20 Sep 2012

ECON MOMENT QE3

ECON MOMENT, Federal Reserve, Shameless Self-Promotion, Tom Woods 19 Comments

Still got a lot of tweakin’ to do, but the foundation is now here (new camera and lapel mic). Thanks to Josh from Blimey Cow for helping me get going again, and of course to Tom Woods for bugging me periodically.

19 Responses to “ECON MOMENT QE3”

  1. Tel says:

    That’s a nice camera. Very nice.

    The microphone is easy to understand and you speak well, but there’s just a small annoying buzzing hum. Even though the hum is not loud, once you start noticing it, just seem to distract from the content.

    I’ve met that annoying hum before and it is very common when feeding a microphone direct to a personal computer sound recorder. The only way I have found to reduce it (not get rid of it completely) is to find some bare metal on the computer chassis, lightly dampen one finger and touch the chassis metal while recording. Sounds weird I know… if you are using a laptop (I vaguely remember you were an Apple MacBook kind of guy) then touching the aluminium exterior of the laptop, while recording, should do the job.

    In case it isn’t obvious, AVOID sticking fingers into anything marked “power”… that’s going to make things worse. I have to put dumb disclaimers in here, because if some guy manages to zap himself, the government will come around and blame me.

    Good speech by the way. I agree with the content. The Fed should focus on trying to maintain price stability, that’s their job.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      I don’t know if this matters Tel, but the mic goes right into the camera.

      • Tel says:

        It might matter, but I’ve never had a camera like that, so I don’t know.

        A lot of times I just try stuff until something works. Sure I have an engineering degree, but I got that by going to the library and studying the past exams.

        • Matt Tanous says:

          Isn’t that how everyone gets an engineering degree? That’s certainly how I got mine.

  2. Bob Murphy says:

    Best comment on YouTube so far:

    Not JUST a new and good lighting, but chest hair like David Hasselhoff.

    That’s right.

  3. English Bob says:

    Sound is coming from the left channel only.

    • Bala says:

      Oh!! I thought something was wrong with my earphones. Now I know they’re quite fine. Thanks.

      • Austrianbanker says:

        Yeah, I couldn’t focus. I though my speakers had burnt out.

        Now, that could have been a Keynesian moment, going out buying new speakers to replace good ones.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Does anybody know if I can fix this in iMovie? I only listen through my laptop so I don’t hear any problem.

          • Joseph Fetz says:

            I’m guessing that you’re using a mic plugged directly into your camera. Basically, the port that you plug your mic into is a stereo port. So, when you plug in a mono (non-stereo) device, then it only records one mono channel.

            Almost all devices that have a single port for either stereo and mono connections have an audio setting that switches how the input is processed, so that if you plug a mono device into that port it will process it center, rather than hard left.

            Check the manual for your camera, there’s got to be something under audio settings that will let you choose between a stereo/mono input.

            IOW, it isn’t iMovie. But it is an easy fix. Even if your camera doesn’t have the correct setting, this problem can still be fixed. Just check the manual like I said, and then we’ll go from there.

            • Joseph Fetz says:

              To be honest, I don’t think that you can even make pan adjustments to the audio in iMovie, so there probably isn’t much you can do in post production.

          • Joseph Fetz says:

            Also, you won’t hear the difference when listening through laptop speakers, they’re too close together to get a real stereo image. However, if you throw on a pair of headphones, you’ll hear it immediately.

  4. Joe says:

    Bob, you’ve really thinned out.

  5. Blackadder says:

    Obviously Kocherlakota hasn’t seen this video.

  6. The Anti-Gnostic says:

    Hey Bob. YouTube is hanging up on me so I don’t know if you’re video addresses this. Frank Shostak has taken a stab at QE3, and mises.org doesn’t like me, so I’m posting my query here:

    Contra Shostak, the Fed’s logic as I understand it is that this really is a supply side fix.

    1. They are gobbling up UST’s not so much to keep government borrowing costs down as to chase capital into higher yielding corporate bonds and equities.
    2. They are papering over the hole in nominal wealth and stowing the toxic assets safely (they presume) on a balance sheet somewhere, banking on the economy to grow us out of the hole.

    The Fed’s economists claim they have cushioned the blow from a liquidity shock to give the economy some breathing room. I think the open-ended commitment is just for public consumption. Also, as I understand the numbers, corporations and households are deleveraging, so whether intentionally or not, the Fed’s actions might work and the economy should show slow growth as balance sheets are rebuilt.

    I’d like to see you rebut the supply-side logic and analyze the Fed’s action in terms of downstream effects. Per Austrian analysis, this can’t work, because it just means the FIRE sector will continue to bleed resources away from sustainable enterprises, and the sector remains dependent on an unending stream of new money. But I ain’t an economist so that’s as far as I get. Amirite Bob?

  7. joshua says:

    Ha, how do you know the Blimey Cow kid?

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