General

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

ToxicAssets — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:04:21 GMT

Neodoxy:

"Wow, nice.

I mean, I would take away things like "winning Nobel Prize" or unspecified claims of "desirability" of a policy and that would be a very interesting reality check for many of the aspiring austrianites here."

How, exactly?

Also, I'd really hope that no one who started off as an Austrian economist would ever advocate the final point. I'm in managerial economics right now which you would expect to be pretty "low to the ground", yet even this class is theoretical and ivory tower as hell in a school that is primarily focused on direct employability of its students. Modern academia (in economics at very least) is so far removed from both the basics and the real world that any criticism of the Austrians on theoretical discrepancies is frankly laughable.

Economists in general are Ivory Tower dwellers, that's why I chose finance :)

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Neodoxy — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:07:33 GMT

"Wow, nice.

I mean, I would take away things like "winning Nobel Prize" or unspecified claims of "desirability" of a policy and that would be a very interesting reality check for many of the aspiring austrianites here."

How, exactly?

Also, I'd really hope that no one who started off as an Austrian economist would ever advocate the final point. I'm in managerial economics right now which you would expect to be pretty "low to the ground", yet even this class is theoretical and ivory tower as hell in a school that is primarily focused on direct employability of its students. Modern academia (in economics at very least) is so far removed from both the basics and the real world that any criticism of the Austrians on theoretical discrepancies is frankly laughable.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

ToxicAssets — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:17:54 GMT

Smiling Dave:

The order of events may differ, but these are the roadmarks.

1. Rothbard really was pretty extreme, and at times his analysis makes no sense.

2. Mises didn't understand many things that Hayek did.

3. If there ever were such a thing as lack of aggregate demand, it would be a real problem, not that govt intervention would solve anything, heh heh.

4. Deflation is just as bad as inflation.

5. Internet Austrians don't know it, but the whole point of the ABCT is to explain why there is a lack of aggregate demand.

6. Sometimes there is just not enough money in the system for the economy to run smoothly.

7. Fractional Reserve Banking can play an important role in solving monetary disequilibrium.

8. Only trivial economic questions can be decided without advanced Mathematics, which is essential for umderstanding real economics.

9. The multiplier concept makes a lot sense.

10. Shocks to the system can create all sorts of problems Austrians don't really understand.

11. The whole point of a central bank is to smooth over shocks, obviously a good thing.

12. Mises in Human Action just made assertions, but never proved anything.

13. An increase in the money supply will increase consumer demand, which is what brings a country out of recession.

14. Although internet Austrians love Mises, it is Hayek who won a Nobel Prize, and was head and shoulders above Mises in economic understanding.

15. The mere act of the govt spending money increases GDP, and is therefore desirable.

16. Praxeology is vastly over-rated, because you cannot prove anything from that one axiom that humans act.

17. Mises showed how dumb he is with his silly regression theorem, which has been disproven by bitcoin.

18. Modern supercomputers can solve the calculation problem easily, which is not really a problem if we allow consumers to use money.

19. Economics is all about dissemination of knowledge, or lack of it, within an economy. Hayek understood this, which is why he is the superior economist.

20. Austrian Economics is a dead subject, with no room for new research.

21. Austrians never leave their ivory towers to see what is happening in the real world.

Wow, nice.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Neodoxy — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:54:25 GMT

I was talking about the inner workings of economic issues. I agree that Mises is a lot more consistent, and overall a lot better on political/policy issues than Hayek, and he had few if any of the straight up bizarre contradictions Hayek had. For instance Hayek provides the real groundwork for how an increase in savings elongates the productions structure, something which Mises pretty much just says happens in HA. He gives a good analogy and basic reason in the from of time preference, but he doesn't show how this is actually reflected and how this works in the market economy itself.

Thusly IMO Hayek is a lot more prolific as a structure of production/business cycle theorist than his teacher, although in political and most other economic issues Mises takes the cake.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

baxter — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:43:47 GMT

"On many of the economic topics they both wrote about Hayek was a lot more clear [than Mises], but this does not mean that Mises didn't understand these things, merely that Hayek academically elaborated upon them more clearly."

Hayek makes no sense to me. For example, how do you deal with this contradiction?

(1) "In Hayek's view, the central role of the state should be to maintain the rule of law, with as little arbitrary intervention as possible", and

(2) "Hayek also wrote that the state has a role to play in the economy, and specifically, in creating a "safety net"" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

And it's not just me. See https://mises.org/daily/5747/Why-Mises-and-not-Hayek

"I could go on and on, citing Hayek's muddled and contradictory definitions of freedom and coercion... In distinct contrast, how refreshingly clear — and very different — is Mises!"

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

baxter — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:48:45 GMT

If anything, this thread makes me think of this:

"Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity."

- http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

gotlucky — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:32:32 GMT

Walter Block is supposed to make something like $160,000-$180,000 per year. Apparently he gets paid a lot for his libertarian lectures throughout the world. He doesn't just earn his $$$ by his teaching position.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Caley McKibbin — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:09:28 GMT

Austrian Economists like Walter block make nearly 200K a year...

How do you know that? I've seen ads for math teacher jobs at about $100k. I've never heard of $200k.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Neodoxy — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:05:35 GMT

Seems legit.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Student — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 03:56:23 GMT

Changed my mind. No need to for me to post in this thread. :)

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Caley McKibbin — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 23:55:08 GMT

It's mostly about money, is it not? You can probably put #20 on the end of any list and people will slide toward it. Research costs money and researchers don't work for free.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Neodoxy — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 17:55:22 GMT

Do you have a shred of evidence that this happens on a regular basis or is the result for most Austrian to Keynesian conversions?

Austrian Economists like Walter block make nearly 200K a year and I know that Catalan's gradschool professors don't even express much interest in his views.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Meistro — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:49:14 GMT

I think it's simpler :

#1 - realize there's more career opportunities justifying state power than criticizing it

#2 - sell out

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Anenome — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:00:47 GMT

Lol, thanks for the laugh SD, that's some serious inside-baseball economic comedy :) I knew you were wrong on bitcoin but now I see you're confused about practically everything, wow. Wow.

Re: The Path From Being Austrian to Being Keynesian.

Primetime — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 04:37:04 GMT

Smiling Dave:
I have a preliminary hypothesis that a person at step N tells himself he will never, ever, slide down to step N+1. But he will. [.......] If anyone can provide info about his own personal slide, the order in which he fell, which remaining steps in the slide he thinks might be true, which he insists he will never stoop to, science will advance. Time to step up, guys. You know who you are.

This is where you lose me. Can you please show me one example of anyone who has made this journey from Austrian to Keynesian? Let alone following this kind of path...somehow reading and understanding Human Action, yet later deciding juvenile nonsense that even Krugman wouldn't say, like 15. 4 and 9 are pretty good stretches too.

I'm pretty curious what (if anything) youre basing this on. I've certainly never heard of any kind of "fall". Callahan maybe, but i think anyone can see his was nothing like this "path".