We should not scapegoat Greenspan for Bush's mistakes. Besides Henry Paulson has been in charge of the Fed for 2 years.

Greenspan did a great job. Probably the best job anyone has done in government in a long time. He just couldn't make the economy absorb Bush's mistakes and reckless spending. He is not a soothsayer and he isn't perfect.

The fact that he is accepting some responsibility for whatever mistakes he made says a lot about him, but blaming Greenspan for this is just nonsense to me.

Totally agree with Mycroft. Greenspan's a brilliant man and his policy was as solid as it could be given the times.

^Being brilliant is not always the same as being right.

Agreed.

But it's better than being wrong and STUPID.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:
We should not scapegoat Greenspan for Bush's mistakes. Besides Robert Paulson has been in charge of the Fed for 2 years.
Greenspan did a great job. Probably the best job anyone has done in government in a long time. He just couldn't make the economy absorb Bush's mistakes and reckless spending. He is not a soothsayer and he isn't perfect.
The fact that he is accepting some responsibility for whatever mistakes he made says a lot about him, but blaming Greenspan for this is just nonsense to me.


This isn't a "it's all Greenspan's fault" video, this is a "even Greenspan realizes that conservatives are fundamentally wrong about the nature of economics" video.

Greenspan is willingly shouldering some of the blame and you people are trying to take that away from him. Don't deny him of his sweet, sweet moment.


@ MycroftHomlz: Greenspan was wrong. He should have done things differently. Suggesting that Paulson, John W. Snow, or Ben Bernanke should hold more blame than Greenspan is absurd. He's even admitting that himself. What should be noted, is that hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn't detract from the fact that Greenspan has the humility to admit his mistakes.


@ Retroboy: How was his policy as solid as it could have been, given the times? Are you suggesting that other government officials had holes in their policies, given the times, and that makes it okay?


@ Netrunner: You left something out. " This isn't a 'it's all Greenspan's fault' video, this is a "even Greenspan realizes that conservatives and Greenspan himself [were]fundamentally wrong about the nature of economics" video.

I have enormous respect for someone who can be an intellectual and not dogmatically stick to a concept when it becomes apparent it is not logical or correct.

greenspan should be put in jail for the rest of his life.

he isn't just some ignorant guy who doesn't understand economics like the majority of economists in the US, he does understand economics as hes been exposed to the proper school of thought and he is purposefully making the wrong decisions and f*cking the country for his own personal gain. if i was on a jury, i would sentence this guy to death in the most inhumane way possible.

this video is not him "admitting his mistakes" this video is him admitting he made mistakes (on purpose) and then trying to blame the market to cover his own ass when the consequences (he knew would come) finally came. he is a coward, a fraud, a thief, and a liar. this man is market fraud incarnate and all you lemmings are praising him for it.

^Someone's pissed their 401k dropped 30% so far this year!

^I have a lot of respect for Greenspan. Can you back up your allegations?

Robert Paulson is from Fight Club, not the Federal Reserve ("his name is Robert Paulson"), and Greenspan's successor at the Fed has been Ben Bernanke. Henry Paulson (also known by his nickname "Hank" Paulson) is the US Secretary of the Treasury.

I guess for some a sixteen second soundbite is enough to convince them that a deregulated market is an epic fail, but for some of us we require fact not quips. Greenspan is for regulation, obviously, because he was the chairman of the Fed, which, if you dare to remember, is the quasi-public central bank responsible for manufacturing money out of thin air and putting us all in debt. This video proves nothing except those greedy bastards who are ruining this country want more of it.

The purpose of this video is to persuade using *fear. Sorry for the downvote.

Adding video to channels (Fear) - requested by blankfist.

>> ^skoubydoo:
^Someone's pissed their 401k dropped 30% so far this year!


don't have a 401k champ. If you were versed in Austrian economics you would've seen this coming a mile away too

I also don't subscribe to the American lifestyle hence why do I need a retirement fund? did you know that for $27,000 you can travel spending 2 months in every subcontinent on earth?

I guess a car or 1/10 of a house is nice too though...

>> ^chilaxe:
^I have a lot of respect for Greenspan. Can you back up your allegations?


sure, what specifically would you like to know? Greenspan was originally close to objectivism, even writing letters for objectivist publications. He was also friends with Milton Friedman who was a prodigy of the Austrian school, at one point meeting face to face with F.A Hayek (until he too got in bed with the fed as a result of his monetarist leanings). Almost all economists in America are taught in the Chicago/Keynesian school, they never learn what Austrian economics is much less the theory behind it. They can be accurately classified as "ignorant." Greenspan knows better, he knows what Austrian economics is and thus he knows the moral and economic implications of his job at the federal reserve and he choses money and power over the economic well being of the country. He knows that when he fixes interests rates low he is creating "bubbles" which eventually burst, often violently as we are seeing today. Under his watch he set interest rates to an unheard of 1% after 9/11, creating a negative interest rate against inflation (very bad) and an artificial demand in housing, which resulted in large increases in both construction and price. These prices are not real or sustainable and must be eventually corrected, which is what is happening right now. However, the extent of monetary irresponsible has made it such that this is not contained in any one market but instead infects the whole economy.

He is not a man who should be respected, he is a man who should be despised with utmost tenacity. He is knowingly using misinformation to commit fraud against the American people. Paulson is probably aware of the consequences of his actions as well, but certainly does not have the background Greenspan does.

Mainstream economics may disagree with you, but you can't dismiss them as being unaware of the Austrian school and of Milton Friedman's ideas, which they highly esteem.

Economics is a continually evolving discipline that changes its prescriptions based on the results of previous outcomes (the progressive accumulation of data); it seems simplistic to say the answer to any economic question has always been and will always be the same: greater anarcho-capitalism.

When you call for a public figure's death, supporting your argument probably requires something more concrete than just speculation and theories.

^I have never once argued for or supported anarcho-capitalism. It drives me nuts when people associate capitalism with anarchy. I am as strongly against anarchy as I am socialism.

Mainstream economists disagree with me like the mainstream disagrees with me that the earth was created more than 10,000 years ago. Keynesian economics holds about the same weight as intelligent design in my book. It is a completely unsupported "theory", and is facing an intense amount of contradictory evidence, yet it still persists.

Fraud is illegal in this country right? I am charging him with 300,000,000 counts of fraud. Isn't that enough to put someone away for life? I am also charging him with treason. Isn't that enough to warrant the death penalty? I was giving the rest of the "mainstream" the benefit of the doubt. If you can prove they are familiar with Austrian theory, then its going to be a long day at the noose. I am positive this is not true in most economic programs in the country. There are less than a dozen Austrian programs in the country and 25 years ago there were less than a dozen prominent Austrian economists in the world.

Advocating Keynesian ideas when you are versed with the Austrians is like trying to save a dying man with leeches and voodoo when you are versed in germ theory and have antibiotics in your back pocket. Greenspan is the moral equivalent of an atheist who is the pope of a church leading an inquisition.

^If your answer to every problem is to reduce government to a size at which it doesn't matter much anymore, it seems fair to characterize that as greater anarcho-capitalism, which is not the same as anarchy.

You're arguing against mainstream consensus in an entire academic discipline, so if you're going to make creationism accusations, you're pointing them in the wrong direction

Honestly, rein in some of your more extreme tendencies and you'll have more luck convincing other free-market proponents, such as myself. If Austrian school economists are unable to figure out how to make their viewpoint mainstream in the marketplace of ideas, does that mean the marketplace is right to keep them on the fringe?

Dude. Sometimes... I never said the other people bare more responsibility. I said, the entire economic crisis should not be hoisted on Greenspan's decisions as chairman of the Fed.

My point was: it is ridiculous for congress and the senate to treat him like he is entirely responsible.

Netrunner: It is true this video does not blame Greenspan. It seemed like things were getting pretty heated at the senate hearing that this comes from. I was trying to point out the context where this came from, and voice my disappointment at the direction of those hearings.

>> ^deedub81:
MycroftHomlz: Greenspan was wrong. He should have done things differently. Suggesting that Paulson, John W. Snow, or Ben Bernanke should hold more blame than Greenspan is absurd. He's even admitting that himself.

And this does not constitute the posting guidelines of * fear please remove it.

>> ^chilaxe:
^If your answer to every problem is to reduce government to a size at which it doesn't matter much anymore, it seems fair to characterize that as greater anarcho-capitalism, which is not the same as anarchy.
You're arguing against mainstream consensus in an entire academic discipline, so if you're going to make creationism accusations, you're pointing them in the wrong direction
Honestly, rein in some of your more extreme tendencies and you'll have more luck convincing other free-market proponents, such as myself. If Austrian school economists are unable to figure out how to make their viewpoint mainstream in the marketplace of ideas, does that mean the marketplace is right to keep them on the fringe?


i want a public military, police force, legal system, and fire department which is clearly incompatible with anarchy or anarcho-capitalism. you're making an assumption that i'm trying to convince others. i'm not. i'm berating what i think is false and advocating what i think is true.

don't expect me to apologize for my "extremism" with regards to human rights. you either believe human beings have unalienable rights or you don't. yes, you are hold a view closer to mine than most, but you still haven't fully cured the disease of collectivism and guess what happens when you don't finish your antibiotics?

>> ^chilaxe:
If Austrian school economists are unable to figure out how to make their viewpoint mainstream in the marketplace of ideas, does that mean the marketplace is right to keep them on the fringe?


SMACKDOWN!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

massive props for that one chilaxe i have no idea why people trust "the market" to make the right decisions... do they trust "the electorate" to choose the right president?

The WP has a somewhat low quality article about the hearing, but there's one gimmick in it:

"The Federal Reserve had as good an economic organization as exists," Greenspan said. "If all those extraordinarily capable people were unable to foresee the development of this critical problem . . . we have to ask ourselves: Why is that? And the answer is that we're not smart enough as people. We just cannot see events that far in advance."

>> ^blankfist:
I guess for some a sixteen second soundbite is enough to convince them that a deregulated market is an epic fail, but for some of us we require fact not quips.


Are you lacking in facts that this deregulated market (specifically the credit default swaps market) was an epic fail? If so, you need to spend more time away from the Sift.

And isn't that failure itself a fact which is evidence that deregulated markets fail? When a market goes from $900 billion in 2000 to $43 trillion in 2007, something is wrong.

Wow. I was all ready to heap scorn and stats on this video, but shit.
Nice one.
nicely played

Are you arguing that the market is actually deregulated? There has never been an attempt at a truly non-regulated market, where the market was actually trusted.

>> ^imstellar28
don't have a 401k champ. If you were versed in Austrian economics you would've seen this coming a mile away too

The videos you posted on here of people predicting this was ridiculous. Ayn Rand saying (50 years ago!) that there will someday be a market collapse... others simply say that someday the dollar will heavily drop. These aren't predictions
Why do these people say this about the future of the economy? Because of the dropping of the gold standard, and this has nothing to do with that. You can find some stat on a website, some source, that blames this on some obscure government regulation, I am sure, but when every other single person who analyzes this situation tells you it's a problem with deregulation, who isn't a insane fundamental capitalist, you should maybe start to see past your biases.
You really are no different than a religious lunatic with this, and have seriously made me think twice about my libertarian views,

What market? Are you talking about the credit default swaps market? My understanding is that there was no government regulation of the CDS market. Here is a good synopsis of the CDS market. I think it may be an example of a truly unregulated market—where the market was actually trusted. And it ran up from $900 billion in 2000 to $43 trillion (that's ~3 times the size of the entire U.S. economy) in 2007. And then it failed miserably.

Isn't it interesting that a company like Lehman Brothers could thrive for a century and a half in regulated markets but after less than a decade in this unregulated market they are history.

BTW, I'm all for free markets—but they occasionally get irrational. Thus the need for regulation.

*nochannel *politics *news

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>> ^MINK:
>> ... do they trust "the electorate" to choose the right president?



Um. Yes. That's exactly what they do. Do you know of somebody who could better represent the people than someone elected by them? Is there a better system?

>> ^blankfist:
I guess for some a sixteen second soundbite is enough to convince them that a deregulated market is an epic fail, but for some of us we require fact not quips. Greenspan is for regulation, obviously, because he was the chairman of the Fed, which, if you dare to remember, is the quasi-public central bank responsible for manufacturing money out of thin air and putting us all in debt. This video proves nothing except those greedy bastards who are ruining this country want more of it.
The purpose of this video is to persuade using fear. Sorry for the downvote.


I didn't know it was the Fed's fault that we got in this economic crisis. Weren't certain companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG involved?

>> ^MINK:
>> ^chilaxe:
If Austrian school economists are unable to figure out how to make their viewpoint mainstream in the marketplace of ideas, does that mean the marketplace is right to keep them on the fringe?

SMACKDOWN!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
massive props for that one chilaxe i have no idea why people trust "the market" to make the right decisions... do they trust "the electorate" to choose the right president?


if we had a rule of law it wouldn't matter nearly as much who was president. unfortunately we have a rule of majority which is essentially a lawless dictatorship. i could make the same argument against you--you don't trust 300 million people to make decisions on prices for themselves (thats what a market is) you trust a single person to make decisions on prices for all 300 million people.

>> ^T-man:
>> ^blankfist:
I guess for some a sixteen second soundbite is enough to convince them that a deregulated market is an epic fail, but for some of us we require fact not quips.

Are you lacking in facts that this deregulated market (specifically the credit default swaps market) was an epic fail? If so, you need to spend more time away from the Sift.
And isn't that failure itself a fact which is evidence that deregulated markets fail? When a market goes from $900 billion in 2000 to $43 trillion in 2007, something is wrong.


explain how a market where interest rates are price fixed is "deregulated"

>> ^vermeulen:
>> ^imstellar28
don't have a 401k champ. If you were versed in Austrian economics you would've seen this coming a mile away too You can find some stat on a website, some source, that blames this on some obscure government regulation, I am sure, but when every other single person who analyzes this situation tells you it's a problem with deregulation, who isn't a insane fundamental capitalist, you should maybe start to see past your biases.
You really are no different than a religious lunatic with this, and have seriously made me think twice about my libertarian views,


1. federally controlled interest rates are "obscure" regulation?

2. remember in science class when they talked about systemic error? its what happens when the instrument is miscalibrated and ALL results taken by ALL people are wrong. what do you think happens when the majority of economists in America receive the same education? they have the same ideas! its called systemic error and thats what I'm trying to convey, the whole "measuring system" is the problem! I'm not any more insane than Galileo was--you think the sun revolves around the earth because you haven't looked through a telescope.

3. religion implies faith. I don't have faith in my ideas, I know they are correct as much as Galileo knew the earth revolved around the sun because I have explicitly derived them myself: http://www.videosift.com/member/imstellar28/blog

^T-man:
What market? Are you talking about the credit default swaps market? My understanding is that there was no government regulation of the CDS market. Here is a good synopsis of the CDS market. I think it may be an example of a truly unregulated market—where the market was actually trusted. And it ran up from $900 billion in 2000 to $43 trillion (that's ~3 times the size of the entire U.S. economy) in 2007. And then it failed miserably.
Isn't it interesting that a company like Lehman Brothers could thrive for a century and a half in regulated markets but after less than a decade in this unregulated market they are history.

what created the artificial demand to run it up from 900 billion to 43 trillion? thats what i thought.

BTW, I'm all for free markets—but they occasionally get irrational. Thus the need for regulation.

Yeah I know what you mean, I'm totally against murder, except when I need to kill someone.

>> ^deedub81:
>> ^MINK:
>> ... do they trust "the electorate" to choose the right president?


Um. Yes. That's exactly what they do. Do you know of somebody who could better represent the people than someone elected by them? Is there a better system?


Yes. someone who is sworn to uphold a rule of law (constitution) that was created by representatives elected by the people. Just because the majority elects someone doesn't mean they best represent them--does Bush best represent you? How about any of the presidents in your lifetime or any of the candidates currently on the table, are they the "best representative" for you? Anyways, people are tricked into thinking they are making a "choice".

>> ^imstellar28:
^I have never once argued for or supported anarcho-capitalism. It drives me nuts when people associate capitalism with anarchy. I am as strongly against anarchy as I am socialism.
Mainstream economists disagree with me like the mainstream disagrees with me that the earth was created more than 10,000 years ago. Keynesian economics holds about the same weight as intelligent design in my book. It is a completely unsupported "theory", and is facing an intense amount of contradictory evidence, yet it still persists.
Fraud is illegal in this country right? I am charging him with 300,000,000 counts of fraud. Isn't that enough to put someone away for life? I am also charging him with treason. Isn't that enough to warrant the death penalty? I was giving the rest of the "mainstream" the benefit of the doubt. If you can prove they are familiar with Austrian theory, then its going to be a long day at the noose. I am positive this is not true in most economic programs in the country. There are less than a dozen Austrian programs in the country and 25 years ago there were less than a dozen prominent Austrian economists in the world.
Advocating Keynesian ideas when you are versed with the Austrians is like trying to save a dying man with leeches and voodoo when you are versed in germ theory and have antibiotics in your back pocket. Greenspan is the moral equivalent of an atheist who is the pope of a church leading an inquisition.


Quit pretending that pure capitalism has been proven better by the Austrian school, without actually supplying any of that so-called evidence.

Quit pretending you know Greenspan's inner thoughts. The most likely explanation is that he changed his mind about Objectivism and Austrian economics because the evidence against them outweighs the evidence in their favor.

Give ONE example of a country that has brought its GDP (PPP) per capita to current U.S. or European levels without depending on central bank fiat currency for liquidity. All the gold and all the Oil in existence is not enough to provide an adequate amount of currency. The total value of all gold ever mined ($4.3 trillion) is less than 1/15 of the world's GDP.

>> ^imstellar28:
>> ^T-man:
>> ^blankfist:
I guess for some a sixteen second soundbite is enough to convince them that a deregulated market is an epic fail, but for some of us we require fact not quips.

Are you lacking in facts that this deregulated market (specifically the credit default swaps market) was an epic fail? If so, you need to spend more time away from the Sift.
And isn't that failure itself a fact which is evidence that deregulated markets fail? When a market goes from $900 billion in 2000 to $43 trillion in 2007, something is wrong.

explain how a market where interest rates are are price fixed is "deregulated"


There's one big market player (The Fed) deciding how to set ITS OWN interest rates, which only indirectly forces the interest rates that banks decide to charge EACH OTHER. Banks are free to choose whatever interest rates they want to charge each other, but the FREE MARKET EQUILIBRIUM is determined by the rate that the Fed sets on ITS OWN FUNDS. There is NO COMPULSION INVOLVED in the "interest rate price fixing". It is basically a free market in which just one of the biggest players is controlled by the government and instead of operating for profit, the Fed is tasked with stabilizing inflation and flattening boom/bust cycles by adjusting its interest rates to compensate for other factors.

>> ^imstellar28:
>> ^T-man:
>> ^blankfist:
I guess for some a sixteen second soundbite is enough to convince them that a deregulated market is an epic fail, but for some of us we require fact not quips.

Are you lacking in facts that this deregulated market (specifically the credit default swaps market) was an epic fail? If so, you need to spend more time away from the Sift.
And isn't that failure itself a fact which is evidence that deregulated markets fail? When a market goes from $900 billion in 2000 to $43 trillion in 2007, something is wrong.

explain how a market where interest rates are are price fixed is "deregulated"


Interest rates aren't priced fixed and I was specifically talking about the credit default swap market, not mortgages. The CDS market was not regulated. This problem was not cause by some people not paying their mortgages, it was cause by these financial institution hedging their risks until it became a big house of cards.

You missed the point of the comment.

Do "they" trust the electorate to choose the right president?
Yes. "They" trust the electorate to choose the right president.


>> ^imstellar28:
>> ^deedub81:
>> ^MINK:
>> ... do they trust "the electorate" to choose the right president?


Um. Yes. That's exactly what they do. Do you know of somebody who could better represent the people than someone elected by them? Is there a better system?

Yes. someone who is sworn to uphold a rule of law (constitution) that was created by representatives elected by the people. Just because the majority elects someone doesn't mean they best represent them--does Bush best represent you? How about any of the presidents in your lifetime or any of the candidates currently on the table, are they the "best representative" for you? Anyways, people are tricked into thinking they are making a "choice".

Amoung those responsible for the current economic crisis is "Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages."

FactCheck.org

Well, Bush and Greenspan: just criminals. Plain and simple... By the way Federal Reserve is NOT owned and operated by the government. Research the subject. www.zeitgeistmovie.com is a good place to start

Don't know how I ended up smarter than Greenspan*, but warped regulations, not deregulation, caused these crises.

Financial institutions wouldn't have dared play chicken with high-risk investments of their own money. Government paved the way for the corruption by allowing them to gamble without worry. "Too big to fail?" There's nothing those government idiots can't screw up, given enough time and other people's money. And now taxocrats want MORE government to fix what they already screwed up.



* An old fool trying to salvage his legacy by blaming the victim: free markets.

Greenspan destroys Capitalism in 16 seconds.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Don't know how I ended up smarter than Greenspan , but warped regulations, not deregulation, caused these crises.
Financial institutions wouldn't have dared play chicken with high-risk investments of their own money. Government paved the way for the corruption by allowing them to gamble without worry. "Too big to fail?" There's nothing those government idiots can't screw up, given enough time and other people's money. And now taxocrats want MORE government to fix what they already screwed up.

Funny wasn't it Bush who said that its very urgent for the country to save the economy by giving away 700 billion to save a few Wall Street firms.

Wasn't it McCain who said a few weeks ago "The fundamentals of our Economy remain strong"?

Who push forward privatization more then ever over the last 8 years? Energy deregulation? Enron.

What about deficits like this...

>> ^quantumushroom:
An old fool trying to salvage his legacy by blaming the victim: free markets.


I'll cheers to that.

Imstellar needs to go a DA(Douche's Anonymous) meeting. I can't stand reading his comments. The pretension overwhelms me.

^i'll go to a DA meeting if you go to the library.

Full clip of Greenspan's responses: http://www.videosift.com/video/Alan-Greenspan-I-Was-Wrong-longer-clip

*money

Adding video to channels (Money) - requested by MycroftHomlz.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by dystopianfuturetoday.

The efficient markets hypothesis has *failed.

Adding video to channels (Fail) - requested by dystopianfuturetoday.

@imstellar28

The primary complaint about the Austrian school, and much of Ludwig Von Mises' work, is his utter refusal to quantify anything. I'm familiar with the school, and frankly, it doesn't really address the problem of the business cycle, other than by hoping and wishing for charity by the rich. To be honest, I'm much more impressed with the work of his brother Richard Von Mises, who understood the importance of quantifiable predictions when suggesting a falsifiable theory. Frankly, arguing for "Keynesian economics" isn't what anyone is doing anymore. The monetarists laid that to rest years ago. While granted, modern economics gets much of its inspiration from JMK, the details of the theory have changed drastically since his work. Often I find it's the Austrian schoolers that are unwilling to accept facts (read data) that call their theory into question.

With regards to regulation, the question is not more or less, it's how can we regulate more efficient and effectively. I think there are many serious questions that need to be addressed that have been brought to the fore by this crisis that require an act of congress, or even some international body. Not least among them is "what is money?" From my own reading, I can tell you that money is much closer to something like debt than it is to something like rocks, or metal, and that is as it should be. The value of debt fluctuates with credit, so too should the value of currency with the fiduciary competence of the central bank.

Well here we are, a few years later.

obamanomics aka government centralization of power is a dismal failure.

Massive new government spending is a dismal failure.

Banks and businesses are patiently waiting out these clueless idiots before investing and hiring again.

BTW how has rampant, unchecked socialism worked out for Greece? Ireland?

>> ^bmacs27:
Frankly, arguing for "Keynesian economics" isn't what anyone is doing anymore. The monetarists laid that to rest years ago.

True, but a bit misleading. The monetarists laid "Old Keynesian" economics to rest, but that led to the neoclassical synthesis and New Keynesian economics.

In other words, the Keynesians did exactly what the Austrians refuse to do -- they looked at the new data, and the theories of other schools, and used both to formulate new and improved theories of economics that retained some of the insights of the old theory that still hold up to scrutiny (e.g. price stickiness).

>> ^quantumushroom:

BTW how has rampant, unchecked socialism worked out for Greece? Ireland?


Your whole comment is full of false premises, but you really should go read up some on Ireland. It's been a darling of free market cheerleaders like Heritage for decades.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^bmacs27:
Frankly, arguing for "Keynesian economics" isn't what anyone is doing anymore. The monetarists laid that to rest years ago.
True, but a bit misleading. The monetarists laid "Old Keynesian" economics to rest, but that led to the neoclassical synthesis and New Keynesian economics.
In other words, the Keynesians did exactly what the Austrians refuse to do -- they looked at the new data, and the theories of other schools, and used both to formulate new and improved theories of economics that retained some of the insights of the old theory that still hold up to scrutiny (e.g. price stickiness).


They can't because they don't quantify anything. That's what I meant by "Often I find it's the Austrian schoolers that are unwilling to accept facts (read data) that call their theory into question." Coincidentally, it's the same weakness that makes it a poor school of economics for evaluating the consequences of policy decisions with respect to a stated objective.

So it's been two years. I hope everyone is doing well. A little older, a little wiser? Better, faster, stronger, smarter?

It looks like @NetRunner and @dystopianfuturetoday are still up to their old haunts. Learn anything in the last two years? History impart any lessons? A lot has happened since then. War, recession, inflation, destruction, pollution, the devaluing of the dollar.

Maybe meet up in another two years to see if anything more has changed? That is, if it is even possible. By then, we may have already lost net neutrality and the world wide web will a corporatized splash screen. "Choose your website from the following options." Worse yet, this site could be bought out by DynCorp and transformed into another corporate puppet ala Digg.com.

That is, if any of us even have jobs or savings to pay the internet bill. What with the massive inflation from the multi-trillion dollar "bailouts," handouts, QE3, QE4, QE5 etc. Ever pay attention to your supermarket bill over the years? What will the dollar be worth in two years if it has already decreased in value by upwards of 50% in the last few years? How about employment after the looming double-dip, recession, or second great depression. How many of the posters here will even have jobs anymore?

One thing is for certain, there is nothing special about American labor. China is in the lead in education, America is barely in the top 20. The average salary in America is somewhere in the $40,000 range. In China, less than $7000. I hope you've enjoyed the run while it lasted. Be prepared to swallow your pride along with your massive pay-cut as you realize the only thing sustaining this country is reckless consumerism. What do they tell you every Black Friday? Spend, Spend, Spend? Buy what you can't afford so you can be paid what you don't deserve. Nothing exists in nature "above unity," not even the American dream.

Forget the economy, what will our government be like in 2 years? Already, we sell little boys to afghan leaders and our presidential candidates threaten journalists with murder. Perhaps worse is all of our presidential candidates are identical. "Do you want the red or blue pill? They both taste the same." We torture our own citizens with solitary confinement for 6 months without trail. We've killed over 1 million civilians in Iraq, 15% of the way to our own holocaust. Corporations lay waste to our environment with no consequence. When they commit fraud, we give them billion dollar bonuses instead of criminal charges.

The internet is the primary source of dissent and "free thought" in the modern era. Two things diametrically opposed to corporate and governmental dictatorship. You forget because your mind doesn't think on large time scales, but the internet is just a baby. How long has it really been around, 20 years? That's not even old enough to drink alcohol. You've already seen what governments can do to the internet in China. You've already seen what corporations can do to the internet in Canada. How long before that becomes the norm and not the exception? You take it for granted what you have, then they turn your head while they steal it piece-by-piece. How often did you turn your head, when it wasn't yours they took?

"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Yeah, things have been going quite well "as is." Keep you finger's crossed for the next new political "savior" and I'll see you in another 2 years...maybe.

@imstellar28

Okay, I was hoping for some sort of philosophical argument for why Austrian schoolers don't quantify anything. Instead I got a rant about everything that is wrong with the world. For instance, it isn't clear what net neutrality has to do with why quantifying macroeconomic variables, and making testable predictions is somehow not the right thing to do. You can keep saying "you'll see." Meanwhile, I'll point to 300,000 private sector jobs created this past month, the most innovative research institutions in the world, and a dollar that remains the world's store of value.

@imstellar28 nice to see you haven't changed a bit.

I'm actually heartened though -- it sounds like you and I care about a lot of the same issues. On the economy we differ on diagnoses and prescriptions, but otherwise I share all your concerns.

We're on the "they came for the trade unionists" part of the march towards fascism, are you speaking up for them, or blaming them for half of the problems on your list?

I agree with much of what you are saying as well, Stellar, but wouldn't unrestrained capitalism just give these businesses even more power to oppress and corrupt?

I'm also curious about your quote. Unionists and socialists were targets of Hitler in the past, and targets of the neo-liberalist movement, the extreme right and the US government in the present. Coincidence?