Scott Sumner

Archive for Scott Sumner

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 […]

I Have a Deal for JP Koning, Scott Sumner, and Nick Rowe

JP Koning jumps into the fray on the Cantillon Effects debate. It occurred to Koning that if we’re going to argue over the issue, maybe we should actually see what Cantillon wrote? Very nice, JP. Let me focus on this aspect of Koning’s attempt to reach a peace treaty: While we don’t have to agree […]

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 […]

Resolution of the Sumner/Richman Showdown

[UPDATE below.] You may recall that I was earlier puzzled at Scott Sumner’s commentary on a Sheldon Richman article talking about Cantillon effects. If you care, I now have the resolution, because of Scott’s follow-up post. Scott actually doesn’t dispute anything in what the Austrians have in mind when they say “it matters who gets […]

IMF OK With Capital Controls, Inflationists Shrug

Bloomberg: The International Monetary Fund endorsed nations’ use of capital controls in certain circumstances, making official a shift, which has been in the works for three years, that will guide the fund’s advice. In a reversal of its historic support for unrestricted flows of money across borders, the Washington-based IMF said controls can be useful […]

Scott Sumner and I Have a Failure to Communicate

This is really freaky. It’s like with the “top income tax rate in 2013” debacle. Can somebody read the exchanges between Sumner and me in this post–responding to a Sheldon Richman article–and tell me what the heck is going on? As best I can tell, Scott position is the following: “You Austrians are nutty for […]

Scott Sumner Devastates Paul Krugman on the Liquidity Trap

[UPDATE below.] Whoa, Bob Wenzel tipped me off to this one… Sumner absolutely destroys Krugman in this post. (Also, I have street cred for making such a call–when Scott ignored Krugman’s writings on Japan in order to score a blog point, I called a foul.) I had never seen these passages that Scott dug up […]

Potpourri

==> David Beckworth says the Fed isn’t monetizing the debt, and has Tyler Durden destroy something beautiful. (Actually that joke fails on two counts, because it’s not Tyler Durden but a guest blogger, and it wasn’t Brad Pitt but Ed Norton who messed up the pretty boy’s face in the movie.) ==> Mark Spitznagel applies […]