General

Re: Internet Bubble - Caused by Government?

James — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:04:53 GMT

Please drop this silly collectivistic rethoric.

That's what all libertarians say.

Re: Internet Bubble - Caused by Government?

boniek — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:33:22 GMT

"The Rothbardians think that it, and all other economic crises at all times with no effort to check the actual facts, was caused by the Federal Reserve inflating the dollar."

Please drop this silly collectivistic rethoric.

Re: Internet Bubble - Caused by Government?

Peter Sidor — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:23:05 GMT

"Then the Federal Reserve stepped in ... and it raised rates massively..."

That would actually hint that the Federal Reserve was behind the bubble in the first place. :)

And for the record, there was actually some research among those crazy Rothbardians on the matter - see here. Nobody says every single economic crisis must be caused by the Fed - but this one seems to be a pretty good candidate.

Re: Internet Bubble - Caused by Government?

Kaz — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:45:08 GMT

Was the famous internet tech bubble caused directly by government/central banking?

Yes.

The question is which way it caused it.

The Rothbardians think that it, and all other economic crises at all times with no effort to check the actual facts, was caused by the Federal Reserve inflating the dollar. If that actually happened, it would cause malinvestment; people spent the excess money literally investing in bad internet ideas, and then these sponteneously collapsed under their own weight.

Until recently, my stance was nearly the opposite:

The information technology industry's massive growth was healthy, fueled by speculation in new ideas, which is the central function of capitalism...to allow guesswork at new things that people can't be sure will work, and then competition decides who was correct.

Then the Federal Reserve stepped in, complaining that ALL rapid growth (not just growth caused by its own runaway presses) is bad, and that it can tell with central planning metrics that these investments are all wrong, and then it raised rates massively, which was guaranteed to crash any new, heavily speculative industry, whether it was healthy or not, as all of the investment money fled into not-wealth-producing securities like government bonds and notes.

Crash.

But it's come to my attention that Schumpeter predicted the dot com crash a century ago.

What he said is that it's normal for any radically new industry to gather up speculative resources, growing rapidly, then as what actually works is discovered, the rest of the paths of investment in that industry are assumed to be dead ends, and that capital/money flees elsewhere, causing a massive industrial failure.

No doubt the Fed also contributed, whether by inflating (Rothbardian) or deflating (me)...but maybe Schumpeter is correct about the "bubble" being a normal part of any ground-breaking new industry, including its burst.

Re: Internet Bubble - Caused by Government?

liberty student — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:28:45 GMT

What research have you done?

Internet Bubble - Caused by Government?

limitgov — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:25:35 GMT

Was the famous internet tech bubble caused directly by government/central banking?