30 Jan 2014

Potpourri

Potpourri 141 Comments

==> Joe Salerno offers a rebuttal to Paul Krugman’s high-five of “Lord Keynes” post about Mises on the Great Depression.

==> Two really interesting interviews from Tom Woods: Peter Schiff (where he talks about his dad, something I haven’t heard him discuss before) and Walter Williams (who near the end explains the connection between white people and his education, in a very funny way that would get Tom fired if he said the exact same thing).

==> Mises Canada launches a new academic journal.

==> A libertarian fiction contest. (And no that term is not a pleonasm!)

141 Responses to “Potpourri”

  1. joe says:

    at 17:21
    Woods: who were your major influences? you hold views that are not consonant with Jesse Jackson. How did you not get caught in that trap?
    Williams: I’m 77 years old. I was fortunate to get all my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people. Teachers and other mentors did not give a damn about my self-esteem.

  2. Chaddery says:

    As for Peter Schiff’s father, Hans Hoppe had the best response: “He [Irwin Schiff] was a fool to believe that if he goes to American courts, the courts will find that he is right. When you have an institution that sits in judgement of itself, of course the courts will find ‘I’m right.’ Whether you are right on paper, Mr Schiff [the court says], is completely irrelevant.”

  3. Major_Freedom says:

    Salerno:

    “I conclude with a piece of advice to Krugman in regard to his unwillingness or inability to give an honest and accurate account of the Austrian theory: Perhaps you should stop trawling obscure blogs for biased material…”

    Excellent advice. Cesspools should be sidestepped, not stepped in.

  4. Major_Freedom says:

    Government Punishes 11-Year-Old Girl For Selling Cupcakes Without Permission”

    It’s a good thing we have a monopoly on arbitration that bans voluntary arbitration between private property owners such as sellers and buyers.

    If it weren’t for the monopoly banning private arbitration, 11 year old sellers of cupcakes and their willing customers would be killing and robbing with impunity.

    Safe and secure in a police state. Idiots.

    • Tel says:

      As I mentioned in our last discussion of Krugman, LK, and the Great Depression, government tends to consistently fall into a pattern of repressing supply. The cupcake example fits the pattern, so does shutting down lemonade stands, so does government backing of unions, so does minimum wage, so does encouragement of cartels.

      All of these are repression of supply.

      The ultimate consequence of persistent repression of supply, must be falling consumption, and in practical terms that means falling demand (although “demand” is sadly ill defined in this context, but “consumption” is well defined).

      • Bob Roddis says:

        All of these activities are interventions. If one claims that they are engaging in empirical economic research of historical events, they need to meticulously focus IN EVERY INSTANT upon the types and degrees of intervention endured by the actors.

        Such a focus purposefully disappears from Keynesian analysis.

        Remember LK and “types of laissez faire”?

        • Tel says:

          I agree that it is difficult to unravel the government interventions from what’s left of the free market; and in a way that’s the exact problem challenging present day market participants.

          However, if broad classes of government interference end up doing essentially the same thing, this insight should make it easier to recognize the effect of that whole class of intervention and thus break down the problem into easy to handle chunks.

          • DeeVee says:

            I wish I could +1 your commentary forever :3

  5. Lord Keynes says:

    “Joe Salerno offers a rebuttal to Paul Krugman’s high-five of “Lord Keynes” post about Mises “

    .. which is as worthless as yours:

    http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/01/salernos-response-to-krugman-on-mises.html

    • Lord Keynes says:

      Also as unconvincing as your analysis of the problem of sticky wages:

      http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/01/murphy-on-sticky-wages.html

      • Bala says:

        Are wages sticky or do we need minimum wages to prevent them from falling (meaning non-sticky)?

      • Bala says:

        Just to modify what I said, are wages sticky downward or do we need minimum wages to prevent them from falling (meaning non-sticky)? A clarification will help clarify that we are not talking of blackwhite out here.

        • Gamble says:

          The useful idiots are convinced by the 1% we need minimum wage. The 1% need minimum wage to prevent the wage pressure they created with their fiat inflation.

          I am telling you, average wages would be HIGHER if there was no minimum wage…

          lord Keynes, keeping the poor, poor…

    • Bala says:

      You are truly hilarious. Here is what Salerno said (I copied it from your cesspool….oops….blog just to be sure I didn’t get you wrong)

      Blithely accepting ‘Lord Keynes’s’ claims at face value, Krugman declares ‘von Mises, faced with the reality of depression, basically dropped Austrian business cycle theory.

      Here is how you reacted.

      No, Salerno, I did not say that “von Mises, faced with the reality of depression, basically dropped Austrian business cycle theory.”

      Do you even read what you type out or do you just go with the flow?

      • Ken B says:

        Yes, that’s how I read it too. Salerno attributed those words to Krugman, and only alleged “a caricature” against LK. I think there is no doubt about this.

        • Lord Keynes says:

          “Actually, our jaded scribe could not be bothered to train his sites on Mises’s actual views but rather rests content to attack a caricature of Mises’s position as presented in a pseudonymous post by an individual calling himself “Lord Keynes” on the blog Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective.”
          http://mises.org/daily/6651/Krugman-Claims-Mises-Couldnt-Explain-the-Great-Depression

          Salerno is saying that my post was a “caricature of Mises’s position”: this is just rubbish.

          • Bala says:

            LK,

            You need to take a trip to the restroom to wash the egg off your face.

            Face it. Salerno did not say what you said he did. You misquoted him and made a fool of yourself. I am just pointing it out.

          • Ken B says:

            LK, I think there is no doubt Salerno said you presented a caricature, and no doubt he attributed those words to Krugman. I did not address the charge of caricature. You certainly misread Salerno as attributing those words to yourself.

            • Lord Keynes says:

              Ken B,

              Your confusion stems from my statement here:

              “No, Salerno, I did not say that “von Mises, faced with the reality of depression, basically dropped Austrian business cycle theory.”
              Here is what I said (with my quotation from Mises following): “

              Yes, I did indeed poorly word that: I did not mean to say that Salerno had mistakenly attributed those words directly to me. Of course, they were Krugman’s words

              But Salerno’s post implies that I said **words to that effect.**

              What I meant is that I did not say words to that effect at all.

              • Bala says:

                I can still see a lot of egg on your face. Your entire post was a refutation of Salerno’s (as per your claim) statement that YOU said that Mises, faced with the reality of depression, basically dropped Austrian business cycle theory.

              • Lord Keynes says:

                “Your entire post was a refutation of Salerno’s (as per your claim) statement that YOU said that Mises, faced with the reality of depression, basically dropped Austrian business cycle theory.”

                And I did not say that Mises totally or completely or virtually abandoned his ABCT at all.

                In short, Salerno’s implied charge against me that I did so is wrong.

              • Bala says:

                Here I am suggesting that you take a trip to the restroom to wash the egg off your face and what do you do? Splatter a few more eggs liberally on your on face with this…

                In short, Salerno’s implied charge against me that I did so is wrong.

                There was no implied charge in Salerno’s reply. Get it? No implied charge.

              • Bharat says:

                Krugman was the one who said you said that, LK. You should write a response to him.

              • Richie says:

                But Salerno’s post implies that I said **words to that effect.**

                lol … Rubbish. You truly have a reading comprehension problem. Krugman summarized your post that way.

                I thought you were smart?

              • Richie says:

                And I did not say that Mises totally or completely or virtually abandoned his ABCT at all.

                lol … Then your issue should be with Krugman, not Salerno. Will you create a blog entry on Krugman’s misinterpretation? lol…

          • Gamble says:

            See, Krugamn and his alter ego lord Keynes cant even keep it all straight/separated. One in the same…

        • Lord Keynes says:

          So, if Salerno really thinks my post was a fair and an accurate summary of Mises’s views, he has a strange way of saying it (” our jaded scribe could not be bothered to train his sites on Mises’s actual views but rather rests content to attack a caricature of Mises’s position as presented in a pseudonymous post by an individual calling himself “Lord Keynes” )

          • Major_Freedom says:

            LK, if your position is being misrepresented, the fault is Krugman, not Salerno. Salerno was just quoting what Krugman said.

            Your issue isn’t with Salerno, it is with Krugman.