total waste. And, that all their remaining economic problems could be solved, without cost or effort, by monetary manipulation, in time for the next election. This proved to be a big seller, and it remains so today.” (- Courtesy of Forbes)
See: Schumpeterian Intellectuals in my Glossary of Political Economy
Source date (UTC): 2011-12-19 08:30:00 UTC
GEEK HUMOR:
QUESTION: What’s the difference between an economist and a used car salesman?
ANSWER: Only the used car salesman knows when he’s lying to you.
(Courtesy of Newmark’s Door)
Source date (UTC): 2011-12-19 07:34:00 UTC
Q: “So why is everyone so opposed to inflation? Don’t they realize that inflation reduces debt in real terms?”
This is why people are opposed to inflation:
1) Moral hazard – punishes people who save and live within their means
2) Fixed Income Punishment – Harms those on fixed incomes who are impoverished by inflation.
3) Business Risk Taking Impediments – planning becomes difficult because of price variability (this can be good and bad).
4) Interest Rate Peaks – barrier to rates. Effectively inflation helps big companies with fixed capital costs, and hurts small businesses who need cheap access to capital. This is why Paul Krugman’s chart was effective in 1935 and is ineffective today.
Source date (UTC): 2011-12-10 15:06:00 UTC
Karl States:
“I actually think this issue brings up extremely deep philosophical questions that virtually no one I can find wants to engage in.”
What are you talking about? No one wants to engage in those conversations? You haven’t posted an issue yet that hasn’t been addressed in the past century pretty thoroughly. Or at least, you should engage a few libertarian intellectuals. I think you mean, that it is impossible to affect the political dialog by framing policy questions by other than political means. There is only ONE political spectrum (progressive to conservative) but there are TWO political AXIS (incorrectly stated by Nolan) consisting of Individual Property Rights (Economic Freedom per Nolan), and Pseudo-Shareholder Appropriation Of Returns (Personal Freedom per Nolan). ***And so you yourself are framing the question falsely.*** Which is why you can’t get serious traction with your arguments (despite being the best blogger on center-progressive political economy). Now, you’d have to answer your own question here: why is it that a) people don’t frame it the way you prefer, and b) why is it that you frame it the way that you do? It’s the progressive vision versus the conservative vision. ie: you see the world as a run-rate system that has it’s own momentum that is unstoppable and the fruits of which can be siphoned and shared without consequence. Conservatives view the world as a struggle to concentrate capital resting on a fragile edifice that has been constructed by irrational but successful means, and which can be disassembled and lost without constant vigilance. Counter-intuitive results are produced on both sides of the aisle. For example, online pornography drastically reduces sex crimes – it seems obvious now, but it didn’t then. Cheap fattening food, cheap music, cheap movies and cheap video games, and easy access to pot give the unwashed proletariat something better to do than alcohol, hard drugs, violence, crime, rebellion and hanging on street corners like they did until fifteen years ago. Increasing incarceration and increasing punishment (especially three strikes) works to reduce crime. Eliminating the permanent welfare dependency decreased dependency. The inter-temporal redistribution system (social security) created a dependency bubble. The purpose of politics is to win control of the bloody hand of government so that your alliance of minorities can seek rents on the other alliance of minorities instead of working in the market for mutual gain — like we libertarians of the classical liberal bent recommend, by treating society as a portfolio of human capital that must be constantly improved for the benefit of all. All of us want the benefits of the market without the risks of participating in it. People seek to game the market through political rent seeking, through saving enough to live off their savings and investments, to under-consuming so that they have more leisure time. The market is hard.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2011/11/30/bernanke-ecb-throw-more-dollars-at-europes-crisis/You know, back in 2006 I didn’t resort to calling people ‘idiots’ when they suggested that the world was decoupling. (I leave the name calling to Paul Krugman.)
If there was any illusion left, it was wiped away today.
Source date (UTC): 2011-11-30 22:31:00 UTC
http://www.capitalismv3.com/index.php/2011/10/krugman-watch-austerity-class-or-is-it-a-starve-the-beast-class/Krugman Watch: framing the debate by tactics not strategy as a means of undermining the argument.
Source date (UTC): 2011-10-21 15:12:00 UTC
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/09/22/michael_moore_threatens_the_rich_lets_deal_with_it_nonviolently_now.html#.TnyZi-cKTyA.facebookMoore is propagating The Myth Of The General Strike, and the Myth of the Revolution. He puts this silly threat out there, that violence will come from the proletariat, when in fact, history shows quite clearly that it is very easy for the wealthy to conquer and oppress the proletariat. In fact, it’s pretty much the way government is done. The only times that the proletariat has succeeded have been when it’s been led by the upper middle class. So, while I think Moore is disgusting – as a human being he’s disgusting -but aside from that emotional response, he’s also just plain wrong.
Source date (UTC): 2011-09-23 10:53:00 UTC
There are only two people who make rational arguments on the ‘left’. They’re you and Krugman. We all know he’s a political shill. I’m in the camp that says you’re a moral man, and just missing the point of it all. But if you don’t understand the disastrous externalities created by our statism (re: Nial Ferguson, Rothbard, Mises, and Hayek), then it may not matter if you are a moral man or not. The time frame of data that you mine so carefully (and so well) is too short to incorporate the consequences of long term expansion of the state. Only history will show you that. And the history of political economy is pretty clear on these matters. On my side of the fence, we’ve given up on Krugman. Myself, I’m looking for the people who unify the two points of view – who use macro without the disastrous externalities of expanding the state. You might be that man. On the other hand, I might just have false hopes. It might be impossible to find someone who can put out a daily column in a major newspaper uniting both sides and creating a political movement that gets us out of permanent political decline. Someone emailed me yesterday to lighten up on you. I would. But the stakes are too high. I have hope that you’re “neo” so to speak. 🙂 You are articulate enough. You’re skeptical enough. You’re fast enough. You’re humble enough. You understand the data. And you rely upon moral sentiments. A decent editor and you’re there. Or rather, you’re there if you understand that the state bureaucracy creates ‘bads’. 🙂 Curt
Karl Smith at Modeled Behavior says.
Doing the rounds on Mises circuit I am usually identified as a liberal or a person from the left. I don’t really much care so I take that ID.
Karl. ??? Why is that important (other than by engaging the Misesians, that you position yourself well). The Rothbardian wing of the Libertarians are radicals – anarchists. And from the extreme right, everyone else looks left. But you’re a moderate. You’re a classical liberal. In current labels, if you were a little less comfortable with totalitarianism, you’d be part of the Neo-Classical Liberal movement. (See “Bleeding heart libertarians”.) And your belief that we should overthrow the electorate in order to ‘do what’s good for them’ simply proves that you’re a totalitarian. If people prefer what’s bad for them, then that’s OK. RIght now, they prefer to punish their government. You seem to think that’s stupid. But it’s not. It’s just a choice. And that’s what makes the difference between a libertarian and a totalitarian. So, for example, it’s pretty clear that a muslim political majority is economically disastrous for any society that was previously christian. Do you feel that the people have the right then, to demand a muslim government if empirically, it would be bad for them? Likewise, the economic movements in asia that have succeed have been lead by their Christian minorities. So, if Americans want to limit their government if it imposes upon them a cost, then why shouldn’t they? That set of questions illustrates the difference between reason and scientism. Scientism being a pejorative. Democratic socialists have co-opted the term ‘liberal’ from Classical Liberalism. Hayek also used the term Libertarian. Rothbard created the Libertarian Manifesto and effectively co-opted the term. Leaving those of us that are neo-classical liberals (bleeding hearts so to speak) without a name. In the end, in any calculation, from the most numeric to the most heuristic, we must solve for *something*. Some people solve for more freedom over longer periods of time, and others for less freedom and more consumption in the near term. You’re part of the latter group. But I suspect that you’re from the latter group only because you’re enamored of your methods, and ignorant of the long term consequences of the policies you advocate. I don’t advocate redistribution out of an arbitrary sense of empathy – empathy is a weak means of perception in an economy. I do so because propertarian theory helps me understand that redistribution is necessary simply because the system of property rights imposes a cost on individuals and if they respect property rights then should have dividends on their investment. The problem is that these investments must be calculable. This is not something you are familiar with most likely, (the socialist calculation debate) but pooling of money, and general liquidity are both means of creating incalculable relationships between ends and means. And as such they partly destroy the patterns of information needed for an economy. So, if you want to get money into an economy, then do so in a way that is calculable – by low interest loans in areas of the economy that will provide people with what they desire AND need. Cheers.