Potpourri

Archive for Potpourri

Potpourri

* For a while I’ve been meaning to comment on non-Austrians who have been arguing against ultra-low interest rates, but I’m a busy guy. Mario Rizzo finally had to do it. * Glenn Greenwald discusses the massive WikiLeaks leak on the war in Afghanistan. Quick take: Your leaders have been lying to you. (I hope […]

Potpourri

* Hinkle calls off the Mann-hunt due to Climategate. (I agree, and HT2 Jerry Taylor.) * Richard Ebeling sends an interesting email to Robert Wenzel about Machlup’s perspective on booms, back in the 1930s. (BTW, do you wish you could see Richard Ebeling give a fascinating talk in a fun city? Hmm, if only some […]

Potpourri

* This blew me away: Joe Salerno discusses Murray Rothbard’s call for anti-statists to pull their money out of the commercial banking system. OK, so let’s suppose Austro-libertarians agree that they should stop the inflating Fed in its tracks by boycotting the commercial banks. But what is the free market alternative? (Don’t think tax-qualified retirement […]

Potpourri

* If you want to be a Summer Fellow and join the elite club, look here. * Chip Knappenberger argues that it is far from obvious that late 20th century warming is mostly due to human activity. * Krugman made the point I could not (for reasons of truce). Namely, people recently were making fun […]

Potpourri

UPDATE below. * One thing that really bothers me in our political discourse is that people in favor of more US military action abroad treat it as self-evident that the troop surge “worked” in Iraq. Yes, conditions did improve, at least in the short run after the surge, and the predictions of some of the […]

Potpourri

* A Fed official tells us (price) deflation is no longer a worry. Phew! * Viresh Amin sends this video of three young guys harassing Bernanke as he checks into a hotel. The video reminded me of those 1960s alien invasion movies. I always thought it was funny watching them, because you understood why the […]

Potpourri

* Scott Sumner discusses the Fed’s hints that they will drop the “federal funds rate” as their target variable, and instead will use the interest rate on excess reserves. If you can’t stomach the wonkish stuff, just scroll down to the end where Sumner explains that beyond the jargon, this transition would transfer power from […]

Potpourri

* Josiah Neeley sends this article on “6 Enlightened Ideas Brought to You By Evil Empires.” The premise is that yeah these regimes were mass murderers and ate their own children and such, but gosh they were kinda progressive in a modern way too. Rather than concluding that things like mandatory schooling or bans on […]