Category: Economic Theory
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Economy and Inflation, Interview with Rick Davis of the Consumer Metrics Institute / Economics / Economic Theory
Introduction: Richard Davis, President of the Consumer Metrics Institute, measures real-time consumer transactions as an objective indicator of consumer demand and associated economic health. (For more about Richard’s data, please see “Contraction Tracked by the Consumer Metrics Institute Traces Unique Pattern.”)Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 05, 2010
China Yuan Repegging and Other Non Free Market Trade Imbalance Solutions Are Doomed to Fail / Economics / Economic Theory
In spite of much yapping by economists, especially Paul Krugman, I strongly doubt a currency repeg by China would do much (if indeed anything at all) to cure any global imbalances.
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Solving Britain's Economic Crisis Through Micro Business Capital Investments and Credit / Economics / Economic Theory
Britain had bet its future on the financial sector as the means for delivering economic prosperity and lost. The financial sector over the past 3 decades had mushroomed to an enormous size on terms of over leveraged liabilities extending to more than 5 times UK GDP that has imploded in spectacular style following the start of the Credit Crisis in August 2007 which has now left the country on the brink of bankruptcy under the burden of the liabilities of the banking sector (most denominated in foreign currencies), unsustainable annual budget deficit and the growing public sector debt mountain.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Academic Economics Profession in Crisis / Economics / Economic Theory
Dear economics department chairman,
In all the formal economic study I have sat through, I have developed a growing concern for the direction of the economics profession in general, and economic education in particular. Let me explain — and challenge you.
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
Obama's Road to Economic Ruin / Economics / Economic Theory
When Obama ran for the presidency I warned that if elected the American people won't know what hit them. Obama supporters immediately responded with an avalanche of abuse. Last June Obama told a wildly applauding congregation of Hollywood celebrities that "You ain't seen nothing' yet!" I observed at the time that "he was speaking the truth. Americans really have seen nothing yet". Even now millions of Americans still cannot grasp the enormity of his fiscal depredations. Nevertheless, it does appear that the majority of Americans are beginning to catch on to this dedicated leftwinger's -- to put it mildly -- intellectual shortcomings.
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Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Fable of the Krugman / Economics / Economic Theory
While Paul Krugman likes to present himself as being a Keynesian, in reality, his intellectual roots run back a few centuries to the mercantilists. If you wish to see the Krugman of 300 years ago, read Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees, first published in 1705, to see all of the same economic (and logical) fallacies that haunt Keynesianism and Krugman's columns.
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Can You Help Me Find My Market? / Politics / Economic Theory
Socialists believe in two things which are absolutely different and perhaps even contradictory: freedom and organization. ~ Élie Halévy
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Monday, March 22, 2010
The Second Austrian Monetary and Business Cycle Theory Revival / Economics / Economic Theory
Joseph T. Salerno and Jeffrey A. Tucker write: [This article is adapted from introductory remarks delivered by the first coauthor at the Austrian Scholars Conference, March 11–13, 2010, Auburn, Alabama. Both the oral remarks and the written article are joint products of both coauthors.]
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Friday, March 19, 2010
The Economic Impossibility of John Maynard Keynes / Economics / Economic Theory
What shall we do with those people deprived of work by wealth and technology...?
HOW TO FILL the days, hours and minutes? It's now seven decades since John Maynard Keynes peered into the future and declared that, one day, trying to scratch a living would cease being "the permanent problem of mankind."
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Thursday, March 18, 2010
Paul Krugman Versus Economic Reality / Economics / Economic Theory
In his latest weekly New York Times column, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put forward arguments that were so nonsensical that the award committee should ask for its medal back.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Fear The New Krugman / Economics / Economic Theory
Such explosive growth in debt can't go on forever, and it won't. Yet our current leaders and their apologists insist that the problem will magically solve itself. Paul Krugman ~ November 4, 2003
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Blanchard IMF Chief Economist Pushes Governments for More Inflation / Economics / Economic Theory
It seems that different people have drawn different lessons from the credit crunch and global recession. Many have pointed to the Fed's easy-money policy as a major culprit. Not so the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and the leading light of mainstream "new Keynesians," Olivier Blanchard. His recipe for avoiding future calamities of the kind recently witnessed is for monetary policy to be even looser and inflation rates even higher, as expressed in a recent Wall Street Journal interview.
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Monday, March 15, 2010
The New Dumb Economic Idea: Velocity Of Money Was Driven By Securitization / Economics / Economic Theory
Oh I do love it so when the economists sit all us little boys and girls down, pat us on the head and start talking to us in Baby Language.
Once upon a time there was “inflation targeting” and then the Big Bad Wolf came along and ate it for breakfast. So now we are going to bake a magic cake, we will take a little bit of Keynes, a little bit of Friedman, mix in a dash of Austrian Chocolate…and WOOPIE!! We saved the world…again!!!
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Monday, March 15, 2010
Unemployment Continued… / Economics / Economic Theory
Some questions were raised by my article on unemployment of last week and so I want to continue the same subject.
Unemployment has become the central issue of our day and perfectly illustrates the genius of Ayn Rand in putting the spotlight on altruism as the central concept which is destroying our society. Today (but not when Rand wrote) the conservatives have adopted the left-wing’s ideas on economics. They are screaming that Obama has failed because, after little over a year in office the unemployment rate is 10%.
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Implications of Velocity of Money on the Economy / Economics / Economic Theory
The Velocity of Money
Our Little Island World
GDP = (P) x (T)
P=MV
A Slowdown in Velocity
Dallas and Thoughts on the Economy
This week we do some review on a very important topic, the velocity of money. If we don't understand the basics, it is hard to make sense of the hash that our world economy is in, much less understand where we are headed.
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
End of Keynesian Blood Sucking Parasitic Economic System / Economics / Economic Theory
On March 11, I spoke at the annual Austrian Scholars Conference, sponsored by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It was gratifying to see so many attendees that they could not fit into one room.
The Mises Institute is a high-tech outfit. They set up a video camera, and the speech appeared on monitors in other rooms. It will also go on-line within a few days. This will be free. Anyone in the world with Web access can see it from now on. This is a great model for communication and education.
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Marc Faber vs Mish on Inflation Vs Deflation / Economics / Economic Theory
I had the great pleasure of meeting Marc Faber in person over the past couple of days after having exchanged emails with him about various things for the past several years. Marc is not only extremely knowledgeable about investments and strategies, he is also a lot of fun to be with personally.
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Tuesday, March 09, 2010
The Scandinavian Socialist Welfare Myth Revisited / Economics / Economic Theory
Obama seems hell-bent on expanding the US welfare state at any cost, and of course no welfare-state debate is complete without bringing up the Scandinavian countries as the perfect example of massive statism bringing prosperity. This seems to be a real conundrum, even for Austrians and other libertarians. Being a citizen of Sweden myself, I am often asked to give an explanation of these "bumblebee economies" that aren't supposed to be able to fly but still do.
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Saturday, March 06, 2010
The Bubble That Broke the World / Economics / Economic Theory
Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan writes: With the United States and much of Europe buried in public debt, many wonder how world governments will solve their impending budgetary crises. The economics profession has split into two camps: those who promote more spending; and their opponents, the "deficit hawks." The spenders have been the more vocal, largely due to their dominance in mainstream academia.
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Saturday, March 06, 2010
Krugman Fails to "Get It" on Japan / Economics / Economic Theory
One of my pet peeves with Paul Krugman is his constant rewriting of history, a rewriting that just happens to coincide with left-wing political talking points. For example, we hear that the Great Depression occurred because Herbert Hoover was a staunch believer in laissez-faire and took the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who called for liquidation of bad assets to "purge" the economy of whatever was "rotten" in the system.
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