Musings from an Economics Student

This summer is gonna be awesome

2008-05-10T02:04:00Z

I got accepted into the Foundation of Economic Education's Austrian Economics seminar. You know who is going to be there? <b>Israel Kirzner</b>. That's right, a guy who has studied under MIses himself is going to be there. I have his textbook on price theory that I totally want him to autograph. I'll probably have to pick up a copy of "The Economic Point of View" before I go too.

I also hope to get into Mises University. I'd love to meet all my favorite Austrian economists and meet some other people who don't think I'm crazy for wanting a privatized military force.

Happy Earth Day

2008-04-22T04:40:00Z

While I am the last one to draw any harsh comparisons, here's a fun fact: Earth Day happens to be the same day as Vladimir Lenin's birthday.

Coincidence?

Review of two economic museums

2008-03-08T14:45:00Z

For spring break, I decided to go to Mexico again (and mind you, not to Cancun or any beach place like that), but since it was cheaper, I had to go through NYC. Anyways, I visited the Museum of American Finance in NYC (as recommended by Dr. Tucker) and the Museo Interactico de Economica in Mexico City. Here's my review:

Museum of American Financial History: Mostly financial, banking and the like, but really neat nonetheless. They've got some really neat specimens of old private currency, old silver certificates, a five million deutchmark note from the Weimar hyperinflation, and some really great stuff on the history of banking in the US. There's also a really great thing on entrepreneurship, talking about things like risk and having an idea, that sort of thing, which I thought was really great. The other half of the museum is dedicated to stocks, bonds, etc. but still very informative. They have a copy of the first issue of The Wall Street Journal, a ticker tape from the Stock Market Crash of 1929, a computer terminal just like the ones traders use as the NYSE, and there's three really great videos that explain what people at the NYSE, New York Mercantile Exchange, and the bond exchange actually do. I was able to score a pretty NYSE money clip too.

MIDE: Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution recommended this place. I was somewhat disappointed. It was, as the reply to my comment in Dr. Tucker's post, was mostly about teaching kids about economics. In fact, the only other people I saw there were school groups. Also for some reason, some of the interactive things where in English yet they'd still have Spanish audio. I did understand most of the signs and whatnot, and it was a nice look at basic economics, like you need land, labor, capital, etc. They had a nice little video talking about the pinmaker's story from "The Wealth of Nations."

My biggest complaint was when I got to the section on government. They had a cute little Sim City type game where you're the local mayor and you have to fix local problems. You'd get proposed a situation and you'd have to choose an option to handle it. Here's one example that I can remember which was along the lines of:

The local schools are falling apart and scores are extremely low. What do you do?

1) Ignore the problem
2) Repair existing schools

3) Repair existing schools and build new schools

Personally, I would just give parents either cash or vouchers for education and say "Send them to any school you want." The only one I felt was closest to mine was "Ignore the problem" but apprently, the correct answer was either 2 or 3. Sigh.

There were some neat things, like a huge LED board that shows inflation indexes for pretty much every common good in Mexico. The last room (they force you to see exhibits in a certain way and it's not just a recommendation - they yell at you if you don't) talks a bit about GDP and has comparisons about countries' standard of livings comparing GDP, literacy rate, health care, etc. In the middle of this room was a neat little model that was like a 3D bar graph that you could choose some statistic like health care and it would physically change the bar so you can see how it changes. As the only American in the room of some schoolgroup playing around with it, I got a kick how the US constantly topped everything.

The MIDE did have a decent giftshop though. I got a nice bookmark for my economic books for about $2, and I got a nice pen with old shredded 50 peso notes.

Personally, out of the two, I like the Museum of American Financial History, and not just because everything was in English. At least they promote the power of the free market, whereas MIDE devoted a good section to why we "need" central banks and government to provide services.

A minor wish of mine

2008-02-22T04:00:00Z

I have but one wish - reprint "The Common Sense of Political Economy" by Philip Wicksteed.

Really, that book is recommended by Austrians and non-Austrians alike and I can't find it in print anywhere. I'd pay good money for a copy.

Of course I'll let the market decide if that should be the case. Personally, I think the market would agree with me on this one.

Tip for the avid economics student

2008-01-11T00:29:00Z

This site that lets you buy physical copy of online public domain books is a God sent.

While I doubt the moderators here will not be pleased to tell you that I'm able to get "Recent Literature on Interest" by Boehm-Bawerk for half the price that the Mises Institute is charging.

Of course, from what I've read elsewhere, you get what you pay for. It'll be a generic cover and the text will be a scan of the book as opposed to actual text, so it might be a bit hard on the eyes. There's also a 700 page limit, so unfortunately, I was not able to get a copy of Philip Wicksteed's "The Common Sense of Political Economy" which I've seen recommended elsewhere but has been out of print for some time. Same goes with Alfred Marshall's "Principles of Economics" which, sadly, is only avaliable in abridged form. Also, it's limited only to books avaliable on Google Books or the Internet Archive at Archive.org. Finally, in some cases, it's just cheaper to buy a new copy of the book (for example, a copy from this site charged about $12 for a copy of Malthus' "Essay on Human Population" whereas you can get a new copy off Amazon for $10).

>I'm sure that the moderators will not be pleased for me advocating buying Austrian books from another site, but I think they can withstand a little market competition. Of course, as I said, if you were to buy from the Institute, you'll be getting a far superior product in terms of quality and probably supprting the Mises Institute as well. But if you're cheap, you can get readable economic classics at a low cost.

In defense of job "stealing" and outsourcing

2007-12-09T02:05:00Z

I work at the college library.

So I was at work and my supervisor along with myself were talking about banks and apparently, he tried to stat an HSBC account but was told to call this number only to find out that the woman on the other hand was in Bombay, India. He then decided not to get an account with them because they're letting Indian people "steal American jobs." I kept insisting that it's impossible to "steal" jobs, as that would suggest there is some fixed number of jobs in an economy, but he kept firmly insisting that they are making American people starve because Indian people are getting rich. Pretty much the conversation ended when I said "Well, I'll be sure to find an article on comparative advantage that shows that even though we might be losing jobs to India, we can still gain from that."

The sad thing is, he's definitely not the only person who believes that you can "steal" jobs away from an economy - one doesn't have to try hard to find prominent politicans who claim how Mexicans are "stealing" American jobs (though I don't see too many Americans fighting for the chance to water gardens or harvest crops). Frankly, as many of you readers know, that isn't the case. You can't "steal" a job - in fact, in the case of outsourcing for HSBC, everyone wins. An Indian person, instead of starving, now has a good paying job at a call center. The bank, being able to save on calling center costs, can now offer things like a higher interest rate which encourages people to invest through them or perhaps pay higher wages to other employees or perhaps in the form of higher dividends to stockholders which increases confidence. Even if it goes to "greedy" CEOs, then that should serve as a profit for finding a way to economicly cut their costs.

As for compartative advantage, it's probably one of economic's greatest ideas. In case you're not familar, it's the idea that even if you're a nation that is utterly devoid of resources or skills, you can still benefit from trade as you might be able to do something more cheaply than another more resourced nation. One of the nice things about using mathematics in economics is that you can show that mathematically, in addition to logic, that both nations get more of what they want from trading.

This idea of trade and "stealing" jobs really goes back to Bastiat's idea of What is Seen and Not Seen. Sure, you might see someone losing a "stolen" job at an American call center, but what people need to see is the creation of a job in India, more money that can go to other more useful endevours, and an increase of goods and services to everyone.

Introduction

2007-11-09T05:49:00Z

First post!

Really, here's an introduction - I'm a fourth year economics student. I'll concede that I really can't call myself a pure Austrian - while I think praxeology is great, I think that the use of math and statistics in economics is fine. What I agree with Austrians though is that sometimes economists do get "physicist envy" in wanting economics to be a science like physics, but I think that math is a useful tool in economics. Also, I think Austrian economics explains the time-value of money the best and in the most clear way, and I think that more mainstream schools of thought could learn a lot from the Austrian school.

Believe it or not, an English professor actually introduced me to Austrian economics. I had this English professor who had a Mises Institute coffee mug and a Mises totebag, so whenever she was writing down notes or while I was waiting for everyone else to be done during a test, I'd be staring at her totebag with the address "MISES.ORG" on it. I went to it, but I really didn't get what exactly it was all about, but eventually, after I got into libertarianism through Michael Badnarik's lectures on the Constitution did it all make sense. "Economics in One Lesson" is essentially what made me change my major from software engineering to economics. I'm glad I did.

If I don't blog regularly, it's because I'm a student and I need to up my grades, especially since I want to go to grad school. I want to go somewhere that will share my leaning, so my choice is George Mason to get a Master's and I want to go into the University of Chicago for a PhD. Yes, I know that Friedman said some pretty nutty things but nonetheless, I'd rather go somewhere that is respectable and the faculty has a similar leaning. So anyways, this blog will mostly of book reviews of economic books, maybe some book summaries for the classics (ala Robert Murphy's study guide for "Man, Economy, and State), but I'd count in the very least on some of my thoughts on economics.

So enjoy.