24 Jan 2014

Arnold Doesn’t Need No Stinking NDGP Level Growth Targeting

All Posts 33 Comments

An Austrian for the Chicago School?

33 Responses to “Arnold Doesn’t Need No Stinking NDGP Level Growth Targeting”

  1. John P says:

    Thought you had some major work deadlines coming up?

  2. Kevin Donoghue says:

    “My CPU is a neural net processor; a learning computer. But Skynet pre-sets the switch to read-only when we’re sent out alone.”

    It hadn’t dawned on me that that was a reference to the Austrian School an its bots.

  3. Lord Keynes says:

    It seems we have a splendid “Murphy Kontradiction” right here.

    In the last post, Milton Friedman is (by implication via your reference to Rothbard’s critique of him) condemned as an evil interventionist and dirty Keynesian, but now you point to Arnold’s paean to Friedman.

    Aren’t you promoting evil “socialism,” Murphy?

    • Gamble says:

      Lying is a fine art.

      Every good liar knows you must wrap your lie in the middle of much truth.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        Keynesianism takes the truth that an individual firm abstracted from other firms depends on that individual firm’s demand, and then wraps that truth around the lie that the same relationship holds in the aggregate.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Kontradictions require at some SOME written words that are inconsistent with each other.

      Posting a video of Arnold is unsufficient.

      Good try though. Maybe next time we’ll be able to nail Murphy with Kontradictory sock colors.

    • Bharat says:

      I think I speak for us all when I say LOL nice try that’s silly.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      LK you have to be kidding me. The whole point of me posting this is to show that Arnold is focusing precisely on the non-interventionist stuff in Friedman that is inconsistent with his fine-tuning monetary policy ideas.

      This is even worse than when people explain my own jokes to me.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        Apparently, if one does not use the words “rubbish”, “lol”, “moron”, “unicorns”, or “nonsense” when referencing something, then it means you are praising that something.

        • Ken B says:

          Words I am not using to describe this comment: “rubbish”, “lol”, “moron”, “unicorns”, or “nonsense” .

      • Lord Keynes says:

        (1) First of all, how do you know Arnold doesn’t agree with Friedman on the basic need for a central bank to prevent bank runs, etc.?

        (2) Secondly, even assuming that Arnold is opposed to the federal reserve and monetary policy (as Rothbardians are), what does that show?

        It simply demonstrates that Schwarzenegger doesn’t understand Friedman’s economics properly, and that he is vulgar Friedmanite, just as the internet is populated with hordes of vulgar Austrians often ignorant of actual Austrian theory.

        (3) And thirdly, this speaks for itself:

        http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-action-of-someone-who-follows-friedman-rather-than-rothbard/

        • Andrew Keen says:

          You’re an all-or-nothing kind of guy, aren’t you LK?

        • Gamble says:

          Hi LK,

          What is a bank run, why do they happen, do they really need to be prevented, if so, isn’t positive reputation the preferred method of prevention?

          “Lord Keynes
          (1) First of all, how do you know Arnold doesn’t agree with Friedman on the basic need for a central bank to prevent bank runs, etc.?”

        • Major_Freedom says:

          1. You’re neither a credible nor informed judge of which Austrian is and which isn’t “ignorant of Austrian theory.” You don’t yet understand it for your opinion to be something other than plain hostility.

          2. Friedman wanted the Fed abolished in his later life. Not sure if it matches the time of this video, probably not, but I think it’s important to mention what Friedman believed by the time he died.

          3. Most importantly, even if Arnold does believe central banking should be imposed by political force, Murphy’s point still stands, that Friedman’s “non-interventionist” stance via “Free to Choose” contradicts the “interventionist” stance of monetarism. Monetarism is grounded on initiations of force, i.e. intervention.

          “Secondly, even assuming that Arnold is opposed to the federal reserve and monetary policy (as Rothbardians are), what does that show?
          It simply demonstrates that Schwarzenegger doesn’t understand Friedman’s economics properly,”

          That’s another false statement you’re making. To be against the Fed and monetary policy does not “simply show” one to be ignorant of Friedman’s economics. The two are not necessarily connected.

          Your posts have dramatically declined in quality.

  4. skylien says:

    Guys, eat more Apfelstrudel and you will see that your arms will start to grow. Known side effect: You might get the same accent.

  5. joe says:

    Funny that once he got a chance to govern, he “abandoned free market principles.” Guess he found out that what works on TV doesn’t work in real life.

    Governor Schwarzenegger says you can create jobs and growth, protect the environment, and build the right short- and long-term infrastructure projects at the same time. They have done that in the most recent California budget. He also added that there is a tremendous need for a master infrastructure plan in Washington which looks decades into the future.

    http://youtu.be/80KIMA11UPg

    • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

      A state budget is not a vehicle that can “create jobs.”

      • Ken B says:

        Not so. The state passes a law to declare eating a job. They tax you $5 a day to raise the money to pay you $5 a day to eat. Now you have a job. Or actually a “job”. So the state has created “jobs”.

        • Gamble says:

          Who paid for the food and the toilet?

          • Ken B says:

            Hey! We can make shopping and flushing jobs too. MULTIPLIER!

            • Freedumb says:

              HYPERINFLATION! Oh wait…wrong again. Just ignore that prediction. You guys are a hoot

              • Gamble says:

                Hi Freedumb,

                First of all, Ludwig Von Mises defines inflation as expansion of money supply. He never defines inflation as prices. The money supply has skyrocketed of late. Nearly a vertical line.

                Regarding prices, prices have increased or should I say quantity and quality have decreased?

                The CPI does not include food and gasoline. So for all of us working stiffs with small budgets, we feel major price increase pain.

                Finally, most talk about inflation and economics in general by Austrians and ORthbardians is based on books that are outdated and still hopefull. A lot has changed in the past 30 years and if Mises or Rothbard were to write a book today, they would tell us to concede. The battle has been lost, all normal market functions are irrelevant. The real battle is political, spiritual and a war for the minds and soles of man…

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Austrian economics is not a prediction science.

            • Gamble says:

              Touche

              • Gamble says:

                Touche to Ken. Toilet flushers and shoppers,lol.

    • Andrew Keen says:

      Maybe politicians selling out used to be funny, but it’s become so cliche at this point…

    • Dyspeptic says:

      Actually what Aahnold found out was that a combination of machismo, celebrity status and antagonistic rhetoric won’t make a virulently partisan left wing legislature eat out of your hand. He also found out that the socially liberal/fiscally conservative label isn’t politically viable in Crazyfornia if you have an “R” next to your name.

      Aahnold, being vane and duplicitous but not stupid, realized very early on that Crazyfornia is a hopelessly deep blue state and he couldn’t make good on his promises. So, in a desperate attempt to save face and maintain popularity and political viability he did an about face and decided that the schtick on display in the above video was just another in a long line of acting gigs.

      You can’t honestly conclude from Aahnold’s failed foray in to politics that anything he claims to have formerly believed “doesn’t work in real life.” As a life long resident of Crazyfornia I can say with some authority that “real life” is a foreign concept here.

      Your regurgitation of the currently popular left wing trope that Crazyfornia can have it all if we just tax, spend and regulate more is frankly pathetic and causes me to conclude that you either currently reside in this Kafkaesque farce of a state or soon will. Hopefully not in my neighborhood though.

  6. Sam says:

    “I was playing a game of mixed doubles.”

    Hmm, double meaning….

  7. John says:

    I have a feeling that even if the most passionate free-market believers got put in government, the overall climate of thought in this country would force them to constantly compromise provided they wanted to get anything done. Most of you would reason that doing something done for freedom but compromising on things you thought were less important was better than getting nothing done and watching everything you wanted to avoid happen.

    • Andrew' says:

      This is a criticism?

  8. Andrew' says:

    Seems like the whole point is we can’t tell in real time what is nominal and what is real.

    Is there the correct amount of money such that fiat money supply in and of itself is not either stimulating or deflating the economy?

    It seems like the Fed not being able to tell at any point in time is the whole issue.

    • Andrew' says:

      Government/Fed: We demand to control the monopoly on money supply!

      Me: Then do it you twits!

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Unhampered money and pricing is what stimulates the economy.

Leave a Reply to Kevin Donoghue

Cancel Reply