Quote from Anaconda:
Well written. People need to read this over & over until they understand the line of thinking.
Quote from intradaybill:
Listen imbecile, you ought to learn basic economics before spewing crap in this forum.
There can be no doubt that the reason why money rates remained low in Austria was that, as a result of the Central Bank's tactics, the transfer of short-term funds to London or Berlin, whether through covered or uncovered arbitrage, was checked. It may be asked, however, whether the overvaluation of the forward krone and the depreciation of the spot krone were really the result of deliberate policy, or whether they resulted merely from the higher bank rates in London or Berlin, and from speculative forward buying of kronen, stimulated by the fact that the spot krone was at gold export point. Federn staked his whole reputation on his assertion in his various articles that official policy was the cause. On the other hand, his formidable antagonist, Mises, was equally emphatic in denying that any special devices had been applied to the Austro-Hungarian bank, in 1907 or at any other time, for the purpose of discouraging an outflow of funds. Federn goes into minute details in describing how the policy was carried out, showing how the Austo-Hungarian bank discriminated between the demand for foreign currencies for commercial purposes and for the purpose of interest arbitrage, by refusing to sell spot currencies while selling freely for forward delivery, on the assumption that in the then existing circumstances those who bought Forward Exchange could not possibly use the funds for interest arbitrage. Being in close contact with the market as the leading financial Editor of his day he was in an excellent position to ascertain the facts, and his facts were never called into question by anyone apart from Mises.
Although Mises had a well-deserved international reputation as a theoretical economist, he had no first-hand contact with the markets, nor even, it seems, an adequate knowledge of its essential technical details. He appeared to confuse long bills with Forward Exchange, which, for an Austrian economist specialising in monetary questions, was surprising even for pre-1914 days. The only evidence he quoted in support of his argument was a statement by Dr. von Bilinski, then governor of the Austro-Hungarian bank, according to whom official policy at times of pressure due to international causes was to send gold freely to foreign markets in order to 'prevent there a further increase of interest rates which would otherwise lead to an artificial efflux of gold from the Monarchy, and consequently to an increase of interest rates'. On the basis of this statement Mises claimed that the Austria-Hungary had pursued, in fact if not in law, a policy identical with that of gold standard countries, and that she had not sought to avoid parting with gold when higher interest rates abroad caused a pressure on the krone.
This assertion was contradicted four years later by Bilinski himself. He had meanwhile become Finance Minister, and, having ceased to be a Central Banker, presumably no longer felt the same need for paying lip-service to monetary orthodoxy. In a speech before the Austrian parliament on December 1, 1910, and in a subsequent speech, he opposed the adoption of the full gold standard on the ground that under the existing system the Austro-Hungarian bank had possessed a very effective weapon at its disposal in defending the exchange, in that it could differentiate between those demanding Foreign Exchange for commercial purposes and those who wanted it for arbitrage or speculation.
Quote from intradaybill:
Listen imbecile, you ought to learn basic economics before spewing crap in this forum. You have to learn what value infrastructure projects have for the overall economy and employnment. Your false analogies, non sequiturs, strawman arguments, just show what kind of a fool you are.
"Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, estimates that every dollar of infrastructure spending boosts the gross domestic product by $1.59."
"Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, who is a possible Treasury secretary in an Obama administration, told a congressional committee that "properly designed infrastructure projects have the virtue of being helpful as short-run stimulus, especially for the employment of the workers most hard hit by the housing decline, while at the same time augmenting the economy's productive potential in the long run."
""You always worry about pork-barrel spending, but with the economy in the shape that it's in right now, that's less of a concern than it was earlier this year," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group."
and finally,
"Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, said he is more receptive to infrastructure spending than to sending out more tax rebate checks."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printed...rastructure9-2008nov09,0,3801400.story?page=1
So imbecile, it seems you gonna have to turn off your web TV and go to work, no more stimulus checks in the mail for you.
LOL, funniest post on the thread.Quote from trefoil:
I'm not even a Keynesian. But if someone is going to contribute to a thread which depends on a basic knowledge of economics and of the history of economics for it to be even mildly intelligible, they should at least have that basic knowledge.
Otherwise, shut up and let those of us who actually know what we're talking about do the talking.
Government builds a bridge.Quote from Swede P:
The government builds a bridge. The bridge exists. It is, let us suppose, a beautiful and not an ugly bridge. It has come into being through the magic of government spending. Where would it have been if the obstructionists and the reactionaries had had their way? There would have been no bridge.
Here again the government spenders have the better of argument with all those who cannot see beyond the immediate range of their physical eyes. They can see the bridge. But if they have taught themselves to look for indirect as well as direct consequences they can once more see in the eye of imagination the possibilities that have never been allowed to come into existence. They can see the unbuilt homes, the unmade cars and washing machines, the unmade dresses and coats, perhaps the ungrown and unsold foodstuffs......What has happened is merely that one thing has been created instead of others.
--Hazlitt

Quote from Cutten:
There is no difference, at least not in the realm of government, law, politics etc - any applied school of knowledge, basically. Something must be judged on how it can be implemented in the real world. Communism is a good example. In theory, IF people are all "altruistic", communism might work really well. Since in the real world they are not "altruistic", communism is a total disaster when you try to implement it in reality. You cannot implement any system in theory, you have to implement it in the real world with all the constraints that entails. Thus all theories must be judged on their actual or prospective implementation.
If Keynesian economics works given certain theoretical conditions (which is extremely debatable), but those conditions are untenable in the real world, then it will be a failure no matter how sound its theoretical position. Same with free market economics. If voters will go socialist before a free market economics liquidation/recession can run its course, due to their economic ignorance and general fear, then even if you support free markets in theory, you have to recognise it is untenable since voters will reject it and lurch leftwards. Thus some intervention in serious recessions would be preferable, even for Milton Friedman or Murray Rothbard, because failure to intervene would result in socialism via the ballot box, whereas intervention would result only in somewhat watered-down capitalism.