Don’t You Dare Show Scott Sumner This Rothbard Excerpt
I’m working on tomorrow’s lecture from Chapter 11 of Man, Economy, and State, and came across this passage on page 849:
It is thus clear that the exchange-value of money cannot be quantitatively separated from the exchange-value of goods. Since the general exchange-value, or PPM, of money cannot be quantitatively defined and isolated in any historical situation, and its changes cannot be defined or measured, it is obvious that it cannot be kept stable. If we do not know what something is, we cannot very well act to keep it constant.
Great. Now Sumner is going to claim that Hayek and Rothbard agree with him.
An Interesting Zinger From Tom Woods
I’m sure this is partly confirmation bias, and that the regulators amongst us will hasten to point out the flaw in the argument. But anyway I really liked this zinger from Tom Woods (HT2 Robert Wenzel):
The Glass-Steagall-did-it crowd is the same crowd that likes to claim Canada avoided the worst of the U.S. crisis because it was so much better regulated. But they can’t have it both ways — Canada did not have a Glass-Steagall law!
Scott Sumner Is Hot, But Breaks His Own Rule
John Carney is starting to appreciate my fascination with the Bard* from Bentley. Carney reproduces the results a poll apparently suggested by Sumner:
I thought we weren’t using the i-word anymore? No wonder Scott’s policy won–I bet it would get more votes than limiting the unicorn population to 8% growth, too.
* I’m saying Scott can spin an elegant–albeit fictitious–narrative about what happened in the 1930s and 2008. Will you give it to me?
If We Give Up Our Cool, Then the Inflationists Will Have Already Won
UPDATE: Sorry, I forgot to include the money (ha ha) quote, to explain the purpose of Scott’s post.
Scott Sumner thinks he can play me like a game of classic Donkey Kong:
Some days I want to just shoot myself, like when I read the one millionth comment that easy money will hurt consumers by raising prices. Yes, there are some types of inflation that hurt consumers. And yes, there are some types of inflation created by Fed policy. But in a Venn diagram those two types of inflation have no overlap.
I know, I know…You had to re-read that a few times, just to reassure yourself that Scott is now saying that what people have in mind by the danger of inflation is literally impossible. You may even have spent 5 minutes trying to Google up a graph of Zimbabwe’s nominal GDP. (I tried already. No dice.)
UPDATE: Scott goes on in the post to say:
So here’s my plan. Beginning tomorrow, November 1st, I will ban all discussion of inflation from the comment section. I won’t respond to questions on inflation. (God knows how Bob Murphy will react to this—something tells me it won’t make me look good.)
Relax kids. As I’ve told you many times, Scott Sumner can’t possibly believe this stuff. He has to be laughing his head off that he actually has half of his commenters agreeing that we should stop using the term “inflation” on a blog devoted to monetary policy, indeed a blog literally named “Money Illusion.”
Don’t take my word for it. In the comments Scott–like a serial killer writing clues on the wall with the victim’s blood–comes out and admits this is all a big joke. One commenter said, “I’m very excited to see what Bob Murphy will say.” To this Scott replied, “The main reason I did this post, which was about 50% tongue-in-cheek and 50% serious, was to get his reaction. It better be good.”
I’m not falling for it, Sumner.
P.S. For those who want to pretend that Sumner is seriously advocating this idea, there’s this paper by Steve Horwitz on how infl–I mean, you-know-what, can lead to problems.
An Economist With a Cool Accent Explains Quantitative Easing
The bored von Pepe sends this one:
Banking Practices in Early 20th Century Bask
(BTW for new readers, “bask” is my abbreviation for “blog ask” since I am too proud to beg.)
This is going to be a weird one: I have agreed to be a sort of economic consultant for a relative who is a working on a novel that involves characters working in a bank in Ireland in the early 1900s. Part of the plot involves a trusted employee of the bank suddenly going rogue and leaving town after embezzling a lot of money from one of the bank’s customer’s accounts.
I am quite certain there would be no way to easily do this type of thing nowadays, but I’m wondering if it would have been easier in 1900. (Also, there is some leeway–the guy was leaving the country so if it could just go undetected for 24 hours it could work.)
Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions for how I could figure out what bank procedures were in my ancient homeland back then?
Spreading the Love: Wenzel and Gordon Edition
I loved the first Cars movie because I could really identify with Lightning McQueen’s narcissism. In an effort to combat that, let me point you to two other people’s ventures to spread the word on the dangers of the State:
==> Robert Wenzel’s first podcast is up. He’s got a funky beat and a professional announcer in the beginning. He is in this for the long haul.
==> David Gordon is teaching a Mises Academy class on the truth behind America’s various wars. If you’re in the camp that thinks, “Sure the politicians are a bunch of liars when it comes to helping the poor through food stamps and housing projects, but the military really does spread freedom around the world,” then you should definitely check this class out. (I’m not making fun of you, by the way: I used to hold such a view. Big Government was bad, except when it was blowing up foreigners.)
Faith Is Not Opposed to Reason
This short video is a great analogy for why religious faith is not at all a euphemism for “turning your reason off.” Watching this guy makes me consider going back to Catholicism.
A simple request: If you feel called to write things like, “I don’t believe in superstitious mumbo jumbo,” etc., please be clear on how you interact with other human beings relying solely on the methods you think are “scientific” when it comes to the question of the existence of God. I’m not saying such specificity is impossible for you to provide, I’m just asking that you do it, so we can move the discussion to a point beyond where the above video takes us.
Recent Comments