Robert Murphy, perhaps the best Krugman critic out there, will be teaching a new course,
Keynes, Krugman, and the Crisis. Writes Murphy:
The class is designed to give students of the Austrian School a fair understanding of the worldview of John Maynard Keynes and his best-known living proponent, Paul Krugman, in the specific context of economic booms and busts. After reading source material from Keynes and Krugman, we will discuss Austrian critiques of their approach.
Commenting on Krugman, Murphy says:
Whatever else one may think of him, Krugman always offers a snappy argument for his views, backed up by an appeal to a formal model. My main goal in this section of the course is to equip students to "think like Krugman." For example, he has a ready response for critics who object, "So why don't we just run trillion-dollar deficits forever, if they're so good?" or who ask, "Why didn't your advice work in Zimbabwe?" Naturally, I don't agree with Krugman's worldview, but the point is that he has a fairly consistent, complex theoretical structure. Ultimately, it takes more than one-sentence zingers to give his views the thorough refutation that they deserve.
Anyone interested in the course can find more
information about it here.
113 comments:
He should wear the zombie makeup when he reads keynes.
The fixation with Krugman shows such a shallow understanding of Keynesianism. The New Keynesians like Krugman have an understanding of Keynes derived from neoclassical economics. There has always been the alternative non-neoclassical Post Keynesian tradition.
It was, for example, the emerging Post Keynesians like Kaldor who refuted Hayek's theories in the 1930s. After his ABCT was in tatters Hayek pretty much abandoned it and turned to other matters, like philosophy.
Hey LK,
I am still waiting for your definition of "interest rate", not to mention your definition of "natural rights", more particularly the words "natural" and "rights" and what their definitions mean for the definition of the term "natural rights".
"It was, for example, the emerging Post Keynesians like Kaldor who refuted Hayek's theories in the 1930s"
Looks like you never learnt that repeating something ad nauseum does not make it right. Give the arguments. No links please. I have no time to waste.
""It was, for example, the emerging Post Keynesians like Kaldor who refuted Hayek's theories in the 1930s" ... Give the arguments. No links please. I have no time to waste"
LOL.. In the case of Sraffa's critique of Hayek's use of the Wicksellian "natural rate of interest" concept, where the rate of interest is the one prevailing if savings and investment were made in natura (in real commodities), you already have the arguments laid out in the previous comments.
LK,
I said "First define interest rate". The "Give the arguments." was for Kaldor's so-called refutation of ABCT. So, don't (as usual) try to slime out.
And I am still awaiting your definition of "natural rights", "natural", rights" and a host of other terms you throw around.
In other words, you have no response to the collapse of Hayek's trade cycle theory owing to its use of the unworkable Wicksellian "natural interst rate" concept.
I said "First define interest rate".
What? In general terms?
"rate at which interest is paid by a borrower for the use of money that they borrow from a lender."
"rate at which interest is paid by a borrower for the use of money that they borrow from a lender."
There!!! You have no idea what Austrians mean by 'interest rate'. With this vacuous understanding, you have the temerity to criticise ABCT. What nerve!! These whatever-Keynesians are the best in entertainment.
That apart, you just demonstrated that you have no clue as to what the thing you are criticising actually is. Good demonstration. Keep it up.
"There!!! You have no idea what Austrians mean by 'interest rate'."
= more idiocy on display.
Note my words "In general terms."
If you're talking about Wicksellian "natural interest rate" concept":
“There is a certain rate of interest on loans which is neutral in respect to commodity prices, and tend neither to raise nor to lower them. This is necessarily the same as the rate of interest which would be determined by supply and demand if no use were made of money and all lending were effected in the form of real capital goods. It comes to much the same thing to describe it as the current value of the natural rate of interest on capital.”
Shostak, F. 2008. “The Myth of the Neutral Interest Rate Policy,” Mises.org, February 8
http://mises.org/daily/1743
Or:
“Wicksell ... defines the natural interest rate as: ‘The rate of interest at which the demand for loan capital and the supply of savings exactly agree, and which more or less corresponds to the expected yield on the newly created capital, will then be the normal or natural real rate.’ ... The natural interest rate equals the marginal product of capital at full employment. A reduction in the market rate (through an increase in the money supply) below the natural rate may stimulate investment. However, as the economy is assumed to be at full employment (everyone willing to accept a wage equal to the marginal product of labour has employment), it also causes inflation for the period during which the natural rate exceeds the market rate” (P. Burger, 2003. Sustainable Fiscal Policy and Economic Stability: Theory and Practice, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK. p. 63).
And those definitions were already pre-supposed in the comments I made on the previous post about Sraffa's attack on Hayek, you higher-order idiot.
And that Sraffa's critique was a serious problem for Austrian theory is acknowledged by Lachmann:
“What is much less clear to us is to what extent Hayek was aware that by admitting that there might be no single rate he was making a fatal concession to his opponent. If there is a multitude of commodity rates, it is evidently possible for the money rate of interest to be lower than some but higher than others. What, then, becomes of monetary equilibrium?”
Lachmann, L. M. 1994. Expectations and the Meaning of Institutions: Essays in Economics (ed. by D. Lavoie), Routledge, London. p. 154.
There's a reason it's called the "Mises Institute" not the "Hayek Institute". The idea of a single "equilibrium" rate is preposterous. Each transaction is going to have a different rate and different terms. Since it's virtually impossible for any two events to happen simultaneously, and impossible for the same transaction to occur in the exact same place as another, the time and location of each transaction will be different. Each party is going to have a different time preference and credit score.
Funny money dilution is going to impair economic calculation. Exactly how and where this will happen and how it will express itself is always problematic because we are dealing with humans having free will. This is LK's pathetic silly little game. He finds disagreements between economists on the issue of how the screw-up is going to SPECIFICALLY occur and pronounces the general theme (that there will be a screw-up) refuted. He is even more pathetic because he doesn't even understand the central concept of economic calculation. It says nothing in favor of his money dilution schemes.
We win again.
"There's a reason it's called the "Mises Institute" not the "Hayek Institute". The idea of a single "equilibrium" rate is preposterous."
So you've admitted Hayek's version fo ABCT is unworkable?
Quite an admission!
"The idea of a single "equilibrium" rate is preposterous."
Really??? Perhaps you should have told Mises that? Mises also relies on the Wicksellian "natural interest rate" concept:
"At the end of ... [The Theory of Money of Credit] (388-404), Mises combined his theory of interest and his understanding of banking practice to point to a theory of economic crises. Following on Wicksell, he identified the gap between the natural rate of interest and the money rate as the consequence of credit expansion."
Vaughn, K. I. 1994. Austrian Economics in America: The Migration of a Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York. p. 40.
Uh-oh! It looks Mises is up s**t creek too, if there's no single "equilibrium" rate!!
By the way, here’s Mises in The Theory of Money and Credit:
“Wicksell distinguishes between the natural rate of interest (natürliche Kapitalzins), or the rate of interest that would be determined by supply and demand if actual capital goods were lent without the mediation of money, and the money rate of interest (Geldzins), or the rate of interest that is demanded and paid for loans in money or money substitutes. The money rate of interest and the natural rate of interest need not necessarily coincide, since it is possible for the banks to extend the amount of their issues of fiduciary media as they wish and thus to exert a pressure on the money rate of interest that might bring it down to the minimum set by their costs. Nevertheless, it is certain that the money rate of interest must sooner or later come to the level of the natural rate of interest, and the problem is to say in what way this ultimate coincidence is brought about.”
Mises, L. von, 2009 [1953]. The Theory of Money and Credit (trans. J. E. Batson), Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala. p. 355.
I would agree that the rates would TEND toward such a rate, but people are naturally crazy and they are gonna do what they're gonna do.
Basically, if this is the kind of stuff the statists are going to pull out on Larry King to refute "conventional notions of prudence", we can all have a big laugh at them and expose them for the charlatans we know they are.
LK,
Since you are quoting all the wrong sections from the wrong people to justify your hilarious attempt at attacking ABCT, here is the relevant section from the person who formulated ABCT.
Read the first 2-3 pages of Chapter XIX of Human Action. You may (I wouldn't say will as I have to account for your mule-like stubbornness) understand why I am rolling on the floor laughing my fat a$$ off at your pathetic attempt at 'demolishing' ABCT.
As Bob keeps saying, first educate yourself on Austrian concepts and principles before you attempt to attack them. Failing to do so entails the risk of making a prize jackass of yourself (which you are currently doing).
"I would agree that the rates would TEND toward such a rate, but people are naturally crazy and they are gonna do what they're gonna do."
WOW... you really have nothing. Nothing at all.
The next time I hear more complete and unadulterated B.S. about Austrian business cycle theory, I'll remember this.
Cheers.
LK,
Before you thump your chest (in true gorilla fashion) in victory, please bear in mind that you are yet to state the proper Austrian concept of interest rate. The point is that your 'attack' is on a straw man. That's sooooooo Keynesian.
I’m going to destroy and refute the ABCT once and for all by demonstrating that funny money dilution and super low rates do not always cause a boom/bust cycle and so LK can go find something else to do.
Assume that I am finally successful in explaining the basic core concepts of the Austrian School to 97% of the population (there will, of course, be a small cohort with people like LK who are to dumb to understand it). They understand a) that money dilution is theft; b) Cantillon effects; c) how economic calculation is disrupted by money dilution; and d) how money dilution tends to make long term investments appear more profitable than they really are.
Then, the central bank tries yet again to utilize its usual bag of tricks including super low rates. But since the people by now have had their eyes opened, no one borrows any funny money or even accepts it. No one malinvests. Instead, they storm the barricades and arrest the perpetrators for fraud and treason and who get life sentences.
See, sometimes low rates don’t cause a boom/bust cycle!
LK,
"If you're talking about Wicksellian "natural interest rate" concept""
No. I am not.
"And those definitions were already pre-supposed in the comments I made on the previous post about Sraffa's attack on Hayek, you higher-order idiot."
And those apparently 'presupposed' definitions do not form a proper basis to attack ABCT because they do not constitute the proper Austrian concept of interest rate.
"And that Sraffa's critique was a serious problem for Austrian theory is acknowledged by Lachmann:"
And talk of argument by appeal to authority.....
"please bear in mind that you are yet to state the proper Austrian concept of interest rate"
Again. Colossal stupidity. I have already stated the concept of the Wicksellian natural rate of interest, as used by Hayek. That concept collapses, as Sraffa showed - which is the point at issue, which you cannot, and refuse to, respond to.
And there is no ONE "Austrian concept of interest rate": different Austrians have sometimes devised different definitions:
“Earlier writers defined the natural rate of interest concept in various ways. Hayek originally defined the natural rate as the rate of interest that would prevail if savings and investment were made in natura; that is, without any distortionary monetary effects [i.e., without money]. Mises (1978, p. 124) defined the natural rate of interest as the equilibrium rate for the capital structure. Later treatments defined the natural rate as the real marginal productivity of capital or as the interest rate which equalizes ex ante savings and investment”
Cowen, T. 1997. Risk and Business Cycles: New and Old Austrian Perspectives, Routledge, London. p. 95.
LK,
" I have already stated the concept of the Wicksellian natural rate of interest, as used by Hayek."
Mises did not use it. He specifically says it is not the proper definition.
Do stop making a fool of yourself. It is getting painful
p.s. Looks like you aren't reading the pages of HA I referred you to.
http://mises.org/books/humanaction.pdf
"Mises (1978, p. 124) defined the natural rate of interest as the equilibrium rate for the capital structure."
False.
"which is the point at issue, which you cannot, and refuse to, respond to. "
I refuse to respond to it because it is a straw man attack and responding would be a waste of my time. I'd rather show it up for the straw-man attack it is, which I am doing.
"Mises did not use it. He specifically says it is not the proper definition."
Wrong. Mises DID rely on the Wicksellian natural interest rate concept in his development of it:
[Mises] surely made use of the natural and market rate concepts, developing Wicksell's analysis of the upward price spiral caused by a too low market rate into a theory of the business cycle.
orwitz, S. 2000. Microfoundations and Macroeconomics: An Austrian Perspective, Routledge, London and New York. p. 77.
You can verify that by reading The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 355:
“Wicksell distinguishes between the natural rate of interest (natürliche Kapitalzins), or the rate of interest that would be determined by supply and demand if actual capital goods were lent without the mediation of money, and the money rate of interest (Geldzins), or the rate of interest that is demanded and paid for loans in money or money substitutes. The money rate of interest and the natural rate of interest need not necessarily coincide, since it is possible for the banks to extend the amount of their issues of fiduciary media as they wish and thus to exert a pressure on the money rate of interest that might bring it down to the minimum set by their costs. Nevertheless, it is certain that the money rate of interest must sooner or later come to the level of the natural rate of interest, and the problem is to say in what way this ultimate coincidence is brought about.”
Mises, L. von, 2009 [1953]. The Theory of Money and Credit (trans. J. E. Batson), Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala. p. 355.
the emerging Post Keynesians like Kaldor who refuted Hayek's theories in the 1930s
Please identify the books/articles that contain this alleged refutation.
LK,
I referred you to the pages of Human Action where Mises says what interest rate IS. Looks like you do not want to read it for it will expose your straw-man attack.
LK,
OK. My mistake. I should have said "read the first 5-6 pages". My printed version and the online version seem to sport different page numbers. Read the section on 'Originary Interest'.
We Austrians need to understand that the Keynesians of various stripes all share a desperately infantile insecurity about the nature of human existence. That is why it is always impossible to get them to walk through a logical progression from the conventional world of human existence upon which Austrian concepts are based to the alternative bizarro universe of Keynesianism. Their world view does not contain conventional notions of human existence. Their world is MECHANICAL as if giving over various conventional human functions to the state is like handing those functions over to omniscient gods working frictionless machines. The Mary Poppins Theory of Government, in other words. Obviously, LK suffers from this malady and the MMTers have a terminal case of it where accounting identities run the universe.
It’s really pointless to argue minutiae with these people because their entire being, self image and self worth is apparently built upon these pathetic quasi-religious views of the magical powers of the state.
Further, I would always insist that the statists have the burden of proof and burden of going forward. The Austrians insist that ALL people have limited knowledge and because of that, the statist schemes must fail because they are operated by people. The statist world-view is based upon the bizarre a priori assumption that average people are stupid but government officials are smart. Make the statist prove that the government officials have the alleged knowledge and skill that average people do not. In the process of probing those assumptions, the statist will explode and refuse to follow through the analysis. They always do. We see it here every day.
MMT guru Bill Mitchell says:
The general reasoning failure that occurs when one tries to apply logic that might operate at a micro level to the macro level is called the fallacy of composition. In fact, it is what led to the establishment of macroeconomics as a separate discipline. Prior to the Great Depression, macroeconomics was thought of as an aggregation of microeconomics. The neo-classical economists (who are the precursors to the modern neo-liberals) didn’t understand the fallacy of composition trap and advocated spending cuts and wage cuts at the height of the Depression.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3225
Really?? There's your bizarro alternate universe in full view.
"Please identify the books/articles that contain this alleged refutation."
Easy:
Sraffa, P. 1932a. “Dr. Hayek on Money and Capital,” Economic Journal 42: 42–53.
Sraffa, P. 1932b. “A Rejoinder,” Economic Journal 42 (June): 249–251.
Kaldor, N. 1939. “Capital Intensity and the Trade Cycle,” Economica n.s. 6.21: 40–66.
Kaldor, N. 1940. “The Trade Cycle and Capital Intensity: A Reply,” Economica n.s. 7.25: 16–22.
Kaldor, N. 1942. “Professor Hayek and the Concertina-Effect,” Economica n.s. 9.36: 359–382.
"I referred you to the pages of Human Action where Mises says what interest rate IS."
Yeah, Mises changes his mind in Human Action. In fact, that was already stated in the quote above about the different definitions.
Mises abandons the Wicksellian natural interest rate concept he used in the Theory of Money and Credit and adopts the “originary interest rate”:
“Originary interest is the ratio of the value assigned to want-satisfaction in the immediate future and the value assigned to want-satisfaction in remote periods of the future. It manifests itself in the market economy in the discount of future goods as against present goods. It is a ratio of commodity prices, not a price in itself. There prevails a tendency toward the equalization of this ratio for all commodities. In the imaginary construction of the evenly rotating economy the rate of originary interest is the same for all commodities.”
Yet as late as 1928 in Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy (1928), Mises is STILL using the Wicksellian natural interest rate:
“In conformity with Wicksell’s terminology, we shall use ‘natural interest rate’ to describe that interest rate which would be established by supply and demand if real goods were loaned in natura [directly, as in barter] without the intermediary of money. ‘Money rate of interest’ will be used for that interest rate asked on loans made in money or money substitute.” (Mises 2006 [1978]: 107–108).
“The ‘natural interest rate’ is established at that height which tends toward equilibrium on the market. The tendency is toward a condition where no capital goods are idle, no opportunities for starting profitable enterprises remain unexploited and the only projects not undertaken are those which no longer yield a profit at the prevailing ‘natural interest rate’” (Mises 2006 [1978]: 109).p. 109
Mises, L. von. 2006 [1978]. The Causes of the Economic Crisis and Other Essays Before and After the Great Depression, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala.
Just proves my point: the Wicksellian natural interest rate concept as used in Mises’ earlier work had to be abandoned. Yet it’s still used in Hayekian forms of ABCT.
So you’ve identified a yet another defeat for the Austrian theory that Mises himself clearly had to deal with.
Mises' presentation of ABCT in the Theory of Money and Credit and Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy (1928), just like Hayek's Prices and Production, is garbage.
I've already got Kaldor's “Professor Hayek and the Concertina-Effect”. I paid $15 for it at the local university library and I even sent it to Bob Murphy. We both agreed it's a big nothing.
I'll check out the others too and expect similar "insight".
I would think LK could make the arguments all by himself if they actually existed. The support of average people for money dilution (to the extent they understand it at all) is not going to rise or fall on this strange focus upon minutiae. The nub of the dispute is the imaginary world of "macro", whether voluntary action fails and whether state action is necessary and/or efficacious in solving a non-existent “problem”.
Likes of LK and Krugman understand Keynesianism apparently even better than Keynes himdelf, especially since Keynes refuted his own theories at the end.
But they are too moronic to know that!
And one more thing. It is useless to try to debate them because they create straw men and try to confuse straight forward matters.
I challenged these morons to disprove that the current disgrace in the WH is a radical
or an a different occasion that last 25 years were the most prosperous and productive of any previous quarter century.
I can hear crickets chirping.
They just start using words like conspiracy but can never disprove your assertions.
LOL
American Patriot-
I don't think its fair to suggest Obama is a radical. What policy of Obama's has been so radical? The TARP bailouts began under Bush, and were probably the most radical thing in EITHER presidency. Keep in mind that Obama's health care plan (for instance) was a moderate Republican plan in the 90s. Obama's actual policies have been fairly centrist.
As to the idea that "the last 25 years were the most prosperous and productive...", how are you defining productivity? GDP growth? Stock market growth? Until you define your terms, its impossible to quantify. Certainly the last 25 years don't average to the largest percentage GDP growth. 1960-1985 have a higher average growth than 1985-2010. See, for instance: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
Will that's your argument? Comparing statism heavy against statism light? Classic two dimensional thinking. The other guy did it too! That has all the intellectual power of a kid defending himself in front of his mother.
AP with all do respect you have to acknowledge that a good 10 years of your 25 was phony growth via a credit bubble.
As far as last 25 years, I mean job and wealth creation (and that includes all income levels, not just the evil rich)
As for Obama, let me start with this: just about every single action he has taken is straight out of Rules for Radicals. How can anyone, let alone an educated person like you, listen to him smirking while talking down to his "enemies" and demonizing anyone and everyone who is against his agenda while lying through his teeth say that this is not a radical?
He was born to radicals, mentored by one, hung around radicals, and has said dozens of recorded statements that would put Marx to shame. He is not a radical?
Read Crimes Against Liberty for a nice synopsis of the last two years.
I am not talking about subjective, opinion type stuff. I mean all the scandals that would have buried a Republican ten times over by now.
Just one very recent example out of hundreds that I know (and have written about in my blog): The NLRB support of the union in the Boeing case. Oh sure, that sounds very normal, right?
You pathetic fools can try to launch ad hominem attacks on the right but you cannot deny the facts - not opinion - FACTS IN BLACK AND WHITE!
Look at every known communist and socialist in the administration (for that matter in the congress)
Dem party has been taken over by the marxist wannabes. Do you know how many Dems in congress have ties to the hard left?
Try reading A National Party No More by Zell Miller (D - GA (retired))
As for the healthcare plan, it was not moderate but by RINOs. Anyone who does not hold constitutional government as their sole ideal can not be called anything but a RINO.
"that last 25 years were the most prosperous and productive of any previous quarter century.
I can hear crickets chirping."
This is plain, laughbaly ignorance.
The evidence is overwhelming that 1945-1973 had better real GDP growth and real wage growth.
All you have to do is look at
Angus Maddison, the leading scholar on the history of rates of economic growth.
In 1995, Maddison published a study called Monitoring the World Economy 1820–1992 (OECD Development Centre, Paris, 1995),
the first authoritative study on the effects of globalization and neoliberalism on growth rates in the developing and developed world, as compared with the Bretton Woods era.
He compared growth rates both in GDP and per capita GDP in seven major regions of the world from 1950 to 1973 with those in the early era of globalization (1974-1992). He found that there were significant declines in the average annual growth rates in six of the seven areas: in fact the average annual rate of growth of world GDP was only half of what it had been under Bretton Woods. That is, world economic growth was about 50% lower than in the Bretton Woods era.
Maddison’s study was updated by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in 2001 in the Scorecard on Globalization 1980–2000: 20 Years of Diminished Progress (July 2001).
The neoliberl era (1979-2010) has been a disaster for the developed and developing world.
The only region that showed an significant increase was East Asia, precisely the region dominated by the protectionist state-led model of industrialization, with industrial policy, led by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and (from the early 1990s) China.
"Dem party has been taken over by the marxist wannabes. Do you know how many Dems in congress have ties to the hard left?"
LOL.. You've been overdosing on Glenn Beck.
Suppose the Dem party has in fact been taken over by "Marxist wannabes". Then why the f*** are they in bed with Wall street?
(1) Why has Obama got Tim Geithner and Larry Summers pretty much bowing before the financial sector?
(2) Why did Wall street favour Obama over McCain in 2008?
"Financial industry big houses have contributed almost twice in funds to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in comparison to his Republican rival John McCain"
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/obama-way-ahead-of-mccain-in-wall-street-firms-funding_10066375.html#ixzz1PgziFK4y
You think they were so stupid that they were paying to put "Marxist wannabes" in the White house?
(3) If we "Marxist wannabes" in government have they nationalised the banks? Implemented a single payer health care system?
Obama health reform is basically crony capitalism - forcing people to buy private care. A "radical" administration would have nationalised hospitals and made it free at the point of delivery.
Regarding the Reagan era:
Despite the steep recession in 1982--brought on by tight money policies that were instituted to squeeze out the historic inflation level of the late 1970s--by 1983, the Reagan policies of reducing taxes, spending, regulation, and inflation were in place. The result was unprecedented economic growth:
This economic boom lasted 92 months without a recession, from November 1982 to July 1990, the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime and the second-longest period of sustained growth in U.S. history. The growth in the economy lasted more than twice as long as the average period of expansions since World War II.
The American economy grew by about one-third in real inflation-adjusted terms. This was the equivalent of adding the entire economy of East and West Germany or two-thirds of Japan's economy to the U.S. economy.
From 1950 to 1973, real economic growth in the U.S. economy averaged 3.6 percent per year. From 1973 to 1982, it averaged only 1.6 percent. The Reagan economic boom restored the more usual growth rate as the economy averaged 3.5 percent in real growth from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1990.
In that 25 year period, over 50 million jobs were created - no other 25 year period created as many jobs.
Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan - Ford, Carter - years (1974-1981)
As I said, you can demonize Beck all you want (and he is one of dozens and dozens of others) but HOW COME YOUR SMEAR MACHINE HAS NEVER REFUTED HIS EVIDENCE?
None of these guys 'allege' anything without audio/video/first hand proof.
Why are they in bed with Wall Street? Because you have to get to a socialist system before you can move on to Marxism. Pure and simple for anyone who understands history and has read likes of Antonio Gramsci.
WS contributed more to Obama because they benefit from the cronyism. They had in the past given more to Republicans, too. That is not an indicator. Besides, Goldman is the main Dem supporter. Other investment houses are usually pretty much 50/50.
You do not understand how politics of cronyism works. I am intimate with it. I live practically in D.C and know several lobbyists.
Single payer is on its way.
We do not live in Venezuela. You show your ignorance by saying if he was radical he would have nationalized hospitals.
Single Payer was not doable because of likes of Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and several other congressmen. If Obamacare is ever instituted, it will inescapably lead to a single payer system. I have the president, the VP, and several prominent Dems in video saying the same.
Already premiums are up big this year, 35% of employers are saying they will drop their coverage. Hospitals are going under. Many doctors (up to 40% I believe) say they may give up their practice. Do you think private insurance will survive gov't mandates?
"This economic boom lasted 92 months without a recession, from November 1982 to July 1990, the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime and the second-longest period of sustained growth in U.S. history. "
And, as I have told you before, the boom after 1982 was the result of Reagan's peculiar brand of military Keynesian:
"Reaganomics: An Analysis," February 2, 2011
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/02/reaganomics-analysis.html
You don't need to quote figures to me: yes, I would agree that the economy was booming under Reagan after 1982. Reagan sometimes gets treated unfairly from people on the left, in fact.
"From 1950 to 1973, real economic growth in the U.S. economy averaged 3.6 percent per year. From 1973 to 1982, it averaged only 1.6 percent. The Reagan economic boom restored the more usual growth rate as the economy averaged 3.5 percent in real growth from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1990."
Oh dear me. You have just proved me right.
"Why are they in bed with Wall Street? Because you have to get to a socialist system before you can move on to Marxism."
Kow-towing to Wall street is... socialism??
LOL...
I'll repeat what I said on the last pst:
Yeah, Obama had connections to people you would call radicals, like many politicians on the left before they get into power.
Big f*****g deal. You can have a tantrum about it, if you want.
Like most politicians, now he's in government his ACTUAL policies are centerist and he is essentially a shill for Wall street.
The bailouts - the massive RADICAL gift to Wall street - were the policy of George W. Bush.
Bala @ June 18, 2011 1:02 PM
"Mises (1978, p. 124) defined the natural rate of interest as the equilibrium rate for the capital structure."
False.
Yet another error by you. Here is the exact quote:
"The “natural interest rate” is established at that height which tends toward equilibrium on the market. The tendency is toward a condition where no capital goods are idle, no opportunities for starting profitable enterprises remain unexploited and the only projects not undertaken are those which no longer yield a profit at the prevailing “natural interest rate.” Assume, however, that the equilibrium, toward which the market is moving, is disturbed by the interference of the banks. Money may be obtained below the “natural interest rate.” As a result businesses may be started which weren’t profitable before, and which become profitable only through the lower than “natural interest rate” which appears with the expansion of circulation credit."
Mises, L. von. 2002 [1978]. On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala. p. 129–130.
The pages numbers are different only because Cowen is using an older edition.
"It only shows that (as usual) you do not understand the concept 'definition'"
LOL... You been caught out making a totally false statment.
When Cowen says "Mises (1978, p. 124) defined the natural rate of interest as the equilibrium rate for the capital structure," he means an equilibrium rate where the (alleged) distortionary effects of fiduciay media don't occur or impair the capital structure, PRECISELY as Mises says in the quote.
Again: your position collapses, your responses are those of a gibbering idiot.
American Patriot- all you have said is "everything Obama has done is radical"- please what radical laws have been enacted in the US? Obamacare was the mainstream Republican response to Clinton's healthcare plan in the 90s, and its the major piece of legislature that has come out of the administration as far as I can tell.
As to your laundry list of economic facts, I am confused. For instance, you say "The Reagan economic boom restored the more usual growth rate as the economy averaged 3.5 percent in real growth from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1990.
In that 25 year period, over 50 million jobs were created - no other 25 year period created as many jobs."
What 25 year period? The Reagan presidency was 8 years. Are you including the Clinton presidency? First Bush? Second Bush? Or are you going backwards to include Carter,etc? There are a lot of 25 year periods that would include Reagan.
Btw, Reagan's presidency saw an expansion of about 16 million jobs, Clinton's saw an expansion of about 22 million, according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms
What exactly is the argument you are trying to make?
The MMTers have a new blog to teach us MMT. By making it simple, their absurdities become immediately apparent. Of course, they insist that money isn’t and wasn’t first a commodity and must be state issued. But here is King MMTer Wray explaining sector balances and SAVING OF FINANCIAL ASSETS. The “argument” is one giant bootstrap.
The private sector accumulation of net financial assets over the course of a year is made possible only because its spending is less than its income over that same period. In other words, it has been saving, enabling it to accumulate a stock of wealth in the form of financial assets. In our simple example with only a public sector and a private sector, these financial assets are government liabilities—government currency and government bonds. These government IOUs, in turn, can be accumulated only when the government spends more than it receives in the form of tax revenue.
That is preposterous. There is nothing to stop the accumulation of private sector financial assets in the absence of a “government sector”. The entire house of cards is based upon this little trick, assuming that the public requires GOVERNMENTAL financial assets in order to save and which can only come into existence via government deficits. How can anyone believe this stuff?
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/06/mmp-blog-2-basics-of-macro-accounting.html
"That is preposterous. There is nothing to stop the accumulation of private sector financial assets in the absence of a “government sector”"
Idiot. He KNOWS you could still have private sector financial assets in the absence of a “government sector”". In the SIMPLE model he is using to explain MMT to beginners he has assumed an economy as follows:
In our simple example with only a public sector and a private sector, these financial assets are government liabilities—government currency and government bonds.
The MMTers constantly claim that government deficits are necessary for private savings. And they claim that economies collapse without government deficits.
They are liars.
He KNOWS you could still have private sector financial assets in the absence of a “government sector”.
Well now. In that case a small government could have a tax rate of 3%, and run a surplus or deficit of 75 cents and barely impact private sector savings of private sector financial assets at all.
So how is it that we need government sector deficits to fund private savings and preclude depressions?
Smart guy?
Bob, consider money in circulation. The total income is the sum of consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports.
Y = C+I+G+NX.
We can also note that income goes to pay for stuff, so income is also equal to consumption+savings+taxes. If its not spent or taxed, its saved.
Y = C+S+T.
Now, by a simple accounting identity-
(S-I)+(T-G) = NX.
For a country that is running a trade deficit (such as the US), NX is negative. Either the government spends more than it taxes OR the private sector is investing more than its saving. I learned this many years ago in econ 101.
Just to clarify, in a simple economy with no exports, then either S-I is negative OR T-G is negative.
This is just the same old bird-brain example based upon a preposterous assumption regarding the alleged existence of homogenous aggregates. The example assumes that the nominal dollar amount of spending by the donut eaters to buy votes and to blow up Muslim orphanages is the functional equivalent of private persons making their own informed decisions regarding private investments and personally managing their consumption and savings. It’s a load of crap. It’s a trick to suggest that government spending is the equivalent of private activity and uses these accounting tricks to bamboozle the dim-witted on that issue.
No, Bob, you don't need to assume a HOMOGENOUS aggregate. You can ALWAYS aggregate data, but you obviously lose information when you aggregate. Obviously, I can add up every dollar the government spends, and obviously I can add up every dollar everyone in the US has saved, etc. Its not a magical process.
IN THE ABSENCE OF EXPORTS, the government has to run a deficit for the private sector to have a positive savings-investment. Yes, these are just aggregate numbers, so its possible for some sectors to have highly positive S-I, and other sectors to have large negative S-I.
In the end, its just an accounting number. As long as every dollar I earn is a dollar someone else spent, it will hold.
LK, JG, and other collectivist/statists:
Ok if "the boom after 1982 was the result of Reagan's peculiar brand of military Keynesian" as you put it (instead of supply side tax cuts and substantial regulation reform), how do you explain the economic response to other supply side cuts in history like the JFK cuts? (I am sure you will say the Vietnam war as good little Krugmanites, right?)
Then how about the response to Clinton era supply side cuts?
Why am I wasting time on this, I do not know. If war was the answer, we have 3 going on now...
Regarding politics:
Socialism and crony capitalism go hand in hand. You are confusing socialism with communism. Under a socialist system, government and private sector work hand in hand.
Regarding Obama's radicalism, I do not call his associations radical because they are/were garden variety Democrats; many, many are not and have always been Marxists, Maoists, and the like.
And, do not give me the B.S. about many having radical connections. About the most radical in Clinton's past was Fullbright. No one else has been inextricably intervowen with outright communists since birth like Obama - no one, I defy you to prove otherwise!
Heck, look at KNOWN and ADMITTED communists of all stripes in his administration - cabinet level and high ranking advisors (some already out): Valerie Jarred, Van Jones, Carol Browner, Harold Koh, John Holdren, Rahm's brother, Mark Lloyd, Lisa Jackson, Craig Becker, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunn, Eric Holder (though with more circumstantial evidence), and Leon Panetta to name some. There are more but this partial list will do to make my point.
I will gladly go through the trouble of proving my contentions if there is a wager otherwise do your own research - I've done mine for 2 years and have a ton of material (go to Trevor Loudon's site for most complete coverage)
You say his actual policies are centrist? Have you lost your mind? Look at just the current crap going on with NLRB and oil and gas drilling (EPA) not to mention literally dozens and dozens of other news items going back to 2009. I have over 450 news articles with linked sources on my blog alone and those are just the ones I had time to follow up on. LOL !!!
Regarding bailouts, you show your ignorance. Do you not watch news? Bush was pushed in to it and has even said so in his biography. He was conflicted because it betrayed free market principles (not that he ever was a small government guy).
It was Bernanke and other pushing it. Also, what gift? The TARP money (90%) has been paid back with interest (except for the gifts to the unions at GM and Chrysler).
BTW, Will, you have a lot to learn about how government works. Laws are one thing but the main damage under any president is done through regulations and executive orders that have the same weight as laws.
Laws wise they couldn't pass much thanks to the 2010 election. Nevertheless they passed healthcare and equal pay, both of which are competition killing hard left legislation.
Regulations wise, this admin has added more regs than any other.
As far as economic era, I mean the Reagan revolution that lasted for 25 years through GWB.
"how do you explain the economic response to other supply side cuts in history like the JFK cuts?"
Supply-side economics in all of its real world incarnations has been NOTHING but Keynesianism by another name.
Are you utterly unware that tax cuts with the same government spending or increased spending IS one of the major Keynesian methods for stimulating an economy??
Keynesians have known for a very long time that high taxes can create "fiscal drag", and that cutting tax rates permamently reduces that drag, opening up new opportunities for growth.
To some extent, the Supply-siders like Paul Craig Roberts should get a lot more credit than they receive from the left.
In fact, Paul Craig Roberts - one of the architects of Reagonomics - has morphed into something of a leftist on economics of late.
I have his book The Supply-Side Revolution: An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1984), and its a marvellous read.
My analysis of Reaganomics is in fact heavily based on it.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/02/reaganomics-analysis.html
American Patriot, I know Zeke Emanuel in a professional context. You insinuating that he is somehow a communist is absolutely ridiculous. Valerie Jarret was a member of the board of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Leon Panetta is a career political insider who served as a chief of staff to Clinton, etc. These aren't radical people, and to say otherwise demeans any argument you are making.
Hopefully we can agree that the substance of the health care bill was Newt Gingrich's bill from the Clinton era? If we can't agree on that, there is no point continuing this discussion.
To make an actual argument about regulation, it would be nice to actually mention a few- what RADICAL new regulations have been created under the Obama administration?
Also, your claim that the Obama administration has created more regulations than any other is simply not true. This is the second time you've invented a fact (the first being your claim on another thread that more Canadian babies are born in Buffalo than American babies). If you are just going to invent the facts to suit your whim, I can't trust what you are saying.
“The point Mises is making in the quote you mangled out of shape is that the natural interest rate is the rate of interest that would arise in the ERE. It is the value towards which interest rates in the real world economy tend though there are real world factors that take the interest rate away from the natural interest rate.
That is totally false:
(1) There is not one reference to the concept of the “evenly rotating economy” (ERE) in The Theory of Money and Credit(trans. J. E. Batson; Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala. 2009 [1953]). On pages 349–366 where Mises sets out his trade cycle theory, he uses the Wicksellian natural interest rate concept and Wicksellian monetary equilibrium analysis. Give a precise reference to where he invokes the concept of the “evenly rotating economy” in The Theory of Money and Credit.
(2) There is not one reference to the concept of the “evenly rotating economy” in Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy (1928), and again Mises is still using the Wicksellian natural interest rate (p. 99ff.).
Give a precise reference to where he invokes the concept of the “evenly rotating economy” in Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy.
The “evenly rotating economy” just like the “originary interest rate” appears in Human Action, not in these earlier works. As Rothbard says:
“In Human Action, Mises advanced the Austrian theory of money by delivering a shattering blow to the very concept of Walrasian general equilibrium. To arrive at that equilibrium, the basic data of the economy—values, technology, and resources—must all be frozen and understood by every participant in the market to be frozen indefinitely. Given such a magical freeze, the economy would sooner or later settle into an endless round of constant prices and production, with each firm earning a uniform rate of interest (or, in some constructions, a zero rate of interest). The idea of certainty and fixity in what Mises called “the evenly rotating economy” is absurd, but what Mises went on to show is that in such a world of fixity and certainty no one would hold cash balances. Everyone’s demand for cash balances would fall to zero. For since everyone would have perfect foresight and knowledge of his future sales and purchases, there would be no point in holding any cash balance at all. Rothbard, M. 2011. Economic Controversies, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala. p. 697.
And:
“The Evenly Rotating Economy is a fictitious system in which there are no price changes whatever – i.e., there is perfect price stability. The concept is used to illustrate the function of entrepreneurship and to demonstrate meaning of profit and loss by hypothesizing a system where they are absent.”
http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Evenly_Rotating_Economy
If you really think Mises believes that “the natural interest rate is the rate of interest that would arise in the ERE. It is the value towards which interest rates in the real world economy tend though there are real world factors that take the interest rate away from the natural interest rate,” then ABCT had NO application to the real world.
In the real world, economies are growing, and there can never be an “endless round of constant prices and production.” You require an economy without growth, frozen in time, for ABCT to work.
Yet ABCT requires a single natural rate of interest in the real world, not this mythical ERE, for the market/bank rate to coincide with for Austrian business cycle effects not to occur.
You have in effect provided another demolition of ABCT.
I don’t think it’s controversial to state that Murray Rothbard was not a fan of Ronald Reagan:
He has succeeded in destroying the libertarian public mood of the late 1970’s, and replaced it with fatuous and menacing patriotic symbols of the Nation-State, especially The Flag, which he first whooped up in his vacuous reelection campaign in 1984, aided by the unfortunate coincidence of the Olympics being held at Los Angeles. (Who will soon forget the raucous baying of the chauvinist mobs: "USA! USA!" every time some American came in third in some petty event?) He has succeeded in corrupting libertarian and free-market intellectuals and institutions, although in Ronnie’s defense it must be noted that the fault lies with the corrupted and not with the corrupter.
It is generally agreed by political analysts that the ideological mood of the public, after eight years of Reaganism, is in support of economic liberalism (that is, an expanded welfare state), and social conservatism (that is, the suppression of civil liberties and the theocratic outlawing of immoral behavior). And, on foreign policy, of course, they stand for militaristic chauvinism. After eight years of Ronnie, the mood of the American masses is to expand the goodies of the welfare-warfare state (though not to increase taxes to pay for these goodies), to swagger abroad and be very tough with nations that can’t fight back, and to crack down on the liberties of groups they don’t like or whose values or culture they disagree with.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html
Yet ABCT requires a single natural rate of interest in the real world, not this mythical ERE, for the market/bank rate to coincide with for Austrian business cycle effects not to occur.
You treat the ABCT like some kind of finished theory. It's no surprise. As a Keynesian, you always want to treat the world like a closed box, where you can create magical mathematical formulas, sum them up and find a way to drive the world to paradise. It's not working, but hey, at least you can get a nice job at the government trying to "fix" the economy... again.
The "natural rate" concept refers merely to the rate that would be reflective of the natural world and people's time preferences unimpeded by either money or funny money. It probably isn't even knowable by human beings. We do the best we can to discover it and the best way is through laissez faire and sound money. Funny money distorts economic calculation and moves people further away from understanding that "natural" rate. This is all about the concept of ignorant acting man attempting economic calculation in the mean cruel world. Because Keynesians such as LK are too dense to even comprehend the concept and/or the problems of economic calculation which the Austrians are trying to solve, they can only flail about trying to find alleged minor inconsistencies in the development of these essential concepts. Further, the fact that there might be multiple natural rates for multiple commodities simply means that reality is even more complex than originally imagined and laissez faire and the pricing process are even more necessary to discover its true nature in order for people to plan for the future. Finally, even if there are multiple rates for different commodities, they would still tend towards equilibrium because more people would rush into employing the higher rate commodity which would increase its supply and lower its cost.
Even the Keynesians have a version of the "natural rate" in the sense that it is the rate and economic structure that would obtain in the absence of their nefarious schemes.
Look at the major effort LK puts into “refuting” and exposing these alleged inconsistencies such as the “natural rate of interest”:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/06/austrian-business-cycle-theory-and.html
Pitiful. We win again.
"The "natural rate" concept refers merely to the rate that would be reflective of the natural world and people's time preferences unimpeded by either money or funny money.
You mean anturla rate can only be found in a barter world without money? LOL...
This actually what Sraffa says, an deven then there would be multiple rates. You require a dismantling of modern cpaitalism and return to a bizarre world where there is no money.
It probably isn't even knowable by human beings."
Then how would you or any other Austrian POSSIBLY know that current market rate is above or below the mythical natural rate, even that rate existed??
By this statement you have exposed yet another gross inconsistency.
LK, do you have omniscience concerning the actual amount of natural and human resources on the planet and the precise ownership and/or control of said resources and all of the goals, plans, thoughts and time preferences of all living and soon to be born human beings? I doubt it, but that’s the world we live in. The pricing process is admittedly second best to omniscience but those are the cards we are dealt.
You don’t even understand the problem of human action, you dunce.
We win again.
Lord Keynes:
If you really think Mises believes that “the natural interest rate is the rate of interest that would arise in the ERE. It is the value towards which interest rates in the real world economy tend though there are real world factors that take the interest rate away from the natural interest rate,” then ABCT had NO application to the real world.
It does have an application, namely, it gives us an understanding of why interest rates change over time.
In the real world, economies are growing, and there can never be an “endless round of constant prices and production.” You require an economy without growth, frozen in time, for ABCT to work.
Not at all. ABCT works in part precisely because the real world economy is not the ERE. By understanding what the economy is not, we can establish logical boundaries which enable us to understand why there are changes.
Yet ABCT requires a single natural rate of interest in the real world, not this mythical ERE, for the market/bank rate to coincide with for Austrian business cycle effects not to occur.
Not at all. That's just your misunderstanding of Austrian theory brought about by a desire to refute instead of understand before you refute.
The ABCT does not require a single interest rate. It can accommodate as many interest rates as there are instances of voluntary savings and investment.
Lord Keynes:
Then how would you or any other Austrian POSSIBLY know that current market rate is above or below the mythical natural rate, even that rate existed??
We can't know if the natural rate (collection of individual rates) in fact is above, at, or below the nominal rate that is the product of the Federal Reserve System's inflation into the loan market.
Only that if it in fact is lower, then the business cycle results.
"You mean anturla rate can only be found in a barter world without money? LOL..."
You whatever-Keynesians ALWAYS get it ass-backward. The way it works out is that all the different rates of interests possible in the real world coincide in only 1 condition - the equilibrium in the ERE. In that equilibrium, people no longer have a need for money because there is no uncertainty in such a world. People would know beforehand all their inflows and outflows of real goods (consumers' and producers') and money would hence become redundant. In this process, the equilibrium of the ERE would become a world without money or a need for money.
"This actually what Sraffa says, an deven then there would be multiple rates."
If he did, Sraffa is clearly an idiot who did not understand the most elementary thing about the ERE. He must have been just another fool blathering on on a subject he had no clue about. Imagine!!! A person claiming to be an economist and having no clue as to what the ERE is!!!!!!
"Then how would you or any other Austrian POSSIBLY know that current market rate is above or below the mythical natural rate, even that rate existed??"
Let me answer the how, you whatever-Keynesian chronicler. By deductive reasoning applied to the axiomatic concept of 'action'. Time preference is a category of human action. From time preference t interest is a logical step I am sure whatever-Keynesian retards are never capable of.
"By this statement you have exposed yet another gross inconsistency."
By your statement, you have exposed that you are a chronicler without the slightest understanding of economics.
"The way it works out is that all the different rates of interests possible in the real world coincide in only 1 condition - the equilibrium in the ERE. In that equilibrium, people no longer have a need for money because there is no uncertainty in such a world."
Again, everything falls apart for you.
Since real-world economies can NEVER fall into a state imagined by the ERE, this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world.
The originary rate of Mises and the pure rate of interest of Rothbard collapse into another Wicksellian natural rate.
The end game for you as for Hayek:
"Dr. Hayek now acknowledges the multiplicity of the 'natural' rates, but he has nothing more to say on this specific point than that they 'all would be equilibrium rates'. The only meaning (if it be a meaning) I can attach to this is that his maxim of policy now requires that the money rate should be equal to all these divergent natural rates." [!!]
Sraffa, P. 1932b. "A Rejoinder", Economic Journal 42 (June): 249-251.
So to be clear: what IS your solution? Abolition of money?
LOL..
LK,
"Since real-world economies can NEVER fall into a state imagined by the ERE, this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world."
What genius!! What do you think I have been saying? The ERE is a CONSTRUCT. I also said the ERE is an IMAGINARY construct. There is no way it can exist in the real world because the real world is changing all the time.
However, the real world does approach the ERE in the inter-regnum between two disturbances. The ERE explains how the world WOULD work sans certain disturbances. Further reasoning how the disturbances transform the ERE into the real world.
I guess all this is too much for whatever-Keynesian retards to grasp in 1 day/night.
"So to be clear: what IS your solution? Abolition of money?"
No, you genius. It is 'take your grubby Keynesian hands off the free market'.
"Dr. Hayek now acknowledges the multiplicity of the 'natural' rates, but he has nothing more to say on this specific point than that they 'all would be equilibrium rates'. The only meaning (if it be a meaning) I can attach to this is that his maxim of policy now requires that the money rate should be equal to all these divergent natural rates."
More proof that Sraffa was an absolute idiot with no clue as to what the ERE is and how things would work in the ERE at equilibrium.
And what do I say about you who follow Sraffa the idiot????
""So to be clear: what IS your solution? Abolition of money?"
No, you genius. It is 'take your grubby Keynesian hands off the free market'. "
Idiotic evasion of the question.
As Sraffa showed there are multiple 'natural' rates.
How even in a 100% reserve banking system could a monetary rate equal all these divergent natural rates?
"Dr. Hayek now acknowledges the multiplicity of the 'natural' rates, but he has nothing more to say on this specific point than that they 'all would be equilibrium rates'. The only meaning (if it be a meaning) I can attach to this is that his maxim of policy now requires that the money rate should be equal to all these divergent natural rates."
Let me explain what Hayek's statement means to idiots who can't see that Sraffa must have been an idiot to make this statement. The statement "they would all be equlibrium rates" means that they would all be equilibrium rates in the ERE at equilibrium. This means that they would all converge to the natural rate of interest on the ERE which would be determined by the time preference schedules of all the HUMANS (not Keynesian robots) that constitute the population in the ERE.
"As Sraffa showed there are multiple 'natural' rates."
On the ERE or in the real world?
"How even in a 100% reserve banking system could a monetary rate equal all these divergent natural rates?"
On the ERE, these 'divergent' natural rates would converge into 1. And since money would be redundant in the ERE at equilibrium, the question of money rate of interest would be some thing so redundant that only whatever-Keynesian retards would ask that question
The Austrian theory does not offer some Hayek Rule for a natural rate to be recommended over a Taylor Rule for a neutral rate. Rather, it suggests that centralizing the business of banking deprives the market of its ability to FIND the natural rate.
http://mises.org/daily/2513
"Idiotic evasion of the question."
What is evasion, my dear sir? I said "No, genius". That's as straight an answer as you can ever get. Looks like once your arguments have been torn to pieces, your brain (or whatever exists inside your whatever-Keynesian head) has become scrambled.
Lord Keynes:
Idiotic evasion of the question.
Idiotic evasion of Roddis' argument.
As Sraffa showed there are multiple 'natural' rates.
As Austrians already know, there are multiple natural interest rates.
How even in a 100% reserve banking system could a monetary rate equal all these divergent natural rates?
There wouldn't be a single monetary rate, any more than there would be a single natural rate.
Lord Keynes:
Since real-world economies can NEVER fall into a state imagined by the ERE, this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world.
That's exactly what the use of the ERE is meant to show, genius.
The originary rate of Mises and the pure rate of interest of Rothbard collapse into another Wicksellian natural rate.
No, it doesn't collapse, but is vindicated. Rothbard and Mises base their economics on individual action. As such, all natural interest rates would be determined in each instance of individual action of saving and investing.
The end game for you as for Hayek:
"Dr. Hayek now acknowledges the multiplicity of the 'natural' rates, but he has nothing more to say on this specific point than that they 'all would be equilibrium rates'. The only meaning (if it be a meaning) I can attach to this is that his maxim of policy now requires that the money rate should be equal to all these divergent natural rates."
This is not Hayek being refuted. This is the Austrian conception being refined. Sraffa misrepresents Hayek by claiming that Hayek "NOW acknowledges", as if the mere hint at refinement collapses his entire theory. The ABCT does not hinge on the existence of only one interest rate in the market, only that the interest rates that do exist, are artificially lowered on account of the Federal Reserve System inflating into the loan market.
It's so hilarious watching you quibble over such a minor detail as if it were Mount Everest.
""As Sraffa showed there are multiple 'natural' rates."
On the ERE or in the real world? "
Sraffa showed that even in a barter economy with growth, there can be as many natural rates of interest as there are commodities.
There is no such thing as a actual single natural rate of interest: the concept is inoperable and invalid and irrelevant to the real world. In modern growing economy, the market/bank rate of interest has NOTHING to equal.
MF, your statement regarding the quibbling over minor details and the refinement of concepts as refutations (with scores of footnotes) is right on point.
LK is like a bar review course in that he helps us remember, focus, refine our understanding of Austrian concepts. You usually pay thousands of dollars for those review questions but LK's services are free.
"Sraffa showed that even in a barter economy with growth, there can be as many natural rates of interest as there are commodities."
That means it is not in the ERE. Very good. So Sraffa's self-proclaimed criticism of Hayek was the work of an idiot who did not know what he was criticising. How similar you are to your (now dismantled) hero.
"There is no such thing as a actual single natural rate of interest:"
Of course there isn't. It is a concept of what the situation would be in the equilibrium in the ERE. That, however, does not mean this.
"he concept is inoperable and invalid and irrelevant to the real world"
This is utter rubbish. On a free market without the creation of fiduciary media or fiat money, the natural interest rate would drag all real world interest rates towards itself. Only meddling can keep real world rates of interest from tending towards the natural rate of interest.
"LK is like a bar review course in that he helps us remember, focus, refine our understanding of Austrian concepts."
I agree. That's why I keep coming back to talk with him.
He is doing us a valuable service. For instance, he has shown what an idiot Sraffa was.
Since real-world economies can NEVER fall into a state imagined by the ERE, this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world.
Really? A Keynesian talking about myths? A Keynesian talking about theories that don't fit into the real world? Amazing!
Your statement 1:
Quotation of me:
Since real-world economies can NEVER fall into a state imagined by the ERE, this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world.
You: That's exactly what the use of the ERE is meant to show, genius.
So we have established that you agree that "this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world."
Your Statement 2:
On a free market without the creation of fiduciary media or fiat money, the natural interest rate would drag all real world interest rates towards itself. Only meddling can keep real world rates of interest from tending towards the natural rate of interest.
You contradicted yoruself compeltely and destoyed your argument. Statement 2 CANNOT be true, as you have just DENIED the existence of the single natural rate occuring in the real world.
"So we have established that you agree that "this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world.""
It is not a myth, my dear genius. Therein lies the flaw you keep ignoring. That it does not "exist" does not mean that it is a myth. Abstractions do not "exist" but that does not mean they are myths. What a dork!!
"You contradicted yoruself compeltely and destoyed your argument. Statement 2 CANNOT be true, as you have just DENIED the existence of the single natural rate occuring in the real world."
I said it does not exist in the real world, but the ERE is a concept that exists side by side with the real world. How did you become this dense? By birth or did years of indoctrination in Keynesian gobbledygook cook your brain?
Lord Keynes:
So we have established that you agree that "this single natural rate occuring in an ERE is a total myth, that will never exist in the real world."
Again, the natural interest rate is not to be taken as a single interest rate. It is to be taken as a mental construct, where in the real world, we observe multiple interest rates, as the totality of the interest rates approach the natural rate for each individual instance of saving and investing, that is, valuation of present goods over future goods.
Statement 2 CANNOT be true, as you have just DENIED the existence of the single natural rate occuring in the real world.
2 can be true, if you understand that all real world interest rates tend to the natural rate, *for each individual instance of saving and investment.*
2 can be true, if you understand that all real world interest rates tend to the natural rate, *for each individual instance of saving and investment.*
Again: this is a world of barter, where there are multiple rates, just as Sraffa says.
You CANNOT explain how a monetary interest rate in a 100% reserve banking system will converge to multiple, differing rates.
If real world interest rates don't tend to the natural rate in a particular instance, the real world will soon enough smack the contracting parties in the face teaching them and everyone else a needed lesson.
Unlike the bizarro worlds of Keynes and MMT, there are real humans and real consequences in the real world upon which Austrian theory is based.
"You CANNOT explain how a monetary interest rate in a 100% reserve banking system will converge to multiple, differing rates."
Genius. As I said on your blog, they won't 'converge' to multiple differing rates. They would converge to the natural rate of interest in the ERE at equilibrium.
"Again: this is a world of barter,"
But NOT the ERE at equilibrium.
"where there are multiple rates, just as Sraffa says."
And if Sraffa thus claimed that he refuted Hayek (or even thought so), then Sraffa was an idiot (like his followers and worshippers).
MF,
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you are making a mistake by saying that there would be multiple rates in the ERE at equilibrium (I could be getting you wrong of course). I am mentioning this because saying that is giving LK a lifeline.
As I understand Mises, the natural rate of interest in the ERE at equilibrium would be the rate of return for pure capitalists and would be the same across lines and stages of production for otherwise, the equilibrium would be disturbed with factors moving across lines and stages.
And considering that the ERE in equilibrium would not include money, the money rate of interest would be redundant and there would be a single natural rate of interest.
My point is simply that LK is completely nailed on the ERE issue. Let's not give him a lifeline.
If there really are multiple commodity rates, then people will rush to pull that commodity out of the woodwork to get the higher rate, increasing the supply and lowering the rate.
It's like arguing with your poodle (but who has a much better disposition).
Will:
You have no idea about what you are saying with the possible exception of Zeke, whose only tie to radicalism is his fabian socialist ideal of eugenics. There are too many links to post, just do a search and you'll even find his lectures from the past.
Are you a eugenics proponent also, Will?
As for Jarrett, her father in law is a big time commie. She was instrumental in hiring of at least two rabid communists: Van Jones, and Eric Holdren. Why would anyone hire a communist unless you agree with them philosophically?
Would you hire a KKK big shot in your administration if you were president? Ooops, I forget, as a Democrat your party has done that several times over in the past.
Regarding Leon Panetta, a lot has come out on him. You are dead wrong:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/37593
Go to Trevor Loudon's site and read all the Panetta reports (all are checked out as far as sources go - go to all the links)
http://trevorloudon.com/
As far as Obamacare being same as Gingrich plan of the 90s, either you are wrong or I completely missed it. Please send a couple of sources (links) to clarify. With Gingrich, you never know where he is coming with certain issues like climate change, but his overall econ approach is pretty free market friendly so excuse my doubting you.
Regarding regulations, here are my sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/us/politics/13rules.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/10/red-tape-rising-obamas-torrent-of-new-regulation
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/03/Red-Tape-Rising-Regulation-in-the-Obama-Era
As for Canadian babies born in Buffalo, I will find the local Buffalo paper article from 2009 and post it for you.
You want radical regs, exec orders, etc? If you opened your eyes for the past two years you would have witnessed them almost on a weekly basis.
Instead, I will just point out to my favorite:
The administration went as far as falsifying experts record after the gulf oil spill to extend their moratorium (through exec order).
If that is not radical, than you are.
Bob,
Precisely my point.
NO system with growth, money and uncertainty can converge to a single abstract natural rate, as it will never fall into conditions that are prerequisites for that ERE state: it will always have multiple rates in periods of growth.
You have hit the same problem identified by
Lachmann:
“What is much less clear to us is to what extent Hayek was aware that by admitting that there might be no single rate he was making a fatal concession to his opponent. If there is a multitude of commodity rates, it is evidently possible for the money rate of interest to be lower than some but higher than others. What, then, becomes of monetary equilibrium?” (Lachmann 1994: 154).
Lachmann is making the SAME mistake that Sraffa made and which you are now busy making. Lachmann has completely missed the point that THE natural interest rate emerges ONLY in the ERE at equilibrium. At that point, it is impossible to have multiple rates in multiple lines or stages of production or on multiple commodities. Any discrepancy will attract capital from OTHER stages/lines/commodities into the stage/line/commodity which has a higher interest rate and drive the interest rate down.
Your argument gets no credibility by your repeating Lachmann's mistake.
"NO system with growth, money and uncertainty can converge to a single abstract natural rate, as it will never fall into conditions that are prerequisites for that ERE state: it will always have multiple rates in periods of growth."
Good description of the obvious but essential difference between the ERE at equilibrium and the real world. However, you are still failing to get the point that the ERE may and probably never will get realised because the real world is one of constant change and churn. That is precisely what Austrian theory says.
Amazing how they disappear when they cannot refute the evidence, right Will?
Will:
Here is a better explanation of why the left did not go for single payer in the reform (or why they do not try to pass outrightly radical initiatives) - it is based on the slippery slope theory of governing:
In 1959, Charles Lindblom, then an associate professor of economics at Yale, penned a highly influential article entitled "The Science of Muddling Through." There he analyzed the workings of modern democracies and offered a compelling explanation for why incremental policy change is a prerequisite to effective policy change, and why radical policy change founded on abstract theories untethered to a real-world understanding of how people behave, and what motivates them, will ultimately fail.
Lindblom argued that modern democracies are viable because such changes are informed by experience, trial and error, and the input of affected interest groups. Mandate and fiat used as tools to force people to alter their behavior inevitably fail because when a major policy shift is suddenly forced upon the public, that shift has not been sufficiently vetted to assess how people will react to it. Lindblom explained that no theory exists from which policy makers can draw valid conclusions about a policy's real world consequences. In making this point, he wrote:
The assumption of [policy-makers as theoreticians] is that theory is the most systematic and economical way to bring relevant knowledge to bear on a specific problem. Granting the assumption, an unhappy fact is that we do not have adequate theory to apply to problems in any policy area....
He ultimately concluded that careful and ongoing evaluation of how free individuals alter their behavior in response to existing policy and modest changes in that policy over time is the measure by which effective, lasting adjustments to the policy should be formulated. Such an evaluation is possible only if the policy shift is sufficiently limited to allow its effects to be sorted, and analyzed separately from, other factors that may be in play.
American Patriot-
Zeke Emanuel has never advocated eugenics or euthanasia. Read his papers. Much of his work is on the extremely difficult issues that arise with organ transplants. If you have one heart and two patients who need it to live, what do you do? The fact that you are claiming he has diminishes the rest of your argument- whoever told you he has lied to you. Flat out.
As to the stuff on Trevor Loudon's page about Pannetta is just silly. It amounts to Pannetta corresponded with a former congressman who lived in his district, And activists who lived in his district sometimes met with him.
As for Jarrett, your claims are just guilt by association. Again, she served on the board of the chicago stock exchange. She has been a successful CEO. Your argument seems to be that her father's words (he was a journalist) are more important than her words or actions.
As for the Obama administration's health plan it IS fairly free market. So is cap and trade legislation. See this (first google search result), for instance http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-shocking-truth-about-the-birthplace-of-obamas-policies/2011/04/15/AF6qINpE_blog.html To argue otherwise is simply to not understand what the law is.
None of your articles on regulation claim that Obama is producing more than any other president, which was your claim. His total regulations produced are still lower than Presidents Bush and Clinton (granted, they had 8 years). Further, the overwhelming majority are in the new healthcare bill and the financial reform bill.
And the claim that more canadian babies are born in Buffalo hospitals than Americans is simply not true. If any article claimed it, it was flat out wrong.
You read and decide where his line lies between rationing and eugenics (of course he does not call it that)
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/PIIS0140673609601379.pdf
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf
Regarding healthcare, Price Waterhouse and other healthcare consulting firms who have been saying the obvious that Obamacare will kill competition and result in massive rationing is what to you? Chopped liver?
Only doctors in the congress (and they are Republicans) all say the same. And why wouldn't they?
I do not know what hell hole you practice in, but here in civilisation no one will see Medicaid anymore and the few who see Medicare patients are getting ready to get the heck out.
They are already only recieving 70 reimbursement after months of waiting, and that will take a further hit? You expect docs who owe a quarter of a mill in student loans and have to pay malpractice premiums up the wazoo (esp. in areas like Obstetrics) to see Medicaid patients? Or medicare for that matter?
Regarding likes of Jarret and especially Obama, why would anyone who doesn't share the philosophy be almost exclusively involved with Communists of different stripes throughout their lives and when in positions of power, hire them? That makes any sense to you? If so, let me know where you practice medicine so I can warn people since no one lacking common sense to that extent should be trusted when it comes to health matters.
There is nothing else to say to you after reading your silliest assertion of all: Cap and Trade being a free market reform!
I've read both of the articles from Emmanuel you posted. Where is there any discussion at all of anything resembling eugenics? Have you actually read the articles? Do you know what eugenics is?
I'd take issue with any statement that Obamacare will kill competition and result in "massive rationing." If you post a reference to what Price Waterhouse said, maybe that will help. Price Waterhouse is a London based accounting firm, not a healthcare firm.
As to Doctors in congress- don't trust them to make opinions based on their medical knowledge. All respect for the professional ethics of doctors serving as politicians ended when Bill Frist suggested AIDS could be transmitted through sweat and tears, and attempted to diagnose Shiavo from short videos. Party comes first, professional medical ethics comes second.
Medicaid reimbursement is different in various states, as the state controls the funding levels. Southern CA, where the underserved clinic I work in is located has a huge backlog, and only about 65% of our patients qualify, but we still survive. Three doctors all make $250k a year, and one medical billing expert makes $100k or so a year, and three nurses make $90k a year. Our malpractice is covered by the clinic's operating fund. The malpractice insurance premiums are quite low (much lower than most private practices), because (as it turns out) its rarely the poor and indigent who sue doctors. We aren't making major sacrifices here- we pay competitive salaries.
We also provide a good baseline of care. We serve as many people (mostly homeless) as our appointment time allows. If our patients had private insurance, we would obviously be better reimbursed, none do. Without medicaid, we couldn't run our clinic and these people would have no access to medical care.
Also- medicaid has little to do with Obamacare, whose substantive points expanded the private health insurance market, with medicaid only acting as a safety net for the poor.
As for Jarrett, my substantive point is that she HAS NOT associated with communists "throughout her life." Neither has Pannetta. She has mostly associated with business people (she worked as a CEO and served on the board of the Chicago Stock Exchange). He has mostly worked with other politicians. He was Clinton's chief of staff, so I guess that means Pannetta is a sex-fiend who doesn't know what "is" means.
How many people have you worked with in your career? I've worked with dozens of residents and dozens more medical students, hundreds of doctors, a few dozen radiation physicists. I have probably three dozen coauthors on publications. I assume a successful CEO or politician has just as many contacts. To ignore the entire context of someone's career and point to one or two people they've associated with is just silly.
And finally- cap and trade sets a cap, and lets the market decide how best to distribute carbon emissions. If thats not a market-based regulation, than nothing is. Remember, it was republicans in the 90s who first introduced cap and trade regulation. Right now, people are so quick to demonize Obama that no one noticed he has been governing as a moderate republican (market based health care reform, market based cap and trade).
I was a life-long republican until sometime during the Bush jr. presidency but the party has moved so far to the right that its not recognizable to me anymore. It seems like most of the republicans I talk to have a short term memory- they can't remember what the party stood for in the 90s.
You mean you support the age-based priority for receiving scarce medical interventions under the complete lives system?
From:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60137-9/fulltext#article_upsell
I quote: "We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life"
Also:
" To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles "
"maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness"
Youngest first? Where do we live? In Hitler's Germany?
What type of Republican were you? Teddy Roosevelt's type that started the ball rolling down the slippery slope?
You do know that eugenics involves attempting to "improve" the genetic stock of a country, right? i.e. youngest first is clearly NOT eugenics.
Next- you have 25 to 40 people who need a heart transplant. You have 1 heart. How do you decide who gets the heart? Emmanuel advocates for a multi-principle framework, as outlined in several articles. What do you propose doing?
First of all this is not youngest first. A 20 year old takes precedence over an infant.
That being said, yes it isn't exactly eugegenics but anything that targets concepts like quality adjusted remaining years is Orwellian in nature at best.
I say it needs to be like it is now: if the rgan is a match for several potential recipients, it is that person who has been on the list the longest who gets it.
You can't transplant adult organs into an infant.
Anyway, my point is that a multi-faceted scale is NOT anything at all resembling eugenics- which was the accusation you leveled. Suggesting its "Orwellian" in nature implies you aren't familiar with the usage of the word. Where is the propaganda? What is vanishing down the memory hole? Orwell's work was about information, in particular propaganda, misinformation and historical revisionism. None of which has anything to do with multi-faceted criteria for organ selection.
Do you admit that you were wrong to suggest that Emmanuel in any way advocated or advocates eugenics?
Also, that isn't how many transplant lists work right now. On top of the obvious compatibility criteria, many lists score for severity of disease (MELD, for liver waiting lists, for instance). Personally, I fall on the side of some form of cost benefit analysis. But its a really hard question and I applaud doctors who are willing to write about the ethics of making hard choices.
I didn't say transplant adult organ in a child. In my example it would be choosing a 25 y.o. over a 65 y.o.
What does Orwellian mean to you? The definition is pretty standard.
"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society. It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past.
And you clamp on to the propaganda part of it to justify your narrow understanding of the term when the definition is much broader than that.
I think you miss the point of "orwellianism". It's about the decay of speech into double-talk, double-bind, double-think, and double-standard -- all that is, in fact, everything today that goes by the slogan "the new normal". The "new normal" is the normalization of the double-standard and the disintegration of civil society.
The nearest example is the U.K.
The elitist view that permeates the progressive mind set is nothing but Orwellianism.
That also goes to organ transplants where considerations other than suitability and immediate prognosis after the transplant may be concerned (such as quality adjusted years or worse as in the U.K.)
Left id definition of Orwellianism. If you care to hear about 'em, I can give you dozens of prime examples under this Chicago thug currently in in D.C.
My blog has just a few examples but I have a library of stuff I am archiving.
" It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past."
None of which has ANYTHING to do with a multi-faceted system for organ transplant lists.
" It's about the decay of speech into double-talk, double-bind, double-think, and double-standard"
Again, none of which has ANYTHING to do with criteria for organ transplant lists.
So, if you say that every other factor being equal, I deserve the transplant because I am 20 years old and the next guy who may be ahead of me in the list is 65 years old that is not Orwellian in nature considering that the calculation is one of who will contribute to the society more?
Sounds like you would like the Brit system of assigning dollar amounts to how much remaining life of a human is worth and decide based on that if someone can have a treatment or not.
You honestly would endorse such nonsense? I thought Dr. Mengele had died.
Orwellian, as we've BOTH agreed is about double talk, information, and propaganda. Its NOT anything you disagree with. Have you actually read 1984?
If someone will die in a day without a liver, and someone will die in 5 years without a liver, and a liver becomes available, who do you give it to? What if the die-in-5-year guy got sick first?
A transplanted organ is going to last 10ish years. What if the guy at the top of the list is 80, and has a life expectancy of fewer than 10 years? Do you try to maximize the utilization of the organs? What if one of the people who needs a transplant is an alcoholic who continuous to drink? Does he keep his place on the list?
How about we let the free market decide- organ auctions? It would certainly be a revenue generator for hospitals.
Decisions regarding organ transplants are ethically tricky, and not as cut-and-dry as you want them to be.
Orwellian is a word used about information and propaganda- you might mean dystopian, (even that I disagree with), but you certainly don't mean Orwellian.
I agree it is tricky. Obviously you would not want someone with much better prognosis (without the transplant) to take priority before someone who is expected to die in a week if he doesn't get the transplant.
Those kinds of factors need to be weighed carefully. However, assigning value to a life using productivity measures is what Dr. Emanuel is talking about.
There is a clear distinction between deciding who is the best fit for an organ based on purely medical facts concerning patients and deciding based on how many productive years someone has (or having a formula like in the U.K.).
Is that not Orwellian to you?
You are smart enough to see the distinction, Will.
I did not answer your question about Orwellianism.
Orwellian:
a societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society. It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past.
Isn't the attitude of those advancing such measures as Dr Emanuel or Dr Berwick not destructive to a free society (if you almost have to justify your usefulness to the society before you are treated)?
"Those kinds of factors need to be weighed carefully. However, assigning value to a life using productivity measures is what Dr. Emanuel is talking about."
No, thats not at all what Dr. Emanuel is talking about it. Read the papers. He suggests that a full-life (not based on "usefulness to society" but based on giving as many people as possible a full life) as one of many criteria.
"a societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society. IT CONNOTES AN ATTITUDE AND A POLICY OF CONTROL BY PROPAGANDA, SURVEILLANCE, MISINFORMATION, DENIAL OF THE TRUTH, AND MANIPULATION OF THE PAST."
Again, nothing to do with what is being discussed. If you throw out "Orwellian" for anything you disagree with, the word loses all meaning.
Can we agree that Emmanuel is not a communists, nor has he ever advocated for anything resembling eugenics? Can you understand why claiming otherwise damages your credibility?
I do not know that Emanuel is or is not a communist. I have no clear evidence of that unlike people like Carol Browner or Van Jones.
However, some of his thoughts seem rather fabian to me.
I don't know much about Van Jones, but Browner is ANOTHER career political insider who has focused on environmental issues for much of her career. She served under Clinton. You seem intent on believing that the Obama administration is a secret communist plot, despite the fact that everyone of this major policy initiatives closely resembles attempted republican proposals from the 90s.
I'm done with this- you are insisting that several career politicians are secretly dangerous radicals. You opened this by calling Emmanuel a known and admitted communist. You then shifted to saying he advocated to eugenics, when pressed you shifted gears to saying it was Orwellian, in a gross misuse of the term, and now you are back to saying "his thoughts seem rather fabian."
Believe what you want to believe.
Will, Will, Will.... do you ever do any research? Here is Wikipedia on Carol Browner:
Until summer 2008 she was a member of Socialist International's Commission for a Sustainable World Society,[60][61][62] although the commission's web site still had her listed as a member in January 2009.
Still claiming she is not?
Do you want specific proof of how many socialists/communists there are in this Administration?
Denial is not a river in Egypt, you know!
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