Mimi & Eunice: Walls
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Mimi & Eunice: Zero-Sum Economics
IP Law, Mimi & Eunice on IP
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Forecasts vs. Policies
Business Cycles, FinanceArnold Kling, at EconLog, relates Scott Sumner’s simple query as to why the 2008 financial crisis has caused such low or negative growth down even unto the present day, and offers four possible answers. I will comment only on one of them:
Because the Fed made forecasting errors. Right-wingers are fond of brandishing charts showing that the unemployment rate with the stimulus is on a worse trajectory than what was forecast without the stimulus. That may or may not be evidence that the stimulus failed, but it is evidence that standard forecasts were not sufficiently pessimistic about the economy. Assuming the Fed used standard forecasts, that would explain the inadequate monetary expansion back then. It doesn’t explain their reluctance to expand now, though.
There are several places where this answer (which Kling does not favor) goes wrong. Most noticeable, to me, regards the possibility that the forecasts “were not sufficiently pessimistic about the economy.” This is not the only possibility. It is not even the most likely possibility.
The problem was that the forecasts were too negative …
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What Libertarians Should Know When Debating Statists
(Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, Libertarian Theory, The BasicsAnthony Gregory makes a quick list of “talking points” that libertarians should know rather well when engaging in argumentation with statists. Here it is:
The law of comparative advantage
Broken window
Socialism vs. universability
The state cannot be perfectly egalitarian — someone calls the shots
If EVEN the US government does X, is there any hope for a good govt?
The ratchet effect
History shows markets can handle health care and insurance
History shows markets can handle law
Govt. education = indoctrination by the power elite
Guns protect us from criminals, and the state
Free speech is the cornerstone of civilization
Without property rights, no other rights are possible
Libertarian property rights are, in the good sense, more “democratic” than socialist rights
The free market empowers the weak against the strong, who always grab political influence
If you don’t own your body, no liberties are possible
History shows corporations side with the regulatory state
History damns every war that has happened
Due process rights are important, because the state can never be trusted — it is that evil
You can’t have freedom without letting others have it
Political democracy is no better than any other form of govt., basically (hat tip, HHH!)
Relative freedom at home can mean more imperialism — look out! (hat tip, HHH!)
Illegal aliens are people just as much as we are
Tax victims have a right to reclaim stolen goods, it doesn’t make the stealing legitimate
Privatization is messy because socialization is the original sin
States can’t calculate without prices
Central planning fails due to information problems
Public choice theory
The butler effect (how drug wars make things worse)
Outlawing guns and drugs means only outlaws have them, and drives them underground
Blowback
Just war theory
The state as a monopoly on violence
Libertarian class analysis
Thou shalt not steal
Taxation is theft
War is murder
War is the health of the state
All states are born unjustly
All states commit aggression
Either you’re for aggression, or not
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Mimi & Eunice: Viral Patent
IP Law, Mimi & Eunice on IP
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