Plagiarized entirely from Jim Bovard:
Former President George W. Bush announced in Calgary yesterday that he is planning to write a memoir "so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened."
Bush did not reveal if John Yoo would be the co-author.
Bush spoke to an "invited audience of Calgary businessmen," according to a report in the Examiner.
The paper noted that "Bush was full of jokes throughout his speech."
Since it was an "invited audience," there were no awkward questions about torture or whether Bush expects to be indicted as a war criminal.
[h/t TAC]
http://mises.org/images/Garrison-BHO-deficits.jpg
Federal Deficits, 1900-2010
…….
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/fredgraph?s1id=AMBNS
The Austrian Economists were right – look at the Fed’s own figures.
“http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/fredgraph?s[1][id]=AMBNS”
sorry guys, the comment submnitter is stripping out brackets there…
fredgraph?s(1)(id)=AMBNS except with square brackets
Hope it’s okay if the offtopic post is here. At least it’s Austrian…
pupnik, what were the Austrians right about? The FED is inflating. And?
Yes. That’s it.
Up until the austrian message got out, normal people did not know that the federal reserve and the treasury create inflation.
PEOPLE DID NOT KNOW THAT. PEOPLE DENIED IT.
It was like the fucking dark ages. GET IT?
I got it now.
MikeL – What would you like Austrian economics to tell you? What the Dow will be at this time next year?
I’m puzzled by this constant line you’ve been throwing out.
The Austrian (classical) school of economics teaches us that a market is the emergent property of billions of decisions made by individuals acting in their self interest. It then shows how a free market leads to an ever-increasing division of labor that improves the standard of living for all participants.
It will then go so far as to show how government interference in markets distorts the pattern of investment, rolls back the division of labor, and destroys wealth.
A poor understanding of economics makes people easy prey for the authoritarian sociopaths who run government. Everything I said in the previous paragraphs is bizarro world to most people – “Capitalism is greed, markets need government at the steering wheel lest they run out of control, people need government protection from the inequality of the marketplace, etc.”
As Pup is saying, most people have no idea why we’re in an economic crisis. The message they’re being spoon-fed daily is that unfettered free markets and a lack of regulation caused all of this, and that government action will solve it.
Eots,
Since you sound irritated I guess I had better respond. Don’t want an angry Enemy of the State running around
First, puppy didn’t initially provide information of anything other than monetary inflation. Austrians didn’t discover that the state inflates. That’s an observation that pre-dates the Austrian school. But pup is correct in that it’s only today’s Austrians who are publicly mindful of the crisis that inflation can cause. Economists from other schools of thought are no doubt privately worried that inflation could hurt in the long run, but they’re mostly distracted with making Elites happy and have less time for mundane concerns like the size of the monetary base. Unfortunately it’s these same economists who run the show right now.
Second, I agree with all those things you said about the Austrian school. No argument there. My only beef with the Austrians these days is that they’re starting to sound like an echo chamber where everyone is on-message and there are no dissenting views. So take for instance the subject of inflation. Within the public face of the school, people like Ron Paul, Tom Woods, Peter Schiff, and pretty much the entire LRC and Mises.org crowd, all say the same thing: monetary inflation inexorably leads to price inflation. It’s as if these guys wake up every morning and take pill that makes them say one thing and one thing only. There’s no alternative narrative coming out of the Austrians. Is any other outcome even possible in their view? Indeed, if “a market is the emergent property of billions of decisions made by individuals acting in their self interest,” as you say, then how can they be so confident that these billions of decisions will inevitably lead to price inflation? Don’t they want some intellectual wiggle room, at least for the sake of their personal reputations?
So I don’t know about you, but when I hear what sounds like group-think, then a big, fat red flag goes up in my mind. I get concerned that people have stopped thinking critically and have instead fallen back on simple-minded cliches. That kind of thinking will fit you into a crowd but it’s no way to go about understanding the world. In closing let me just say that I have learned much from the Austro-libertarians. We should all be thankful that we have them around to help us see through the statist bullshit about economics and liberty. It’s hard to even imagine life without the Austrians now. But I refuse to fall into a routine of thought on inflation or any other important subject.
Love always, MikeL
MikeL – I wasn’t irritated at all, just inquiring.
So the “monetary inflation equals price inflation” question is the crux of your concerns? OK, we never got to that the other day in the chat room…
The Fed has doubled the money supply over the last several months – do you dispute the premise that this will cause price inflation? I’m not sure where you are in your reading on monetary theory.
Yeah, the “monetary inflation equals price inflation” issues is as far as I’ve gotten. I’d say this is a pretty major issue, at least in the eyes of the Austrians.
And no, I do not dispute that one possible outcome of inflation is price increases. But if that was the only possible outcome then we have eliminated uncertainty from out lives! Spokespeople for the Austrian school should hedge more than they do. It’s just not intellectually honest to do otherwise, IMO.