On February 14 2011 06:24 Milkis wrote: Austrian School is irrelevant to discussion because it's just verbal logic. You can claim that the "world should work this way" all you want but in the end Austrian School makes zero contribution to anything that happens in reality due to how it's set up. It is also very dogmatic since it's literally untestable.
Secondly calling Austrian School as the "actual free market economics" is laughable, when no one takes it seriously (and for a good reason). No one cares about discrediting Austrians because you can just spew out roundabouts by blaming the government and some random policy anyway. Austrian isn't even a school of economics at this point, it is closer to a philosophy. Austrians often make the same mistakes like the author you are criticizing anyways so it's a bad point to bring out.
Very true. I read the first sentence and stopped reading right there. Those that follow the Austrian School DID predict the oncoming recession and in media interviews, they were laughed at.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day". Considering the number of bad predictions austrians make all the time it's honestly not surprising.
You used the concept of action in your post(examples "take seriously", "discredit","mistake"). Hence you implicitly agreed with the sole premise of (most of) austrian economics, the action axiom. A slight performative contradiction there, though not to worry, nothing that a bit of reading of the foundations of economics wont cure http://mises.org/th.asp[/QUOTE]
Economics is the study of the fact that "People respond to incentives". No one will deny that. Pretending however, that this is what makes Austrian Economics "Unique" or acting as if this is only true on Austrian Economics shows that you have no idea what you're talking about overall. The issue with Austrian Economics has nothing to do with this specific premise.
Edit: Not that I'd expect most people who promote Austrian Economics to understand this fact -- 99% of Austrian Economics are internet libertarians who are more idealistic than anything else. It's actually a pretty amusing effect that mises.org had -- it attracted so many ignorant individuals blinded by ideology to the field to the point and makes themselves look absolutely retarded. It's an interesting externality after all ;D [/QUOTE] Lets not pretend Keynesian economics is a 'perfect' system either.
On February 14 2011 06:24 Milkis wrote: Austrian School is irrelevant to discussion because it's just verbal logic. You can claim that the "world should work this way" all you want but in the end Austrian School makes zero contribution to anything that happens in reality due to how it's set up. It is also very dogmatic since it's literally untestable.
Secondly calling Austrian School as the "actual free market economics" is laughable, when no one takes it seriously (and for a good reason). No one cares about discrediting Austrians because you can just spew out roundabouts by blaming the government and some random policy anyway. Austrian isn't even a school of economics at this point, it is closer to a philosophy. Austrians often make the same mistakes like the author you are criticizing anyways so it's a bad point to bring out.
Very true. I read the first sentence and stopped reading right there. Those that follow the Austrian School DID predict the oncoming recession and in media interviews, they were laughed at.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day". Considering the number of bad predictions austrians make all the time it's honestly not surprising.
You used the concept of action in your post(examples "take seriously", "discredit","mistake"). Hence you implicitly agreed with the sole premise of (most of) austrian economics, the action axiom. A slight performative contradiction there, though not to worry, nothing that a bit of reading of the foundations of economics wont cure http://mises.org/th.asp
Economics is the study of the fact that "People respond to incentives". No one will deny that. Pretending however, that this is what makes Austrian Economics "Unique" or acting as if this is only true on Austrian Economics shows that you have no idea what you're talking about overall. The issue with Austrian Economics has nothing to do with this specific premise.
Edit: Not that I'd expect most people who promote Austrian Economics to understand this fact -- 99% of Austrian Economics are internet libertarians who are more idealistic than anything else. It's actually a pretty amusing effect that mises.org had -- it attracted so many ignorant individuals blinded by ideology to the field to the point and makes themselves look absolutely retarded. It's an interesting externality after all ;D
Lets not pretend Keynesian economics is a 'perfect' system either.
I swear it's absolutely hilarious how much I hear this silly pattern.
"Point out Austrian Econ is Rubbish" "Be accused of being Keynesian"
Except that I'm not even Keynesian and Austrians always seem to use this as a punchline or something
Keynesian Economics isn't perfect, but it had made great strides since the time of Keynes and its quite an interesting theory that is testable and expandable. This is why Neo-Keynesian is quite mainstream -- and why Austrian Economics is considered dead. Keynesian not being perfect is not the same as Austrian having issues -- nor does it justify Austrian having issues. Austrian has issues because the school has become pretty much dogmatic. Austrians are simply bad applied theorists because they have no idea what the limitations of their theories are because they don't believe that limitations exist. They don't add anything to our understanding of economics today.
Fiat currencies always fail , it is inevitable. Can you see that the USD is in the process of failing right now? Even Greenspan advocates a gold standard these days :
Well , any shortcomings of Austrian economics are just theoretical since the Austrian school has not had a chance to be used in a modern economy and any shortcomings could be fixed by market forces.Governments of course have continued to push Keynesian over Austrian because it is easier to print paper than print gold.
Like the video shows , even Greenspan is bearish on fiat , i foresee a gold/silver backed currency within 5 years in the United States.Fiat is in it's death throes.
One of the governments roles is to make sure these things do not get out of control via creating legislation that stops the excess and guides monetary policy in the right direction , things like the Glass-Steagall act (that was canned back in 1999.)
Personally i would rather have seen an Austrian response to the current economic crisis. Instead of giving the banks 700 billion just let them go bust. The crash has to come sooner or later , should have just felt more pain when the dot com bubble popped instead of creating more bubbles with freshly printed fiat that have the endgame of making average Americans poorer (real wages down since the 1970s).
On February 16 2011 16:41 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Explain to me why the current system is so great when real incomes have declined since the 1970s? Excepting the top 1% of course. Inflation is a tax.
I don't believe I ever made a statement about the current system. Nor am I, and definitely neither are you, informed to make any educated statements about it.
But it's hilarious that you keep coming up with the oddest responses to my statements and dodging them. Figures all you can do is try and set up poor strawmans in a discussion -- you don't know what you're talking about, nor do you realize that you have no idea what you're talking about.
All you need to know is a basic account of history and the fact that it repeats itself.
History shows only currencies backed by gold and silver stand the test of time , Keynes was against a gold standard therefore his theory is doomed to failure.
The real crisis came after Caracalla, between 258 and 275. In a period of intense civil war and foreign invasions, the emperors simply abandoned, for all practical purposes, a silver coinage. By 268 there was only five tenths percent silver in the denarius. And prices in this period rose in most parts of the empire by nearly a thousand percent. The only people who were getting paid in gold were the barbarian troops hired by the emperors. The barbarians were so barbarous that they would only accept gold in payment for their services.
In the 3rd century this was a constant problem in Rome: all sorts of people were trying to escape the increased taxes that the military needed. The army itself [had grown] from the time of Augustus, when they had about a quarter of a million troops, [to where] by the time of Diocletian they had somewhat over 600,000. So the army itself had doubled in size in the course of this inflationary spiral, and obviously that contributed greatly to the inflation. In addition, the administration of the state had grown enormously. All these events strained the fiscal resources of the state beyond its ability to sustain itself, and the debasement and the taxation were both used to keep the ship of state going; frequently by debasing, then by taxation, and then often simply by accusing people of treason and confiscating their estates.
One of the Christian fathers, Saint Gregory Nazianzus, commented that war is the mother of taxes and I think that's a wonderful thing to keep in mind: war is the mother of taxes. And it's also, of course, the mother of inflation.
Salvian tells us, and I don't think he's exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: that they would never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy. In other words, the Roman state was the enemy, the barbarians were the liberators. And this undoubtedly was due to the inflation of the 3rd century. While the state had solved the monetary problem for its own constituents, it had failed to solve that monetary problem for the masses and continued to use an oppressive system of taxation in order to fill the coffers of the ruling bureaucrats and military.
On February 16 2011 18:29 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: All you need to know is a basic account of history and the fact that it repeats itself.
History shows only currencies backed by gold and silver stand the test of time , Keynes was against a gold standard therefore his theory is doomed to failure.
The real crisis came after Caracalla, between 258 and 275. In a period of intense civil war and foreign invasions, the emperors simply abandoned, for all practical purposes, a silver coinage. By 268 there was only five tenths percent silver in the denarius. And prices in this period rose in most parts of the empire by nearly a thousand percent. The only people who were getting paid in gold were the barbarian troops hired by the emperors. The barbarians were so barbarous that they would only accept gold in payment for their services.
In the 3rd century this was a constant problem in Rome: all sorts of people were trying to escape the increased taxes that the military needed. The army itself [had grown] from the time of Augustus, when they had about a quarter of a million troops, [to where] by the time of Diocletian they had somewhat over 600,000. So the army itself had doubled in size in the course of this inflationary spiral, and obviously that contributed greatly to the inflation. In addition, the administration of the state had grown enormously. All these events strained the fiscal resources of the state beyond its ability to sustain itself, and the debasement and the taxation were both used to keep the ship of state going; frequently by debasing, then by taxation, and then often simply by accusing people of treason and confiscating their estates.
One of the Christian fathers, Saint Gregory Nazianzus, commented that war is the mother of taxes and I think that's a wonderful thing to keep in mind: war is the mother of taxes. And it's also, of course, the mother of inflation.
Salvian tells us, and I don't think he's exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: that they would never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy. In other words, the Roman state was the enemy, the barbarians were the liberators. And this undoubtedly was due to the inflation of the 3rd century. While the state had solved the monetary problem for its own constituents, it had failed to solve that monetary problem for the masses and continued to use an oppressive system of taxation in order to fill the coffers of the ruling bureaucrats and military.
You're terrible at arguing, all of your past 4-6 responses have been non sequitur's with regard to Milkis', and you are now banned from my blog so it will no longer be bumped and bumped by your drivel.
You do not know how to put up a coherent argument, you seem to think that asserting fractions of truths and singular aspects of history makes a complete argument. It doesn't. You also seem to think that "Only Z has worked before, and X is not Z. Y promotes X. Therefore Y is doomed to fail." is valid logic. It isn't, please study logic to find out why (it's like you're arguing all new concepts are doomed to fail because they aren't old concepts. Aristotle anyone?). Stop it.
On February 16 2011 19:15 Ghad wrote: 90% of Laissez-Faire evangelists are close to fascists, so no thanks.
Could you please qualify your statement? Did you even read the OP? It's mostly regarding popular thought in America, so it might be kind of foreign to you, but I don't appreciate this kind of post, even if you are on my anti-Laissez-faire side.
On February 13 2011 02:51 xarthaz wrote: The article is one gigantic methodological error. The author has no clue about actual free market economics, the Austrian School, or what free market even means(aka inclusion of central banking in free market examples), so it bears little relevance to discrediting it.
Austrian School is irrelevant to discussion because it's just verbal logic. You can claim that the "world should work this way" all you want but in the end Austrian School makes zero contribution to anything that happens in reality due to how it's set up. It is also very dogmatic since it's literally untestable.
Secondly calling Austrian School as the "actual free market economics" is laughable, when no one takes it seriously (and for a good reason). No one cares about discrediting Austrians because you can just spew out roundabouts by blaming the government and some random policy anyway. Austrian isn't even a school of economics at this point, it is closer to a philosophy. Austrians often make the same mistakes like the author you are criticizing anyways so it's a bad point to bring out.
Very true. I read the first sentence and stopped reading right there. Those that follow the Austrian School DID predict the oncoming recession and in media interviews, they were laughed at.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day". Considering the number of bad predictions austrians make all the time it's honestly not surprising.
You used the concept of action in your post(examples "take seriously", "discredit","mistake"). Hence you implicitly agreed with the sole premise of (most of) austrian economics, the action axiom. A slight performative contradiction there, though not to worry, nothing that a bit of reading of the foundations of economics wont cure http://mises.org/th.asp
Economics is the study of the fact that "People respond to incentives". No one will deny that. Pretending however, that this is what makes Austrian Economics "Unique" or acting as if this is only true on Austrian Economics shows that you have no idea what you're talking about overall. The issue with Austrian Economics has nothing to do with this specific premise.
You claimed the problem to be AE not being connected with reality. Yet you acknowledge the action axiom. That is a contradiction.
On February 13 2011 02:51 xarthaz wrote: The article is one gigantic methodological error. The author has no clue about actual free market economics, the Austrian School, or what free market even means(aka inclusion of central banking in free market examples), so it bears little relevance to discrediting it.
Austrian School is irrelevant to discussion because it's just verbal logic. You can claim that the "world should work this way" all you want but in the end Austrian School makes zero contribution to anything that happens in reality due to how it's set up. It is also very dogmatic since it's literally untestable.
Secondly calling Austrian School as the "actual free market economics" is laughable, when no one takes it seriously (and for a good reason). No one cares about discrediting Austrians because you can just spew out roundabouts by blaming the government and some random policy anyway. Austrian isn't even a school of economics at this point, it is closer to a philosophy. Austrians often make the same mistakes like the author you are criticizing anyways so it's a bad point to bring out.
Very true. I read the first sentence and stopped reading right there. Those that follow the Austrian School DID predict the oncoming recession and in media interviews, they were laughed at.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day". Considering the number of bad predictions austrians make all the time it's honestly not surprising.
You used the concept of action in your post(examples "take seriously", "discredit","mistake"). Hence you implicitly agreed with the sole premise of (most of) austrian economics, the action axiom. A slight performative contradiction there, though not to worry, nothing that a bit of reading of the foundations of economics wont cure http://mises.org/th.asp
Economics is the study of the fact that "People respond to incentives". No one will deny that. Pretending however, that this is what makes Austrian Economics "Unique" or acting as if this is only true on Austrian Economics shows that you have no idea what you're talking about overall. The issue with Austrian Economics has nothing to do with this specific premise.
You claimed the problem to be AE not being connected with reality. Yet you acknowledge the action axiom. That is a contradiction.
How is this a contradiction? One axiom does not make AE automatically connected with reality. It is the conclusions AE reaches with the axiom that is disconnected with reality. The fact that "people respond to incentives" is a fine starting point, but it is not everything.
Though I do not have in-depth knowledge on the topic, I do tend to agree, and have always felt capitalism is not the best way of doing things. But with that said, what alternative is better?
On February 13 2011 02:51 xarthaz wrote: The article is one gigantic methodological error. The author has no clue about actual free market economics, the Austrian School, or what free market even means(aka inclusion of central banking in free market examples), so it bears little relevance to discrediting it.
Austrian School is irrelevant to discussion because it's just verbal logic. You can claim that the "world should work this way" all you want but in the end Austrian School makes zero contribution to anything that happens in reality due to how it's set up. It is also very dogmatic since it's literally untestable.
Secondly calling Austrian School as the "actual free market economics" is laughable, when no one takes it seriously (and for a good reason). No one cares about discrediting Austrians because you can just spew out roundabouts by blaming the government and some random policy anyway. Austrian isn't even a school of economics at this point, it is closer to a philosophy. Austrians often make the same mistakes like the author you are criticizing anyways so it's a bad point to bring out.
Very true. I read the first sentence and stopped reading right there. Those that follow the Austrian School DID predict the oncoming recession and in media interviews, they were laughed at.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day". Considering the number of bad predictions austrians make all the time it's honestly not surprising.
You used the concept of action in your post(examples "take seriously", "discredit","mistake"). Hence you implicitly agreed with the sole premise of (most of) austrian economics, the action axiom. A slight performative contradiction there, though not to worry, nothing that a bit of reading of the foundations of economics wont cure http://mises.org/th.asp
Economics is the study of the fact that "People respond to incentives". No one will deny that. Pretending however, that this is what makes Austrian Economics "Unique" or acting as if this is only true on Austrian Economics shows that you have no idea what you're talking about overall. The issue with Austrian Economics has nothing to do with this specific premise.
You claimed the problem to be AE not being connected with reality. Yet you acknowledge the action axiom. That is a contradiction.
How is this a contradiction? One axiom does not make AE automatically connected with reality. It is the conclusions AE reaches with the axiom that is disconnected with reality. The fact that "people respond to incentives" is a fine starting point, but it is not everything.
No offense but you dont even seem to understand what the action axiom means, how the rigorous praxeological approach is used to derive the other laws, neither have you made an argument over what exactly is the problem with AE.. Which would lead the debate into the usual "explaining ABC of AE to uninformed economics major/lay person" and countering the endless non sequiturs and strawmen.. as Rothbard said, "It is no crime to be ignorant of economics...But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. "