The Economy May Never Recover!

[Nikko]

I'll be honest, no, I didn't study Austrian school in depth. Only read and learned enough in undergrad econ survey class work and MBA courses to have a passing knowledge of why real economists have considered it a joke for the last 50 years.

Would that be the same "real" economists who told us deficits don't matter, gold is a barbarous relic, and it's possible to sustain a goldilocks economy based on borrowing for consumption?

Oh yeah, those guys. I wouldn't hire them to mow my lawn.

 

[guerilla]

I'll be honest, no, I didn't study Austrian school in depth. Only read and learned enough in undergrad econ survey class work and MBA courses to have a passing knowledge of why real economists have considered it a joke for the last 50 years. I won't claim expertise in it because I don't consider it useful beyond navel gazing, like a lot of philosophy.

Right, so you offer criticisms copied from Wikipedia, with no real knowledge of what you are criticizing. The rest is just validation of your ignorance with appeals to populism.

Human behavior at a macro level can absolutely be modeled from a perspective based on probabilities. All systems are complex, and societies & economies are complex systems composed of complex actors. But believing none of that can be modeled with some predictive capability just because "whoa man it's too hairy" should lead you to reject all social science outright.

That said, the macro cannot model accurately, precisely for the very reasons Austrian Econ is based on. Man acts individually, and seeks to remove obstacles arranged ordinally. Because every person is different, and has different needs and desires, with different opportunities and means to satisfy them at different times, it is impossible to macro model efficiently.

Not to mention that entropy makes it increasingly difficult to model anything accurately.

Austrian economics is political in the sense that is built on a foundation of a priori assumptions about human nature. Yes, I use the word political there loosely, I don't mean in the organized sense.

Weak and incoherent.

This is my basic understanding of the Austrian axiomatic argument in plain english. My apologies if I confuse it a little with Chicago school - I've kept their empirical bias out but may muddle something else.

Assuming a perfectly free market:
People act - they make choices. Choices incur benefits and costs, meaning all choices are acts of exchange.

People are perfectly rational beings and act in pure self-interest, thus each individual exchange maximizes utility.

Since all exchanges are rational and maximize utility then total utility in the whole economy is maximized. This means a perfectly capitalist society will create perfect resource allocation and everyone will be happy.

This is incorrect. Fail.

Thus the government should exist only to protect property rights, ensuring a perfectly free market and nothing else.

This is also incorrect.

Interesting maybe, but it is a tautology in which the assumption equals the conclusion.

Perhaps you could get the facts right first, yes?

If you don't see the politics dripping all over that, then ... um ok, I'll move along. Whether I've missed a few pieces or not, I'm pretty sure that captures the spirit of it in layman's terms well enough for the purposes of discussion.

Please do move along. You haven't made a single, logical, objective statement yet. All you have done is half ass explanations, post assertions and assumptions.

As for objectivists = austrians, I said no such thing. I lumped them together in my statement because except for fights between libertarian sects, they appear in tight clusters to the rest of the world. They are not identical by any means, but there are some closely shared philosophical underpinnings and desired political outcomes -- that is inarguable.

Again, this is inaccurate and false. For someone who claims to be a fan of the measurable, the empirical, you sure do post a lot of guesswork and half truths.

Objectivists are mostly not libertarians. Austrians are not all libertarians, although most are. Many Austrians are anarchists of the anarcho-capitalist variety.

Anyway, I threw you a few bones, man, and was genuinely enjoying the argument. But your unsubstantiated accusations that I am willfully ignorant, blind or whatever are just bratty ad hominem attacks, not arguments. That is why arguing politics or philosophy online is silly (and why I should stop trying). There is so rarely any room for nuance or collegial disagreement.

Actually, you were the guy who took me on with Wikipedia, and got your ass handed to you. I've forgotten more about Austrian Economics than you brought to this discussion, and I think you're stinging because you got exposed for being a fraud, after I exposed your bankrupt position on GDP and the NEED FOR STIMULUS NOW!!!!!

You haven't made one valid criticism of the methodology or theories of AS. What you have done is point out that 50 years of idiots have driven the world economy into the ground, when Mises told them at the beginning Bretton Woods could never work, because you cannot politically fix prices without causing economic crisis.

So don't cry about the Ad Homs. You posted plenty of logical fallacies of your own.

If you want to continue discussing without what appears to be your need for macho posturing, feel free to PM.

Not going to happen. Mises.org has thousands of hours of video and audio, articles, and books for free. Go learn something about Austrian Econ. Heck, just learn something rational, objective and honest about economics period, then we can talk.

 

[guerilla]

I gotta say guerilla, you actually fucking convinced me. (not sarcasm)

Not bad for a drunk!

Gracias.

Would that be the same "real" economists who told us deficits don't matter, gold is a barbarous relic, and it's possible to sustain a goldilocks economy based on borrowing for consumption?

Oh yeah, those guys. I wouldn't hire them to mow my lawn.

No doubt. Mixed in with the other logical fallacies, to invoke the mountebanks behind the economy as truth-tellers dispels any credibility whatsoever.

 

[BrooklynBlue]

So you've confirmed that you believe complex systems cannot be modeled and that if the scientific method does not yield hypotheses that are sufficiently perfect, it should not be attempted at all. Maybe I'm reading too much into your statement, but that seems to be the direction you're going.

The fact that scientific inquiry is imperfect is kind of the point. Hypotheses should be crafted in a way that is falsifiable because the possibility that they are wrong should be anticipated. That is the foundation of iteratively improving understanding.

As for the nit-picking over objectivists, austrians, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, yes of course there are differences, but there is a very large pool of shared understanding and common themes in their intellectual traditions. I don't think saying they are in many ways close to each other along a continuum of thought is wrong or intellectually dishonest. Just like I would lump a Trotskyist and Weberian neo-Marxist together.

As for the rest...

When you spout "incoherent & wrong" "wikipedia whore", and other childish insults over and over, you are not offering any semblance of an argument. You are ducking any burden and proof and beating your chest. That is not handing anyone their ass.

There is nothing that you have offered that should convince someone not already predisposed to agree with your political conclusions. I'm not saying I've been entirely fair and balanced, but tried to offer some explanation of my position and steered clear of personal insults.

My skin is thick, no problem there (it is WF after all), I just preferred to focus on the substance. But since you clearly don't and would rather sling insults, I'm losing interest.

If you want to call that tail-tucking because it gets your testosterone flowing, go right ahead.

 

[vinny lingo]

Hey, don't let this degrade into a pissing match, either of you. I'm enjoying the dialogue.

 

[jdomaha]

If you want to call that tail-tucking because it gets your testosterone flowing, go right ahead.

NERD FIGHT!

 

[guerilla]

So you've confirmed that you believe complex systems cannot be modeled and that if the scientific method does not yield hypotheses that are sufficiently perfect, it should not be attempted at all. Maybe I'm reading too much into your statement, but that seems to be the direction you're going.

It's very simple. Market behavior cannot be mathematically modeled. Individual actors make decisions based on ordinal, not cardinal preferences.

The fact that scientific inquiry is imperfect is kind of the point. Hypotheses should be crafted in a way that is falsifiable because the possibility that they are wrong should be anticipated. That is the foundation of iteratively improving understanding.

You have yet to challenge one Austrian hypothesis or axiom.

As for the nit-picking over objectivists, austrians, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, yes of course there are differences, but there is a very large pool of shared understanding and common themes in their intellectual traditions. I don't think saying they are in many ways close to each other along a continuum of thought is wrong or intellectually dishonest. Just like I would lump a Trotskyist and Weberian neo-Marxist together.

You don't even know what Austrian Economics is based on, as evidenced in this thread! How can you possibly compare it with the other groups you have also shown a lack of knowledge about?

You ran into the wrong guy to bullshit about this topic with. Some Joe Blow probably would take you at your word, as false as it is.

If you're not going to admit ignorance, but continue to post ignorance as fact, then we're wasting our time.

When you spout "incoherent & wrong" "wikipedia whore", and other childish insults over and over, you are not offering any semblance of an argument. You are ducking any burden and proof and beating your chest. That is not handing anyone their ass.

I didn't call you a Wikipedia Whore.

As far as not offering any semblance of an argument, you have yet to post a single fact. You continue to make it up as you go along, indirectly citing Wikipedia along the way.

There is no argument. Every time you post something fallacious, I blow it up.

There is nothing that you have offered that should convince someone not already predisposed to agree with your political conclusions. I'm not saying I've been entirely fair and balanced, but tried to offer some explanation of my position and steered clear of personal insults.

We started off arguing economics. I showed that GDP was meaningless. Then you counter factually tried to claim that doing nothing could cause Depression. I also exposed that.

Now you're trying to criticize something you clearly have no knowledge of, and your bad luck is, I am somewhat of a expert layman on the topic, so you are getting your ass handed to you again.

And you continue to make fallacious posts, and now cry about how you are being treated, STILL not having made an argument.

If you want to call that tail-tucking because it gets your testosterone flowing, go right ahead.

Are you going to make a point anytime soon?

Of course not. You got exposed, and now you are going to talk about anything but the topic you were exposed on, to cover up for your overreach. You'd be wise to tuck your tail because right now you look very foolish.

 

[BrooklynBlue]

1. Dude I don't care how you treat me, it's the frickin' internet. What I do care about is maintaining a productive tone of discussion if the point is to learn and incorporate divergent points of view. That is my intent. If it is not yours, then you are a zealot, not a scholar. If you behave irl like you do here (which I realize is probably not true), then you must have few if any friends who think differently from you. That would be a sad state of affairs.
2. Philosophical axioms can't really be challenged, they are assertions pre facto -- assumed to be true before the argument even commences. Hypotheses are not valid hypotheses unless they are measurable and falsifiable, including their assumptions (i.e. axioms). This is a fundamental difference of approach between us, so maybe it's best to leave it at that.
3. If you paid attention, I didn't claim expertise on Austrian economics. I in fact clearly stated my level of knowledge and its source and limitations. I then proceeded to give a cliffs notes version of my understanding. Your response has been limited to a few one or two line assertions accompanied by finger-pointing and name-calling, which I think says far more about your constitutional weakness than my mental ineptitude. I'm not an expert as I already admitted. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. You haven't really demonstrated one way or the other. But at this point, vinny's right, it's devolved to a pissing match. You can have this one if it means getting back to the original thread topic. But know that you haven't really contributed much of anything that helps improve anyone else's understanding if they weren't already on your side of the fence. Whether I was wrong or right, at least I tried, while you've been more concerned with peacocking and chest-thumping.
4. You exposed nothing re: GDP. You asserted it was nonsense with no real attempt at support and continued with "OMG UR A DUMB ALARMIST LOLOL KTHXBAI". I'm happy to continue that discussion in a reasonable manner if you can behave like an adult.
5. I said little 'd' depression not capital 'D' -- big difference and I think you know that. There are generally accepted benchmarks for what defines a little 'd' depression and we are already almost halfway there in the U.S. and teetering on the edge of it in some other major countries. We can discuss whether that is meaningful, the causes of it, desired short-term and long-term outcomes, and how best to get there from a policy point of view if you'd like. And I'd be happy to lay out my perspective and still forming thoughts on what I think in more detail if you want to level-set and rewind.

So, there you go. I enjoy talking and learning about economics & policy, including with people who disagree with me. I suspect you have some good things to say, but I'm having a really hard time prying them out of you.

I also think my academic background and real-world experience prepare me to talk about this stuff in a meaningful way, but I don't claim to have all of the answers.

Philosophically, I have some pretty radical views and utopian visions of what *should* be, but I also am not content to be a marginalized armchair revolutionary always agitating from the sidelines. As much as I crave understanding, I also crave influence. And achieving some level of power means compromising and collaborating.

Which leads me to be a pragmatist who is focused on understanding observable & measurable conditions within currently existing frameworks & systems and making decisions or conclusions that may be imperfect because it moves the ball forward.

This is how I intellectually approach things like economics & policy, and it is also how I approach decision-making in my own life. It is an approach that has served me well both personally and professionally considering relatively humble beginnings.

Based on your blinding arrogance and aggression throughout this thread, I'm pretty sure you don't care and will try to come up with another vomit-like stream of petty insults. I hope you prove me wrong. But for anyone else interested in continuing the discussion, I think this gives you a pretty good foundation of where I'm coming from.

 

[matthewcaruana]

I can't believe all this...

Haven't u guys ever heard of zeitgeist?

I suggest you find out the truth...

Zeitgeist - The Movie

 

[guerilla]

Zeitgeist is a lot of BS. It's the stuff that discredits any intelligent discussion about money and banking, because it tries to tie it into every conspiracy theory ever.

Plus the guy who made it is some real nutjob anarcho-syndicalist.

 

[Janaic]

california is 40% responsible for this. california needs to just fall away from the states and drift into the pacific.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Although, I'm from Northern California - California is like no other state within the US, everything about California is backwards.