06
Aug
2015
These Market Monetarists Aren’t So Bad
I obviously disagree with Scott Sumner on his key issue, but I really like how he has been hammering on the Dennis Hastert case, which is really outrageous (putting aside one’s distaste for political figures, which doesn’t excuse someone getting railroaded).
Also, I have to salute the Teflon blogger, Nick Rowe, who is impervious to my zingers.
In a way, blackmail is one possible design for a decentralized private justice system, and the beauty of it is that it remains a compatible option regardless of whether there’s another justice system at the same time (e.g. a public one).
Possibly not ever Libertarian’s perfect ideal, but you know the free market is highly adaptable. Good old profit motive huh?
Market Monetarist quality varies widely. Regular Money Illusion commenter Benjamin Cole, for example, who I am under the impression has coauthored a popular polemic allegedly pushing market monetarism, is plain frightening-he’s just an unreconstructed inflationist. In contrast, David Beckworth actually seems to believe money can be, and in fact was before the recent recession, too “easy” and not only excessively tight. So he’s high on my quality list. Sumner is low because he’s a utilitarian and he’s really obnoxious about it. Nick on the other hand, well, he’s high on my quality list for basically the same reason you once called him a “Kung Fu Master.” Lars Christensen, Bill Woolsey, these guys I’d place somewhere between Sumner and Beckworth.
In short, quality ranges from “Actually pretty sharp” to “kind of frustrating” to “completely abysmal.”
Also, Tel, the issue with Hastert isn’t that he’s been blackmailed, which he actually may deserve to be. The issue is that it was apparently criminal for him to withdraw enough money to pay his blackmailer.
Sumner’s digressions into philosophy are just painful. I’ve had no formal education on philosophy and I can see the holes in his “arguments.”
Can you explain some. Again, I find Sumner to be regularly the most perceptive gentile economist on the Internet.
I’m assuming he’s referring, as I was, to whenever Sumner horrifyingly endorsing interpersonal utility comparisons. Which he does quite frequently.
Do you believe in interpersonal utility comparisons?
I don’t know much about that. There was a thought experiment in the libertarian community long ago (which Gary North talks about), in which libertarians argued over whether bombed-out France with a population of one person, who is the happiest in the world, can conceivably be considered as better off than the U.S. Ludwig Lachmann and the radical subjectivists argued yes, most Austrians (including Rothbard) answered no.
Sounds to me like they’re all wrong, for presuming that question has a meaningful answer yes or no.
Sumner believes money was too loose in the 1970s; I don’t.
Some people believe 10,000 faeries can fit on the head of a pin.
Boy are they wrong! It is much closer to 1,000.
Okay, this statement was sufficiently surprising that I have to know why you believe that, even if I think it’s obvious your reasons can’t make sense.
See discussion here:
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29458
Ripley’s believe-it-or don’t: the 1982-4 recovery brought NGDP back to stagflation-era trend. While inflation was falling.