10 Aug 2013

A Petition That Scott Sumner Could Approve?

Inflation 15 Comments

I kid, I kid. Presumably because of all of my recent inflation posts, Bill Sarubbi reminds me of this video:

15 Responses to “A Petition That Scott Sumner Could Approve?”

  1. Ken B says:

    This guy had a video where the petition was to repeal the Bill of Rights. He got lots of enthusiastic signers.

    • Tel says:

      That’s a perfectly legitimate petition. If rights were only removed by popular demand (rather than by stealth) then the results would be much healthier for the nation.

      By the way Australians have no enumerated rights, we only have tradition and nothing else… it still works. I guess when the hard times hit we will see which way works better.

      • Matt Tanous says:

        “we only have tradition and nothing else… it still works”

        We Americans fought a war because that British tradition wasn’t working….

      • Ken B says:

        This is not right. The Bill of Rights, the Petition of Right etc, all the acts of Westminster are still precedent for your parliament as they are for ours (Canada). What you don’t have is a single thing referred to as “the constitution”.

  2. joe says:

    He needs to make a video asking people to sign a petition to support tighter credit and higher unemployment. Take it to the next liberty convention. Should have no problem getting everyone to sign it.

    • guest says:

      “tighter credit and higher unemployment” = “stop bailing people out by socializing the costs onto others and let businesses which were beneficiaries of this cronyism live or die on the free market, allowing resources to be reallocated to productive use”

    • Tel says:

      No Austrian economist supports a petition demanding tighter credit. You are welcome to be as tight or loose with your money as you so choose.

    • Razer says:

      Like the 95% unemployment rate in Zimbabwe, which adheres to Keynesian economics? Time to check your premises.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      How about asking people to sign a petition to increase alcohol consumption to reduce hangover sickness?

      What you said can be taken in more than one way. More unemployment? As opposed to what?…and when?

      Tighter credit brings about less unemployment sooner than looser credit brings about more unemployment later.

  3. Collin says:

    So what definition of inflation do we think all these people are using?
    It’s interesting that a lot of people seem to understand…”inflation is bad…m’kay”

  4. Edward says:

    “Like the 95% unemployment rate in Zimbabwe, which adheres to Keynesian economics? Time to check your premises.”

    Razer, you are a shining example of ignorance and stupidity. Keynesians support leaning against the wind. Not hyperinflation.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Edward, it’s easy to have an argument against all criticisms of Keynesianism when Keynesianism internally contradicts.

      It would be like wanting to shoot at people to make them healthier, but then when someone critics that belief, and presents you with data showing piles of dead bodies, you say “Ah, you stupid moron, don’t you know anything? I am totally against murdering people. You can’t blame those dead bodies on me. I just want to shoot people to make them healthier, not kill them!”

      If unemployment remains high despite the growing high inflation, then Keynesian policy calls for more inflation. It calls for more inflation to “solve” unemployment. There is no strict boundary in the extent of price inflation internally deduced from Keynesian principles. The whole “They’re against hyperinflation” is an ad hoc footnote, added to seemingly refute the criticisms that show hyperinflation is not actually in contradiction to Keynesianism, given unemployment remains high and/or growing.

      • guest says:

        It’s not units of currency that people want, but what they think the currency MEANS in terms of fulfilling their preferences.

        The currency has to mean something.

        You can increase output all you want, but if people don’t want the output, the output isn’t creating wealth.

  5. Patricia Colling says:

    I’m more apt to believe that the signers are just trying to be friendly and really don’t think their signing the petition will amount to a hill of beans. That people are not confident in their ability to reason is a whole other story.

    • Ken B says:

      A good lesson on the value of petitions though.

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