Apoligies if posted before , I have not had a chance to read this in full but thought people here might enjoy ripping this apart
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/04/what-is-austrian-economics.html#tp
Me, over at Martin Wolf's Exchange:
Let me give eight propositions that I think of as "Austrian," meaning that they have been maintained by some "Austrian" somewhere and somehow, and assess them:
(1) IF THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAD FOLLOWED A "SOUND" MONETARY POLICY--"SOUND" MEANING THAT IT SHRANK THE STOCK OF HIGH-POWERED MONEY AT THE SUM OF THE TREND GROWTH RATES OF THE INSIDE MONEY MULTIPLIER AND OF VELOCITY--THEN WE WOULD NOT HAVE FINANCIAL CRISIS OR BIG RECESSIONS. Status: FALSE. Requiring trend deflation at the rate of labor force and labor productivity growth in order to keep nominal spending without a trend would be more likely to generate waves of universal bankruptcy, deep financial crises, and big recessions than our current system. (2) SPECULATION AND LACK OF PRUDENCE IN FINANCIAL MARKETS LED TO OVERBUILDING IN HOUSING IN THE MID-2000S. Status. TRUE. (3) OUR ONLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM IS GOVERNMENT: IT WAS FECKLESS AND OVEREXPANSIONARY GOVERNMENT POLICY LED TO THE SPECULATION AND THE BUBBLE THAT CREATED THE PROBLEM. Status. FALSE. It is certainly the case that sufficiently austere policy can keep any bubble from ever arising, but the costs of such policy are high. And periods in which monetary policy is overexpansionary are periods in which households, feeling flush, expand their consumption spending and create consumer price inflation. There was no wave of rising consumer price inflation in the 2000s. (4) OUR ONLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM IS GOVERNMENT: IT WAS GOVERNMENT GUARANTEES OF FANNIE, FREDDIE, OF COMMERCIAL BANKS, AND OF TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL UNIVERSAL BANKS THAT WERE THE ONLY SIGNIFICANT CAUSES OF OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS. Status: FALSE. We had financial crises and recessions like this long before we had FANNIE, FREDDIE, or commercial bank deposit insurance. And the princes of Wall Street and the shareholders of our universal banks now all wish that they had emulated Jamie Dimond and Lloyd Blankfein and gone short the subprime mortgage market in 2006. "Heads we win--tails the government pays" was not in the forefront of the minds of those whose wealth was invested in the bank stocks that have still lost much more than half their value since the summer of 2007. (5) BECAUSE OF OVERBUILDING IN HOUSING, WE WERE DOOMED TO HAVE A PERIOD OF HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT AS THE ECONOMY REBALANCED ITSELF AND TRANSFERRED RESOURCES OUT OF THE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION SECTOR. Status: FALSE. There is generally no period of high unemployment when resources are transferred out of consumption-producing sectors into investment goods-producing sectors. There is no necessity that the transfer of resources out of investment goods-producing sectors be accompanied by high unemployment. The business of shifting resources between sectors is pretty much orthogonal to the business of maintaining near full-employment and proper capacity utilization. Indeed, high unemployment and low capacity utilization are much more obstacles than aids to sectoral readjustment and reallocation: how can the market figure out where resources have their best economic use when no use produces a profit on the market? (6) OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS ARE THE RESULT OF THE NEED TO TRANSFER RESOURCES OUT OF HOUSING CONSTRUCTION AND RESTORE TREND GROWTH EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE SECTORS. Status: FALSE. The housing sector adjustment is over. We are now back to trend in the number of houses. And we are well below trend in new houses being built. If this period of depressed economic activity were primarily a way of transferring resources out of housing construction and shrinking the housing capital stock and the house-building industry back to its sustainable long-run trend size, the period of depressed economic activity would be over. (7) EXPANSIONARY MONETARY POLICY IS UNWARRANTED BECAUSE IT WILL ONLY BOOST SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT IF IT WILL ONLY LEAD TO ANOTHER BOUT OF ASSET PRICE INFLATION AND A BIGGER RECESSION DOWN THE ROAD. Status: FALSE. See "crying 'Fire! Fire!' in Noah's Flood..." (8) EXPANSIONARY FISCAL POLICY IS UNWARRANTED BECAUSE IT WILL ONLY BOOST SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT IF IT LEADS TO ANOTHER BOUT OF ASSET PRICE INFLATION AND A BIGGER RECESSION DOWN THE ROAD. Status: FALSE. See "crying 'Fire! Fire!' in Noah's Flood..."
(1) IF THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAD FOLLOWED A "SOUND" MONETARY POLICY--"SOUND" MEANING THAT IT SHRANK THE STOCK OF HIGH-POWERED MONEY AT THE SUM OF THE TREND GROWTH RATES OF THE INSIDE MONEY MULTIPLIER AND OF VELOCITY--THEN WE WOULD NOT HAVE FINANCIAL CRISIS OR BIG RECESSIONS.
Status: FALSE. Requiring trend deflation at the rate of labor force and labor productivity growth in order to keep nominal spending without a trend would be more likely to generate waves of universal bankruptcy, deep financial crises, and big recessions than our current system.
(2) SPECULATION AND LACK OF PRUDENCE IN FINANCIAL MARKETS LED TO OVERBUILDING IN HOUSING IN THE MID-2000S.
Status. TRUE.
(3) OUR ONLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM IS GOVERNMENT: IT WAS FECKLESS AND OVEREXPANSIONARY GOVERNMENT POLICY LED TO THE SPECULATION AND THE BUBBLE THAT CREATED THE PROBLEM.
Status. FALSE. It is certainly the case that sufficiently austere policy can keep any bubble from ever arising, but the costs of such policy are high. And periods in which monetary policy is overexpansionary are periods in which households, feeling flush, expand their consumption spending and create consumer price inflation. There was no wave of rising consumer price inflation in the 2000s.
(4) OUR ONLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM IS GOVERNMENT: IT WAS GOVERNMENT GUARANTEES OF FANNIE, FREDDIE, OF COMMERCIAL BANKS, AND OF TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL UNIVERSAL BANKS THAT WERE THE ONLY SIGNIFICANT CAUSES OF OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS.
Status: FALSE. We had financial crises and recessions like this long before we had FANNIE, FREDDIE, or commercial bank deposit insurance. And the princes of Wall Street and the shareholders of our universal banks now all wish that they had emulated Jamie Dimond and Lloyd Blankfein and gone short the subprime mortgage market in 2006. "Heads we win--tails the government pays" was not in the forefront of the minds of those whose wealth was invested in the bank stocks that have still lost much more than half their value since the summer of 2007.
(5) BECAUSE OF OVERBUILDING IN HOUSING, WE WERE DOOMED TO HAVE A PERIOD OF HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT AS THE ECONOMY REBALANCED ITSELF AND TRANSFERRED RESOURCES OUT OF THE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION SECTOR.
Status: FALSE. There is generally no period of high unemployment when resources are transferred out of consumption-producing sectors into investment goods-producing sectors. There is no necessity that the transfer of resources out of investment goods-producing sectors be accompanied by high unemployment. The business of shifting resources between sectors is pretty much orthogonal to the business of maintaining near full-employment and proper capacity utilization. Indeed, high unemployment and low capacity utilization are much more obstacles than aids to sectoral readjustment and reallocation: how can the market figure out where resources have their best economic use when no use produces a profit on the market?
(6) OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS ARE THE RESULT OF THE NEED TO TRANSFER RESOURCES OUT OF HOUSING CONSTRUCTION AND RESTORE TREND GROWTH EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE SECTORS.
Status: FALSE. The housing sector adjustment is over. We are now back to trend in the number of houses. And we are well below trend in new houses being built. If this period of depressed economic activity were primarily a way of transferring resources out of housing construction and shrinking the housing capital stock and the house-building industry back to its sustainable long-run trend size, the period of depressed economic activity would be over.
(7) EXPANSIONARY MONETARY POLICY IS UNWARRANTED BECAUSE IT WILL ONLY BOOST SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT IF IT WILL ONLY LEAD TO ANOTHER BOUT OF ASSET PRICE INFLATION AND A BIGGER RECESSION DOWN THE ROAD.
Status: FALSE. See "crying 'Fire! Fire!' in Noah's Flood..."
(8) EXPANSIONARY FISCAL POLICY IS UNWARRANTED BECAUSE IT WILL ONLY BOOST SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT IF IT LEADS TO ANOTHER BOUT OF ASSET PRICE INFLATION AND A BIGGER RECESSION DOWN THE ROAD.
In general, exercises like this are much more fruitful if they are applied not to a vague concept--an "Austrian"--but to a living, breathing articulate example of Economicus Danuviensis...
Listen,
You take any random person off the street, you buy him a Late and make him read just a few chapters in Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, and that person then knows more about the market economy then De Long.
These people are hopeless. You have to wait until they pass away and just hope that some Austrians replace them.
Number one is wrong right off the bat.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I'm short on time, so I wrote a short commentary on DeLong's post: Bradford DeLong on Austrian Economics. The short of it is that DeLong is not criticizing Austrian economics, but some misinterpretation of it.
How do you even argue against people like this?
I Samuel 8