Musings from an Economics Student : mises

March on Albany

champthom — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:26:00 GMT

I was going to write a longer diatrabe where I describe in detail the March on Albany (NY) protest I went to this past week put on by the Tea Party people. I was kinda reluctant, as most of the people in the local group are all retirees and I'm fresh out of college, but at least it's nice to be around people who don't think I'm totally crazy.

Anyways, decided to go to represent the more anarcho-capitalist viewpoint, since everyone else was pretty much conservative and well, I sorta stood alone. I wore my Hayek t-shirt (the one available from the Mises.org store :3), hoping I'd get interviewed on TV or something and get the Mises Institute some free publicity (well, I did get on TV but only for a second in a wide shot of the crowd).

Since it was a protest, I figure I might as well make a sign. It was suppose to address state issues, at least that's what the protest was about, but I couldn't think of any specific state issue that particularly was infuriating me so instead I decided to just make a sign with stuff people should read since I'm that type of guy. It wasn't flashy but I think it served it's purpose. Anyways, here's a pic:

In case you can't tell, I'm the one on the left (I was one of the few people there under 50 D:). Yeah, I threw in Rand but apparently that's like the only person people have heard of on that list from those who asked me about it and it's unfortunate that most people have no idea who Mises or Rothbard are. I know people who were raving about The 5000 Leap, which looks alright, but seriously, these people need to get some good exposure to Mises and the rest of the Austrian school so they can have a rock solid foundation for their rhetoric and argument against the increasing statism.

Brief summary, there was a wide range of the spectrum presented. Most of the crowd were right conservative, they want a purely Constitutional government, that sort of thing. Seems like most of the speakers werre plugging pet projects - one guy wanted a Liberty flag (a red flag with the words "LIBERTY" in white) he made on every flagpole, one group wanted to abolish the NYS government (sadly, they just want to vote out the existing state government and replace it with a new one - false advertisement if you ask me), one guy wants a NYS referendum, and all sorts of little pet projects. Campaign for LIberty were there, and as you can guess that I tended to agree with them the most, as they were pushing to End the Fed and for sound monetary policy and all that. Biggest peeve was the John Birch Society, who said we need to enforce immigration laws because "Mexicans are stealing our jobs" (it's sad that he's probably never read Bastiat, considering it was a John Birch film that introduced me to Bastiat). I have no idea how you can claim to support the free market and then ramble on with very basic economic fallacies. There were a few various sorts of people who handed out stuff - some marijuana legalization folks, some guy who handed out some short prose about supporting the troops, some guy handed out something about an alternative currency (not Liberty Dollar, but still a silver and gold private currency), 9/11 truthers, and there was one lone libertarian anarchist.

I suppose overall, I except the premise (that the state government is getting far too big), I just don't except the various conclusions or in some cases, the rhetoric to reach that conclusion.

This summer is gonna be awesome

champthom — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:04:00 GMT

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.

Introduction

champthom — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 05:49:00 GMT

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.