Economics

Archive for Economics

So Simple! We Just Need to Create Two Platinum Coins Worth $1 Trillion Each

This is a real news article: If President Obama wants to avoid an economic calamity next year, he could always show up at a news conference bearing two shiny platinum coins, each worth … $1 trillion. That sounds wacky, but some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way […]

The Paradox of Thrift

There seems to be some confusion about what this is. Wikipedia knows what’s up: The paradox of thrift (or paradox of saving) is a paradox of economics, popularized by John Maynard Keynes, though it had been stated as early as 1714 in The Fable of the Bees,[1] and similar sentiments date to antiquity.[2][3] The paradox […]

Papola Has a Barrel of Ink

Uh oh, I think John took it personally when some people accused him of dishonesty and/or ignorance. (Words hurt, kids.) Remember, the issue here is that John in his latest Christmas video is taking on the “fallacy” (his term, which he attributes to Keynes and others) that consumption drives the economy, and that if everyone […]

Keynes Hearts Saving?

John Papola, creator (with Russ Roberts) of the Hayek-Keynes rap videos and the latest Christmas video, is perplexed that he is getting push-back from people saying he’s setting up a strawman by implying that Keynesianism promotes the idea that consumption drives the economy. John sent me an email with a quote from the General Theory […]

Bill Woolsey Replies on Cantillon Effects

Bill Woolsey opened a long comment in my last post by writing, “Suppose the government decides to increase tank production. It might fund this by printing currency, by borrowing money, or by raising taxes. The tank manufacturers benefit the same amount regarless of this choice.” Hang on a second, fellas. You are changing the question. […]

Clarification on Cantillon Effects

Steve Horwitz’s thoughts reinforced my own inkling that I should spell out what I had always filed away as “the Austrian point about Cantillon effects.” So the following is what I would have said, had you asked me a month ago. Note that I speak for myself, and I’m not even saying this is what […]

EconStories Attacks Mainstream Obsession With Consumption, Daniel Kuehn Cries Foul

This is pretty funny, though incredibly geeky: Daniel Kuehn, of course, is shocked that Papola et al. keep kicking this poor strawman. Meanwhile, for my IER job I am looking at this New Yorker piece pushing for a carbon tax. I came across this passage: As we all know, the official Republican term for the […]

Potpourri

==> Tyler Cowen jumps in on the side (?) of Sumner and Rowe (HT2 Max R.), regarding Cantillon effects. (Here Sumner is much clearer–to Austrian readers–about what his position has been all along.) Gene Callahan makes what seems to be a modest point, but it actually is the equivalent of Luke Skywalker’s shot into the […]