Economics

Archive for Economics

Scott Sumner, the Unbeatable Foe

When last we left, in March our anti-hero Scott Sumner was hanging up the keyboard, having taken credit for getting Bernanke to inflate more, and thereby creating several trillion dollars in worldwide wealth. But now Scott’s back, and his printing press is more powerful than ever. In the comments of a recent post, I was […]

Attack of the Gnomes

Krugman has his alien invasion, but now the Austrians can say: The Keynesian focus on aggregates such as the “stock” of capital and “supply of labor” leads to faulty policy recommendations. The Austrian School has always had a rich conception of the structure of production. Of the major schools of thought, only the Austrians can […]

Murphy vs. Graeber vs. Murphy vs. Graeber

I’m not going to give all the links (they are available if you click on the following), but here is the compilation of anthropologist David Graeber’s response to my article, and then here is my follow-up. An excerpt: Graeber admits too that the temple authorities didn’t just independently pick silver because it was lying around. […]

Did I Ever Predict Hyperinflation?

[Ironic UPDATE below.] One of the standard criticisms of guys like Peter Schiff (and lesser mortals such as me) is that we’ve been falsely calling for hyperinflation for a few years now. For example, Krugman repeatedly rips Schiff on this score, and links people to a Google search of “Peter Schiff hyperinflation 2009.” (Incidentally, I […]

More Heretical Thoughts on Inflation

I know, I know, the “bond market” is telling us that there will be low price inflation as far as the eye can see, so I’m just supposed to ignore everything else that is screaming, “Danger danger, Will Robinson!” Now we Austrian types have argued that maybe the yields on US government debt are low […]

I’m Sorry, I Still Fail to See Why We’re In a Deflationary Trap

Apparently taking Krugman’s side in the inflationista/deflationista debate, MMTer regular MamMoTh in the comments points us to this chart: Like I said, MamMoth seems to think the above chart should somehow embarrass the Austrians worried about inflation. I have to confess, I’m not seeing how soaring commodities, with silver and gold at the head of […]

Karl Smith, a Gracious Loser

I’m not insulting him, really; check out his post. And for all of you cheapskates, here is the free debate: (If anyone feels taken advantage of, let me declare that they hadn’t decided to post it when I was giving instructions on how you could pay and watch the debate after the fact.)

Introducing the Mises Institute of Canada

On Saturday, September 10 I will be participating in the Mises Institute of Canada’s conference, “Liberty and Oil: the Foundations of Modern Civilization.” As the official description says, we will discuss questions such as the following: “Is resource richness a blessing or a curse? Are Alberta’s oil reserves the source of the relative freedom and […]