My Position on Pacifism
That only thing that horrifies my would-be fans more than learning I’m a born-again Christian, is to learn that I’m a pacifist. Some people in the comments recently have been asking me (in mild shock) about all this. There’s a whole category on this blog devoted to Pacifism, but if you look at the (currently) second page here, you will see I, II, and III on my explanation.
Krugman: “Fiat Money…Is Backed By Men With Guns”
Wow, you really have to hand it to Paul Krugman. In the quick snippet below, he talks to Joe Weisenthal about Bitcoin. Krugman reiterates his surprise that it has lasted this long, but admits that it’s theoretically possible for an asset not backed by anything to chug along because of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
However, Krugman is quick to remind the viewers that (government) fiat money is not susceptible to such an uncertain fate. (Phew!) This is because people have to pay taxes in government-issued fiat money. Krugman actually says, “Fiat money, if you like, is backed by men with guns.”
Krugman is here echoing the theory of money advanced by Abba Lerner and today’s MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) camp. For a full understanding of why this view is mistaken, you should read Mises’ Theory of Money and Credit (my study guide here). But for a quick point: Fiat currencies can collapse. And it’s not because the governments decide to abolish taxes in those countries when it occurs. So there’s obviously something fishy in Krugman’s glib remark, beyond the creepiness of his nonchalance of having money backed up by “men with guns.” (Note he said it in the same impish tone with which he discussed death panels as the way to fix health care costs.)
Josie the Outlaw’s Message to Police
By the way, one of the up and coming liberty heroines I featured in my hippy video is “Josie the Outlaw.” I linked to her new site when she launched it last week, but I want to draw your attention to one of her powerful videos. This thing already has 109,000+ views.
I totally understand why people who agree with her perspective think this is amazing, but I’m curious to hear the reaction from naysayers as well. Is there anyone who thinks this is wrong / silly for her to post? If so, why?
Potpourri
==> Mario Rizzo stands up for economic freedom and tolerance.
==> A few people have told me to highlight this apparent Krugman Kontradiction on unemployment benefits and job search (scroll down a bit). I actually highlighted this when it initially occurred (perhaps because somebody brought it to my attention, I can’t remember). However, Krugman on this one built himself an escape hatch because he was saying that it wasn’t the thing to focus on (or words to that effect). Don’t get me wrong, it’s super slippery (as usual), but I think he’s painted himself into tighter corners than this before.
==> Bryan Caplan has a pretty interesting take on what it is that economic theory gives us, when interpreting the claims of others. However, I think Bryan ludicrously overstates his case when he writes: “A good economist really can talk more intelligently about many topics he’s never specifically studied than most non-economists who work on those topics full-time.” Yikes! Just re-read that again to see why I’m taken aback. Now what Bryan presumably means is, “A good economist can offer crucial economic insights on a variety of topics, that the non-economist specialists would never have considered.” But that’s not what he actually wrote.
==> Megan McArdle discusses the coming “doc shock,” meaning that leftward shifts in supply, and rightward shifts in demand, for health care might have some predictable effects.
==> Oops.
==> Let’s just say I’m against this idea. A long time ago I wrote a series of essays critiquing “Assassination Politics,” a similar proposal.
==> Steve Landsburg reacts to Paul Krugman’s minimum wage op ed the way I would have. Besides the stuff Steve focuses on, a quibble I had was when Krugman writes:
First, a few facts. Although the national minimum wage was raised a few years ago, it’s still very low by historical standards, having consistently lagged behind both inflation and average wage levels. Who gets paid this low minimum? By and large, it’s the man or woman behind the cash register: almost 60 percent of U.S. minimum-wage workers are in either food service or sales.
I thought it sounded funny the way he said “the man or woman behind the cash register.” I don’t recall Krugman using such a phrase in other writings when all he means is “people.” Now I can’t prove this was his intention, of course, but in the context of this particular article–where he had earlier written about the plight of workers trying to “feed their families”–Krugman’s phrasing gives the impression that the majority of minimum wage workers are grown-ups who are heads of households. But if you follow the very link Krugman gives, you see that just about half of the workers who make “at or below minimum wage” are aged 16 to 24. That table doesn’t break it down further, but I’m betting if went up to 29 you’d catch another big chunk, and for that matter on the other end it would be older people supporting themselves. Again, this isn’t to deny that there are plenty of people who are in dire straits–and for that I blame the very policies that Krugman champions–but I think someone who just read Krugman’s article would walk away with the wrong impression.
Tom Woods on Secession
This is really something special. I’ve told Tom for years that he would be a great radio host because he has the right voice and personality for it, but in this episode you remember, “Oh yeah, Tom’s a trained historian.”
Also, his take on Mark Levin at the end is great. Levin has been confidently, shall we say, disagreeing with those (like Tom) who claim that states retain the right of secession. Tom says that OK, maybe someone like Levin disagrees with Tom’s historical analysis, but at best Levin should be bemoaning the depressing fact that states don’t have this tool at their disposal as a bulwark for liberty–yet Levin is celebrating it. “What?!” (Pretty sure that’s the exact transcript.)
C.S. Lewis on The Problem of Pain
An excerpt from his wonderful book, where he’s showing that a “loving God” wouldn’t just sit back and let us persist in our natural state and try to just let us “be happy”:
Another type [of love that humans understand] is love of a man for a beast–a relation constantly used in Scripture to symbolise the relation between God and men; ‘we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.’…[T]he association of (say) man and dog is primarily for the man’s sake; he tames the dog primarily that he may love it, not that it may love him, and that it may serve him, not that he may serve it. Yet at the same time, the dog’s interests are not sacrificed to the man’s. The one end (that he may love it) cannot be fully attained unless it also, in its fashion, loves him, nor can it serve him unless he, in a different fashion, serves it. Now just because the dog is by human standards one of the ‘best’ of irrational creatures, and a proper object for a man to love…man interferes with the dog and makes it more lovable than it was in mere nature. In its state of nature it has a smell, and habits, which frustrate man’s love: he washes it, house-trains it, teaches it not to steal, and is so enabled to love it completely. To the puppy the whole proceeding would seem, if it were a theologian, to cast grave doubts on the ‘goodness’ of man: but the full-grown and full-trained dog, larger, healthier, and longer-lived than the wild dog, and admitted, as it were, by Grace, to a whole world of affections, loyalties, interests, and comforts entirely beyond its animal destiny, would have no such doubts. It will be noted that the man…takes all these pains with the dog…only because it is an animal high in the scale–because it is so nearly lovable that it is worth his while to make it fully lovable. He does not house-train the earwig or give baths to centipedes.
Why U.S. Economists Should Love Canada
From my latest Mises Canada post:
As I’ll be exploring in many future posts, Canada offers a great opportunity for U.S. economists interested in historical research. Because the U.S. and Canada are both wealthy countries with similar forms of government, their physical proximity sheds light on the effects of different policies.
Take the Great Depression and the impact of Franklin Roosevelt’s sweeping “New Deal.” …
Yet I had encountered defenders of Roosevelt who argued that…no other U.S. president had ever inherited such as mess as Roosevelt acquired from Herbert Hoover after the 1932 election. In other words, since FDR started out in such a quagmire, it’s not surprising that it took him longer to achieve recovery. These writers still wanted to say, “Roosevelt and his New Deal got us out of the Depression.”
It occurred to me to compare U.S. and Canadian unemployment. Here’s what I found…
Recent Comments