Share Your Favorite Economics-Related Sites ITT: Keynesians, Austrian School etc.

[lukep]

...most, but not all Austrians are anarchists.

At the risk of revealing my retardation, I really don't understand how any Austrian can be a minarchist. Are you using the term to include newbies to the fold or just the economically-educated, proud Austrians?

Wouldn't the latter group have considered the moral aspects of government in their decision?

 

[dreamache]

Schiff is very much a minarchist, which political philosophy aside, is a contradictory position economically.

yup
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jEEnP7YEQE]Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio on the Peter Schiff Radio Show - YouTube[/ame]

 

[guerilla]

At the risk of revealing my retardation, I really don't understand how any Austrian can be a minarchist.

Mises was a minarchist. There is debate as to whether he accepted Rothbard's anarchist stance towards the end of his career.

Mises however said, that if it was possible to devolve political power to the individual, then it should be done.

Are you using the term to include newbies to the fold or just the economically-educated, proud Austrians?

Wouldn't the latter group have considered the moral aspects of government in their decision?

I have no idea what you're asking here.

 

[JarredLv]

Paul Krugman's New York Times Blog - a lot of ZeroHedge readers hate the guy but he is a modern day coin clipper

Went ahead and fixed that for ya.

 

[guerilla]

Economics, properly done, is value free. It's like math.

1 + 1 = 2

If you do X, Y will happen.

Whether X and Y are good or bad things, is the field of ethics, which is related, but different.

What most people see online re: economics is in fact social commentary made by economists. The promotion of various opinions, stances etc.

It's important not to confuse preferences as facts. Facts are matters of record in material reality. Preferences are psychological biases.

My point is, Schiff, Krugman, Wenzel etc etc etc usually aren't functioning as economists when they post on their blogs.

 

[charlie.simm]

It's like math.

If you do X, Y will happen.

Life would be a lot easier if what you're saying were true but unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated.

Maybe hundreds of years from now, we'll be advanced enough as a species to know what the best solution to pretty much any economics-related problem or at least advanced enough to have a foundation that's as solid as what we have with math for example but right now, that's not the case (not by a long shot).

Therefore, it's not an exact science... at least, not yet.

Let's analyze the math analogy:

1 + 1 = 2

We know that 1 + 1 = 2, there aren't any debates as to whether or not 1 + 1 = 2 and to extrapolate, there aren't any debates when it comes to the "foundation" of math.

The same thing can't be said about economics.

We have the current financial crisis as a more than eloquent example.

Keynesians think that central banks should print money... to them, this solution is "textbook economics" as Krugman often says.

Austrians think central bank involvement via money printing is the worst possible solution, that's "textbook economics" as far as they're concerned.

IMO, we can't say economics = exact science until there can at least be consensus as to what exactly constitutes "textbook economics"

Maybe it will be an exact science in the future, maybe not.

Right now though, it's a combination between an exact science and an art form, the art of capital allocation or whatever people choose to call it.

 

[JakeStratham]

Life would be a lot easier if what you're saying were true but unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated.

Maybe hundreds of years from now, we'll be advanced enough as a species to know what the best solution to pretty much any economics-related problem

Charlie, at the risk of sounding pedestrian, what "economics-related problems" must we try to solve?

 

[hehejo]

Life would be a lot easier if what you're saying were true but unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated.

Maybe hundreds of years from now, we'll be advanced enough as a species to know what the best solution to pretty much any economics-related problem or at least advanced enough to have a foundation that's as solid as what we have with math for example but right now, that's not the case (not by a long shot).

Therefore, it's not an exact science... at least, not yet.

Let's analyze the math analogy:

We know that 1 + 1 = 2, there aren't any debates as to whether or not 1 + 1 = 2 and to extrapolate, there aren't any debates when it comes to the "foundation" of math.

The same thing can't be said about economics.

We have the current financial crisis as a more than eloquent example.

Keynesians think that central banks should print money... to them, this solution is "textbook economics" as Krugman often says.

Austrians think central bank involvement via money printing is the worst possible solution, that's "textbook economics" as far as they're concerned.

IMO, we can't say economics = exact science until there can at least be consensus as to what exactly constitutes "textbook economics"

Maybe it will be an exact science in the future, maybe not.

Right now though, it's a combination between an exact science and an art form, the art of capital allocation or whatever people choose to call it.

Some time ago a number of scientist thought that the earth was flat, another group of them thought that was not the case.

One economist group's theories keep failing while the other group can even roughly predict the future of the other group's market intervention.

If you take the average opinion of both groups, then yes, it's inaccurate. But why not just listen to the accurate ones who's theories actually make sense?

 

[JarredLv]

We have the current financial crisis as a more than eloquent example.

That's not an example of economics. That's an example of corruption.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

One economist group's theories keep failing while the other group can even roughly predict the future of the other group's market intervention.

I think you're missing his point. Krugman is a quack, and it's entirely accurate to say Schiff or Ron Paul or whoever have been much better at predicting the result of Fed policy, but that doesn't make them correct 100% of the time, as they would be if economics were as exact as math. For instance, it's easy to say the housing bubble is going to burst one day (as The Economist did in 2003) but nobody was able to predict when.

It's like when Nostradamus said "A king will rise in the East one day". No shit.

 

[guerilla]

if economics were as exact as math.

I understand what you're saying, but that's not economics. Math tells you that 2 + 2 = 4, but it also doesn't predict when 2 and 2 will occur.

Economics is as exact as math within its domain. Prediction (which is mostly charlatanism) is not part of economics.

 

[lukep]

Mises however said, that if it was possible to devolve political power to the individual, then it should be done.

That's anarchist enough for me... Every anarchist but the extremists have that same stance if you think about it.

I have no idea what you're asking here.

I was just asking if the most learned and respected Austrians, (i.e. professional economists and professors with published works) took the time to study the Moral reasons for anarchy as well as the economic ones.

It seems to me that if you are well versed on the subject, and you already agree with all of the economic reasons for anarchy, (but are only led to support minarchy) then the moral reasons should make any monopoly of force at all in the equation too uncomfortable for them to stop short of full support for anarchy.