2 posts tagged “depression”
Economics in One Lesson: Still Relevant Today.
“The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.”
You will find at the Mises Institute a series of online videos discussing Economics in One Lesson
by Henry Hazlitt. Among the various videos, please let me highlight the
one with Thomas Woods where he chats about credit and loaning. He
applies some of the book's lessons to what is happening now.
Watch Here at Youtube.
Another video of this series to highlight----even though you should watch them all----would be the one with Roger Garrison. Dr. Garrison chats about business cycles and the myth that saving is "bad."
Watch Here at Youtube.
This book of Hazlitt's was first published in 1946. It is 2008 now, and it would be putting it mildly to say that the central lessons that are contained in this work have still not been learnt. (I guess economics is "the dismal science," as Thomas Carlyle called it.)
On Friday I was watching The McLaughlin Group and just could not believe what I was hearing. Now, true, I am just a dumb layman, but how individuals in the media are viewing this mess baffles my mind.
Thanks, Government. Thanks a lot.
Watch Jim Rogers at LRC.
Mr. Rogers, a great prophet of this depression, says that the bankrupt must go bankrupt. Everything the government is doing is the wrong move (surprise, surprise). The frightening thing is, the current gang in power is likely to cause an "inflationary holocaust" when they are done with us.
(Government power never works. For a new liberty, anyone?)
No Problem.
"You Cannot Patch a Busted Dam With Water."
Says Mr. Shedlock. (Via CharlesGoyette.com)
"Regulation: The Cause, Not the Cure, of the Financial Crisis."
Writes Dr. Long.
A World Central Bank?
It might be coming...
Read Dr. Hoppe's excellent 1990 essay "Banking, Nation States, and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order" [PDF].
Mr. Justin Raimondo at Anti-War.com writes about "The Bubble Boys."
“The Greenspan bubble benefited the banks, the real estate moguls, and, most of all, the war profiteers.”
***
Monetary socialism is an evil not only because it generates----through the Federal Reserve's artificial lowering of the interest rate via credit expansion----chaotic booms-and-busts in the economy, but is also an evil because it's an essential part of the military-industrial complex and the U.S. Empire. They rely on the Fed for sustenance.
This is why I believe it is very important for those of us who value liberty and, as a corollary, peace to point out to the public the need to eliminate the Fed and unbacked fiat money. We must all show the public the importance of a 100 percent gold dollar (or other equivalent free market money).
Ending monetary socialism is the only way to severely limit the State in its war making powers. If there is something the peace movement should rally around, it should be this. It would take away what feeds Leviathan's wars. It would help extirpate the fascistic influence of neoconservatism. Future neocon (and left-liberal) elective wars would not be an option as easily as they are today.
And ending monetary socialism is the only way to cure our credit addiction. It is the only way to promote the conservative work ethics of thrift. It is the only long-term solution to our current financial crisis. To paraphrase Mr. Lew Rockwell: We must all stop living in and believing in an illusion and a lie.
Government bailouts and other regulatory interventions can only result in prolonging and deepening today's recession. But the recession is not the problem. We should not be getting angry about that. The problem was the bubble that was created by the Fed in the first place. It was that creation that made the recession inevitable. And it is the recession that leads us out of our current mess. This is how the market is trying to correct the economy. The market must bring man back to reality and away from the unreality of the Keynesian fairyland of bubbles.
I thought this for many, many months now (actually, maybe longer), and I very much hope I am wrong, but I think it is 50-50 in terms of some kind of depression developing. My fears seem justified. Today's politicians appear to be copying what Hoover and FDR did. They tried to stop the market from correcting the socialist distortions, as readers of the late Murray Rothbard know. But by continually not allowing the market to fix the economy, it resulted in the Great Depression.
All of you one or two regular readers of The Paleo Blog know the economists of the Austrian school predicted this entire mess. There is a library of scholarly and popular work on this subject available at Mises.org for all to read. Correct ideas do not spread on their own. They need educated men to spread them.
I think it is about time to listen to those who have been right all along, like the Austrian economists and like Dr. Ron Paul. They all say that the bailouts and regulations are a wrong move. The default reaction by the statist establishment to "prevent" any kind of recession is a wrong reaction. What the politicians are doing now will be felt in the future, and it will not be pretty. Hopefully the politicians will not do any more destructive intervening. If they do implement more socialist schemes, well, the Austrians can say "We told you so" ...again.
Watch, Read, and Listen:
- Ron Paul on what the State is Guaranteeing.
- Read Ron Paul's Statement.
- Put the Time & Effort into Reading American's Great Depression by Murray Newton Rothbard.
- See The Bailout Reader at Mises.org.
- See The Recession Reader at LewRockwell.com
- Mr. Charles Goyette on Anti-War Radio. (Charles, please come back to radio soon.)
- Listen to Dr. Frank Shostak at Mises.
- Listen to Dr. Joseph Salerno at Mises.
