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Question about the ABCT

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CaptainMurphy posted on Fri, Apr 16 2010 12:18 AM

The Austrian Business Cycle Theory states that entrepreneurs are not able to distinguish between money that comes from genuine savings and money created through credit expansion by the Fed.  But surely the Fed keeps track of how much money they loan into existence..  If entrepreneurs know this, shouldn't they be able to adjust the interest rate appropriately and not be fooled into malinvestments?

I know there are holes in this argument, but I'm having trouble putting together a cohesive counter-argument in my head..

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z1235 replied on Fri, Apr 16 2010 1:53 PM
CaptainMurphy:
If entrepreneurs know this, shouldn't they be able to adjust the interest rate appropriately and not be fooled into malinvestments?
Entrepreneurs know perfectly well about the free punch-bowl and that money is much easier than it otherwise would be. The Fed has rung the bell and the zero-sum race of inflationary wealth reallocation has started. In this race, you have to keep running (borrowing, investing, taking risk, speculating, etc.) just to keep up with the rest. Hopefully, if you time your entry (when the punch bowl is brought in) and exit (right after the bust takes it away) well, then you come out ahead. The pre-boom wealth map has been re-shuffled into a post-bust wealth map, and sitting on the sidelines is more likely to make you a loser in the new map. IMO, this frantic zero-sum race is a neglected but inevitable "curse" of credit expansion beyond the availability of real capital. Z.
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When people go to gambling they know there is a substantial probability of them losing. The hope is that any acquired skills in whatever they're playing will help them win, even if they know that the dealer is always working against them. Furthermore, most people are probably aware of the fact that if you win for long enough, you will lose big, yet they continue to play because they want to believe otherwise. Entrepreneurship, as something innate, is a force existent whatever barriers government puts up. Humans are consistently looking for ways to maximize utility, invest capital and create wealth. I don't see artificially low-interest rates as a signal to stop entrepreneurship. Surely, people aware of the Austrian business cycle theory may be a little more cautious, but entrepreneurs are not going to stop investing for some undetermined amount of time because interest rates are low. They may think that their will always be demand for their product, or that they will create wealth before the end of credit expansion. Easy money does not make people "stupid". In some cases it may eliminate moral hazard; this is especially true for the banking system. With a lot of available credit, banks will be more likely to approve loans to those who would have otherwise never gotten them. This is true for this past crisis; but, I'm not sure this was out of "stupidity" or "irrationality". Ultimately, I think the reason why entrepreneurs invest even when there is easy credit is out of the spirit of entrepreneurship innate within the human mind.
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What's with the lack of formatting.
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Smiling Dave:
OK I found this: http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/15660/321482.aspx Caplan asks your q, I think. Scroll down to New Libertys post of refuting links.
Good links..
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cret replied on Sat, Apr 17 2010 4:02 AM
"The pre-boom wealth map has been re-shuffled into a post-bust wealth map, and sitting on the sidelines is more likely to make you a loser in the new map. IMO, this frantic zero-sum race is a neglected but inevitable "curse" of credit expansion beyond the availability of real capital." does the credit-expansion that you claim exists come in large part from the federal reserve regularly buying some type of financial assets from banks???? if so, (i dont know if its true or not, its what i was told), do the financial assets that the fed purchases (with instant dollars????) get paid off by over time by various loan payers....where those dollars would then disappear???? with the paying down and destruction of dollars (again, if true???) of fed held financial assets does the credit-dollars extended to the banks to purchase such financial assets then somehow outpace the paid off assets and lead to the bubbles that have been said to happen at the mises sites???
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cret replied on Sat, Apr 17 2010 4:11 AM
"Entrepreneurs know perfectly well about the free punch-bowl and that money is much easier than it otherwise would be." huh??? when you say money do you mean current dollars??? does the easy dollar come from a federal reserve purchase of a bank asset....a purchase made with dollars created from fed governor discretion and nothing more??? is it this process that lets the entrepreneur get a cargo van at 0 percent interest instead of 12 percent interest???
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cret replied on Sat, Apr 17 2010 4:12 AM
similarly, if the fed process that i mentioned is actually true, could a low interest rate allow a cargo van manufacturer to purchase a better assembly line to vastly lower the cost and price of cargo vans???? gaining more market share without any bubble taking place???
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z1235 replied on Sat, Apr 17 2010 9:37 AM
cret:
does the easy dollar come from a federal reserve purchase of a bank asset....a purchase made with dollars created from fed governor discretion and nothing more??? is it this process that lets the entrepreneur get a cargo van at 0 percent interest instead of 12 percent interest???
Yes. A Fed-less free market would signal him: "I like your product/idea but at 12% interest, so if you can swing it, be my guest.". A Fed-driven market signals him: "Yes, I like your product/idea, no matter what. Just go for it, real capital/savings be damned!". The price of this false signal gets paid during the inevitable bust when the value of the capital, time, and labor invested into the idea go "puff!" into thin air. He may as well have borrowed the money and paid himself a salary for doing push-ups in his living room, and created less damage that way. And what's with the "????" ? Is your '?' key stuck? Avoid posting a deluge of messages, one after another. You may get more questions answered that way. Finally, stop asking ("Is this true?"). It's your own responsibility to discern the truth for yourself. No one else can tell you what is true and what isn't. Z.
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Z,  "cret" was previously known as SThomper and Caravel (previously banned).  What you're attempting to point out to him has been attempted many times before. 

"The market is a process." - Ludwig von Mises, as related by Israel Kirzner.   "Capital formation is a beautiful thing" - Chloe732.

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z1235 replied on Sat, Apr 17 2010 4:18 PM
chloe732:
Z,  "cret" was previously known as SThomper and Caravel (previously banned).  What you're attempting to point out to him has been attempted many times before. 
Thx chloe. The style did look familiar. Oh well, one of these times it'll probably work. He sure likes sticking around. ;^) Z.
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CaptainMurphy:
Do you think if more investors were familiar with the ABCT, we would be able to lessen the severity of the recessions?
It would make a difference. However, there would still be disruption due to the impossiblity of economic calculation.
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CaptainMurphy:
Do you think if more investors were familiar with the ABCT, we would be able to lessen the severity of the recessions?

I came across this: http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen19_3_1.asp

Here's the relevant quote:

SHOSTAK: Writing in Economica in 1943, Lachmann criticized Mises's theory of the business cycle on grounds that expectations could prevent it from taking place. The idea is that businesses expect the bust and refrain from investment expansion, thereby muting the impact of new money coming into the economy. Hence, the business cycle is recast as an information- coordination problem rather than a theory about cause and effect.

The incorrect assumption here is that bad expectations are somehow the cause of the business cycle. The actual cause is the introduction of counterfeit money, which redistributes wealth and leads businesses to make calculation errors. You can have any kind of expectations you want but they will not and cannot obviate past events. This new money is an economic error which must work itself through the economy in some way.

You cannot use psychology to explain the consequence of real events. What people believe about the future cannot change the reality of cause and effect. The business cycle is a consequence of a real act of damage that, once set in motion, cannot be undone. Guido H�lsmann prefers to recast the business cycle theory into a general theory of error cycles, which gets to the core of the issue at hand: government intervention leading to bad decisions.

Wish I could ask him more about this. Like, whats the difference between "information-coordination" and "bad decisions" and "calculation errors".

 

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cret replied on Mon, Apr 19 2010 5:30 PM

."" Just go for it, real capital/savings be damned!". The price of this false signal gets paid during the inevitable bust when the value of the capital, time, and labor invested into the idea go "puff!" into thin air.""""

 

why would it necessarily be a false signal???  would an entrepreneur not do some research???

 

would a lender not do some research before lending out fed created dollars?  couldnt valid investmetns be funded this way as well???

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cret replied on Mon, Apr 19 2010 5:32 PM

. It's your own responsibility to discern the truth for yourself. No one else can tell you what is true and what isn't............

 

i would also say its a responsibility of those who have a solid notion of the truth to not lie about it.

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cret replied on Mon, Apr 19 2010 5:34 PM

i thought these forums were for distributing and querying.

 

i beleive some of the posters her eto have econo9mics degrees and versed in teh field.  if not, then my malcalulation.  if i get a response to a question asking iof somethign is true i then try to confirm it with other sources.  much of the federal reserve webpages i do not understand. 

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