The Mises Community

Achilles and the Tortoise

triknighted — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:22:56 GMT

What's your beef with Roderick Long and "left-libertarianism"?

Evilsceptic — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:29:06 GMT

[split from here in May low content thread]

John James:

Replace self-proclaimed "left-libertarian" Roderick Long with Lew Rockwell, and I'd probably use that poster.

What's your beef with Roderick Long?

When ethics break down

Wheylous — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:49:42 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/indian-state-oks-shooting-tiger-poachers-sight-124532261.html

No ethical argument's gonna work here.

What Kind of Military Intervention Into Other Countries Is Acceptable?

TheFinest — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:07:32 GMT

For instances in the cases of Libya, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc. was it necessarily a bad thing to take the side of the people against the oppressive governments?

Initially, this was one topic where I thought the right thing to do was a no brainer...don't get involved. But thinking of atrocities like those committed in Rwanda where NATO occupation could have prevented such a horror has made me rethink my whole position. People argue that Kosovo or Libya could have ended up much much worse without NATO help, and on those points it's hard to argue. War Hawks even go on to say that if you slap on a Marshall Plan in places like Libya, that everything after the conflict will be right as rain.

Communicating the Idea of Rational Human Behavior

Ancap66 — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:26:15 GMT

In the past, I found it difficult to get the anarchy-is-chaos idea out of my head. I felt that anarcho-capitalist preachers didn't sufficiently explain the underpinnings of rational human behavior. They place more of an emphasis on economic theory. Praxeology is complicated for the average person; I think it could be simplified for communication purposes. I haven't delved into the subject yet; this is just a reward/penalty explanation that I will build on.

Rational self-interest:

A rational and self-interested person seeks to minimize the risks posed by their environment and maximize the resources that can be acquired from it. In other words, he or she seeks to minimize penalties and maximize rewards.

Peaceful cooperation:

A group of rational and self-interested persons (regardless of size) will peacefully cooperate to achieve shared ends if the consequent reward outweighs the penalty.
Peaceful cooperation enables the division of labor, i.e. cooperative specialization in specific tasks and roles; and trade, i.e. mutually-beneficial exchanges of resources.
The division of labor and trade results in far greater productivity, and therefore higher living standards.
The penalty for peaceful cooperation is the deferred satisfaction of less urgent impulses, desires and appetites.
The long-term reward for peaceful cooperation outweighs the short-term penalty.

Using Aggression:

A rational and self-interested person will refrain from using aggression against others if the risk outweighs the reward.
The penalty associated with aggression is ostracism from groups of cooperative people, resulting in significantly less opportunities for improving living standards.
The reward for using aggression is the immediate satisfaction of impulses, desires and appetites.

The long-term penalty associated with aggression outweighs the short-term reward.

Therefore:

A rational and self-interested person will not only refrain from using aggression, but will also peacefully cooperate with other persons to achieve shared ends.

What was the cause of the Great Depression of 1929?

Dylan of Rivia — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:34:23 GMT

Bryan Caplan writes:

What was the reason for the pre-war depression anyway? A large consensus of economic historians argues, persuasively in my view, that the essential cause of the Great Depression was the international monetary contraction of the late 20's and early 30's. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States [105] was the seminal academic work which established the magnitude and importance of the monetary contraction in the United States. Barry Eichengreen's Golden Fetters [106] largely extends Friedman and Schwartz's argument to the international economy, showing how the gold standard re-established after World War I was very shaky and wound up yielding an international monetary contraction."

Thoughts, ideas and opinions about this common explanation?

"Incendiary" economics video - is it correct?

Mtn Dew — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:21:11 GMT

http://business.time.com/2012/05/18/was-nick-hanauers-ted-talk-on-income-inequality-too-rich-for-rich-people/

Just got an email from someone in an email chain saying how great this talk was. Can anyone count the fallacies?

Question

hashem — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:48:26 GMT

If government suddenly had the option to have everything they want without the need (or option) to dominate and rob and humiliate and rape and murder and mame and destroy, would they take it?

The Free Market and Free Will

triknighted — Sun, 20 May 2012 03:07:09 GMT

Silver is Back in the 20's! - 5/24

limitgov — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:15:51 GMT

Silver is around 28....

Nice. I'm hoping with EU problems and possibly collapse, the dollar will look even stronger and silver will go down (in terms of US dollars) even more.

But, just so I'm getting this right...you still are charged about 1-2 dollars over actual price at coin shops...which is about 5% and then you're still charged about 8.5% sales tax...

so you'll still lose around 5 + 8.5% = 13-14%

Is Civilization Evil?

Clayton — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 05:11:40 GMT

This is the official Freedom4Me thread. F4M, can you please post your anti-civilization posts to this thread instead of the low-content threads? We will be just as happy to debunk and ridicule you in this thread and forego the cluttering up of the low-content threads.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Clayton -

What, if anything, is wrong with chaos?

triknighted — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:48:15 GMT

Being new to this forum, I'm learning quite a bit, most recently that there is a distinction made between anarchy and chaos. I have listed the etymological roots of both for the sake of context:

anarchy (n.): 1530s, from Fr. anarchie or directly from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader, the state of people without a government" (in Athens, used of the Year of Thirty Tyrants, 404 B.C., when there was no archon), noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + arkhos "leader" (see archon).

chaos: mid-15c., "gaping void," from L. chaos, from Gk. khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, is vast and empty," from *khnwos, from PIE root *gheu-, *gh(e)i- "to gape" (cf. Gk khaino "I yawn," O.E. ginian, O.N. ginnunga-gap; see yawn). Meaning "utter confusion" (c.1600) is extended from theological use of chaos for "the void at the beginning of creation" in Vulgate version of Genesis. The Greek for "disorder" was tarakhe, however the use of chaos here was rooted in Hesiod ("Theogony"), who describes khaos as the primeval emptiness of the Universe, begetter of Erebus and Nyx ("Night"), and in Ovid ("Metamorphoses"), who opposes Khaos to Kosmos, "the ordered Universe." Chaos theory in the modern mathematical sense is attested from c.1977.

So I have to ask, what, if anything, is wrong with chaos? Why stop at anarchy (or anarcho-capitalism)?

Ron Paul will win majority of Delegates in Louisiana!

Bill — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:06:06 GMT

Everyone knows Rick Santorum won the La. GOP Primary. What most people don't know is the Primary is just a dog and pony show.

The vote that counts will be on April 28th a Saturday from 8:30am till noon. Most people don't know that. I live in Louisiana and I haven't heard anything on the local news. The polling places are not the same as in the primary and are subject to change even at this late date. If you are a Registered Republcan and live in La you are elegible to vote in the Rep caucus. Voter turnout is bound to be very low. Santorum is out of the race and Romney is about as exciting as one of those drug commercials (a short list of benefits and a long list of side effects).

If you want Dr. Paul on the ballot it's very important to vote in this caucus. You will be able to vote for 25 delegates and 12 alternate delegates. Ron Paul supporters will have a table at each polling location and they will have a full slate of delegates for you to choose.http://lagop.com/2012/03/2012-caucus-locations/ Go here for the polling place near you. Ultimately the delegates will chose who runs for President on the GOP ticket. Since I believe Dr Paul's supporters tend to be more informed and dedicated than the average Republican I expect them to sweep the State. If you qualify to vote in this caucus please take a half hour on Saturday April 28th and vote.

My name is Bill Smith. I'll be on the ballot in the 1st Congressional district of Louisiana as an alternate delegate. If I can help or if you would like to join the growing list of Ron Paul supporters please call me at (985) 201-1804 or email me at billsmith3737@yahoo.com.

* May 2012 low content thread *

John James — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:32:27 GMT

In this thread we post short things that don't require a seperate thread.

Previous low content threads:

April 2012
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/28697.aspx

March 2012
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/28350.aspx

February 2012
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/27995.aspx

January 2012
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/27526.aspx

December 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/27178.aspx

November 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/26855.aspx

October 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/26422.aspx

September 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/26084.aspx

August 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/25783.aspx

July 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/25323.aspx

June 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24987.aspx

May 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/24393.aspx

April 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/23834.aspx

March 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/23166.aspx

February 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/22523.aspx

January 2011
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/21877.aspx

December 2010
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/21375.aspx

November 2010
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/20722.aspx

October 2010
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/20457.aspx

This was posted in the last low content thread, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw it...

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Jevon's Paradox?

Jackson LaRose — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:23:22 GMT

Did a quick search, but didn't find any discussions on this topic. Wanted to get a feel for what the Mises community had to say:

Jevon's Paradox

Does this imply some sort of inherent insatiability in our current social structures?

I don't think it is possible to engage other schools of thought on non-meta issues

vive la insurrection — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:53:16 GMT

I doubt their is any reason for someone taking an Austrian position to argue with a non Austrian school of thought on something like ABCT, or whatever and actually mean anything.

We can only argue about what the nature, scope and definition of not only economics but the social sciences as a whole are if anything is to make sense to any side. Arguing about things that are a mere consequence of the methodology is helping no one, and there is no way it can possibly make sense to anyone.

Austrians may get made fun of for worrying about such "meta" issues, because it isn't fashionable to think about such things; but like it or not, this is ultimately all that matters if one cares about thinking about the Austrian view as the legit way to do science.

But if you think about it: How the hell do you expect to talk to a dialectical materialist, a Keynesian or whatever about anything but the very very basics first? I don't think it can be done. You have to agree on the alphabet before you can construct a sentence.

The fundamental problem with 'Science'

sallystrothers — Thu, 24 May 2012 01:23:17 GMT

Science, as it is known in the mainstream, is very seriously flawed and few people talk about it. The flaw is requirement to use faith in accepting your hypothesis no matter how strong the evidence supporting it; the problem is that science touts itself as the disciplined practice of using measured evidence to make a statement about the observable world. In reality science can only disprove statements on a very limited and measurable set of variables.

In the maximum likelihood statistical realm there are two hypotheses: the null hypothesis and the alternate hypothesis. The null hypothesis is evaluated against emperical evidence and can therefore never be accepted. It can only be rejected or there is a failure to reject because only measurable evidence can be used to evaluate the null hypothesis.

If the null hypothesis has a failure to reject, a leap of faith is generally made to accept the alternate hypothesis. This leap of faith is based purely on negative, or disproving emperical evidence around the null hypothesis. Let's say there is a hypothesis, 100 measurable variables that influence the outcome, and 1000 unmeasurable variables that influence the outcome. The observer can only do one of two things: [1] reject the null hypothesis based on any one of the 100 variables or fail to reject based on the 100 variables. They are entirely unable to accept the null hypothesis because there are an additional 1000 unmeasurable variables. The observer typically will then accept the alternate hypothesis on a statement of faith that they believe (completely absent of emperical evidence) the other 1000 variables are not influencing the outcome.

The problem is dramatically compounded by the fact that those 1000 extra variables are actually the multiplicative product of every conceivable combination of treatments within each variable; these are also known as interactions and there could literally be billions, quadtrillions, etc. of them for more complex systems.

I rarely meet scientists who understand this. They don't realize that everytime they perform an experiment and accept any hypothesis they do so on faith. No different than the religious people they often belittle.

Permanent Keynesian Refutation Thread

Luis Buenaventura — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:24:08 GMT

I think it would be more productive to make a nice, long thread that posts point by point refutations of Keynesian methodology (for newcomers), if it starts falling down I'll bump it-this will save us the need of continuously re-writing the same thing. Also, please don't go off in wild tangents.

Thanks,

Luis Buenaventura

Hoppe and the Malthusian Trap

Fephisto — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:16:56 GMT

There is a speech by Hoppe about how the Malthusian Trap laid the conditions for the Industrial Revolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsmRIxjJ31s

I just want to address concerns I have regarding the arguments presented in this speech.

-The economics of the situation seem circular. If there really is a Malthusian trap scenario, then the geography of its occurrence is irrelevant. I.e., being in a harsher climate only means that the average optimal rate of population would be lower than in a more temperate or humid climate. Because the Malthusian Trap occurs in both situations, the only difference being a difference in population, then there is no significant difference in hardship and thus the sociobiological argument breaks down. (in fact, I would think this would work _against_ his sociobiological argument, since a larger population gives a larger chance of beneficial selection)
--This is assuming away issues of an evolutionary timescale (although, if the sociobiological argument was based on a epigenetic preference, or a very vague meaning of the word 'evolution', then I could see the argument being plausibly formulated).
-Even assuming away this argument (say, to give the benefit of the doubt, that the Malthusian Trap was meant to give an indication to the quality of hardship as opposed to the quantity), one would have to assume exceedingly rigid labor movement. If the primary factor that caused regions to get out of the Malthusian Trap and into a state of industrialization was some semblance of a higher than average IQ of the general population to be able to effectively utilize machinery, then in the marginal time period leading up to this point in history, there must have been exceeding comparative gains in such individuals compared to the general population, that they would be favored in a social Darwin sense. Put more succinctly, there is easier profit and capitalization to be made in an industrializing economy than in an industrialized economy (i.e., if a town does not have a well nor even knows what wells are, then it is obvious to any braindead expat what he could probably make a lot of money on).
--Note that this argument leads back to the common Mises/Rothbard explanation of the industrial revolution: a proclivity of necessary conditions of economic freedom.
---Which reminds me to note that I don't really understand, nor really remember, any sufficient counterargument on the part of Hoppe on the Mises/Rothbard explanation.
--(As a sidenote: think of all of the smart scientists, engineers, and what-not that immigrate to the United States)

Austerity In Ireland Disproving Krugman?

pairunoyd — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:48:27 GMT

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/340331/20120512/debt-europe-budget-crisis-ireland-france-greece.htm

But while Paris and Athens have rebelled against Berlin-inspired discipline, one country has embraced the austerity model without, it seems, without so much as a murmur.

Ireland -- the Celtic Tiger so viciously declawed after its housing bubble imploded in 2008 -- has taken the harsh medicine dutifully and, unlike its testy European peers, grimly borne budget cuts and tax hikes with minimal protest.

In December 2010, the government accepted an €85 billion loan from the EU and International Monetary Fund in exchange for budget cuts amounting to €15 billion.

And, on the surface, the strategy of cuts, cuts, and more cuts appears to be working. The country's underlying budget deficit last year fell to 9.4 percent of gross domestic product, below the target of 10.6 percent agreed to with the EU and IMF.

Added to this, Ireland's unemployment rate was down slightly to 14.2 percent from 14.3 percent in December; it has avoided recent euro-zone downgrades by Fitch and S&P; and its 10-year government bond yields have fallen to less than 7.0 percent from 14.5 percent.

"Ireland is not doing too badly," according to Cillian Ryan, dean of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Birmingham in England. "They have managed to find something to replace the cutbacks in government spending," he said.

Minor Website Issues

Peter Sidor — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:08:14 GMT

You know it. Every website, that has been around for a while tends to accumulate small problems, typos, migration issues and other ballast. Even with the best webmasters, big websites will have their imperfections hidden in odd corners, waiting to jump on unsuspecting visitors and spoil their experience.

This thread is here to collect such minor issues, so that the webmasters can attend to them, when they have time. If you find some problems, add them. Let's keep the place in shape!

- The link from Mises's biography (http://mises.org/about/3248) to "Books and Essays from Mises (complete text)" doesn't work (is http://mises.org/studyguide.aspx?action=author&Id=280, should probably be http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=author&Id=280, if there's not a list of study guides on his works or something)
- Same page, the link to the downloadable photographs is http://mises.org/content/mises.asp#photos, #photos would be sufficient
- The link to Bettina B. Greaves's Annotated Bibliography of Ludwig von Mises (http://mises.org/product.asp?sku=B051) should be http://www.mises.org/store/Product.aspx?ProductId=24 or http://www.mises.org/store/Product.aspx?ProductId=25 (if they aren't really the same)
- "Who was Mises" on http://mises.org/misestributes/misesjgh.asp has an unformatted title
- "The Story of the Lost Papers" (http://mises.org/lostpapers.asp) has some broken special characters, mostly from German umlauts ( G?tz Aly, D?sseldorf, Germany: Hans-Bl?ckler-Stiftung, Moscow?s, Beuteakten aus ?sterreich: Der ?sterreichbestand, Instituts f?r Kriegsfolgen, J?rg Guido H?lsmann, H?lsmann)
- in the FAQ http://www.mises.org/about/3467#reprint, "every text much be treated in a special way"
- FAQ http://www.mises.org/about/3467#other missing an LvM Institute in Brazil: http://www.mises.org.br/
- where's the Russian one? The closest thing I could find is this: http://www.libertarium.ru/libertarium 'Moscow Libertarium' (http://www.libertarium.ru/libertarium/l_eproject)
- the Bibliography for Frank Fetter page referred to by several pages is missing: http://www.mises.org/fetterbib.asp
- in Rothbard's works, the "Praxeology: The Methodology of Austrian Economics" is displayed twice. Same file, same description, different 'Related' tags.
- in the biography of A.R.J. Turgot (http://mises.org/about/3244) is a header gone wrong, close to the bottom of the page: selected="true"="true" READINGS
- in A Scholar in Defense of Freedom (http://mises.org/content/mnrasidof.asp), misformatted header
- The Unstoppable Rothbard (http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1708) a 'link' across multiple lines
- http://mises.org/about/3241 Wilhelm Röpke (1899-1966): Humane Economist, malformatted headers; also odd bibliography
- the RSS link in Literature and related pages under the 'Filter By' menu does not work (other RSS links work)

- in the Literature search, it says in nice large letters how many results were found, but not what exactly was searched for. Unusual. (Okay, this is more of a change request.)

Thoughts on this SF School of Economics

ViennaSausage — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:05:49 GMT

http://sfschoolofeconomics.com

I was at the Peter Schiff meeting in SFO Thanksgiving Weekend. The place was packed, standing room only. While he was giving his speech, I stumbled upon a flyer lying around promoting the San Francisco School of Economics (It had nothing to do with Schiff himself.)

What are your thoughts on this School of Economics? There seem to be some parallels with Austrian Economics, but not exactly. From my understanding, SF School of Economics has its roots with Henry George, a contemporary of Boem-Bawerk and Bastiat.

The road to Austrian school

Anton — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 17:16:09 GMT

As a newcomer to the Mises Community I would like first of all say "hello" to all of you. Secondly, I would like to share with you my story of becoming an Austrian and, consequently, libertarian.

Reading in last August comments on an article on The Economist which, as I now realize, contained a fundamental disagreement between keinesians and austrians - on the role of savings in economy, I was attracted by a post suggesting reading Henry Hazlitt's "Failure of the New Economics" as a brilliant rebuttal of keynesism as well as other works on "Austrian theory of business cycle". As an undegraduate with major in economics I was intrigued by such an expression unknown to me (even though I've already attended course on macroeconomics), so I started searching for details. Wikipedia provided me with basic information on the Austrian school and its main scholars. After half an hour or so I visited for the first time Ludwig von Mises Institute site and was at once impressed by the availability of free resouces and studying materials on the subject.

During the following months I' ve been constantly reading articles (particularly enjoing Robert P. Murphy's ones) published there and looking through Literature and Media sections of the site. I also downloaded some works on ATBC and listened to the audios in Beginner's Guide in order to get some idea of the Austrian school...

Well, that's enough I think. All I wanted to say is that purely by accidence I found out about Mises, Hayek, Rothboard, and their great heritage which has been abandoned for a long time and which is maintained by this great source of knowledge.

So, how did you become an Austrian?

Sorry for my English

PJTV stumbles to a new low: d**k measuring

John James — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:03:28 GMT

I am not kidding.

(I actually feel kind of sorry for this guy.)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

MA forces delegates to sign affidavit to vote for Romney

Aristophanes — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:46:55 GMT

Dear Massachusetts Republican Delegates and Massachusetts Republican Alternate Delegates,

Under the rules of the Massachusetts Republican Party Plan, for the selection of delegates and the rules of the National Republican Party, the Avocation Committee charged with certifying Massachusetts delegates for the 2012 RNC in Tampa, Florida requires each elected delegate and alternate to sign, under the pains and penalties of perjury, the herewith enclosed affirmation, and to be returned on or before 3pm May 29, 2012 to the Massachusetts Republican Party at 85 Merimack Street, Suite 400, Boston MA 02114.

Electronic delivery, in any form, will not be accepted. Your failure to duly and timely remit the enclosed affidavit will put your status as a delegate in jeopardy.

Sincerely

Ed McGrath
Allocation Committee Chairman

- - - - - A f f a d a v i t: - - - - -

I ______ residing at _____ in ______ MA, was elected at the ______ Congressional District Caucus held in _____ MA on April 28, 2012 as a National Delegate / Alternate Delegate to the 2012 Republican National Convention. In accordance with Sections 70b and 70i, Chapter 53 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Republican Party Plan for the selection of delegates to the Tampa Florida 2012 National Convention and Rule 15 of the Rules of the Republican Party, I certify under the pain and penalty of perjury, that on the first ballot at the 2012 Republican National Convention, I will affirmatively Vote for Mitt Romney, the winner of the 2012 Massachusetts Presidential Primary.

The GOP doesn't want to be embarrased. I say we riot [figuratively of course ;) ]

I'm enraged over this. Literally.

I didn't agree with Lew ROckwell when he suggested that the Paul delegates stay home, but I either think that we do that or go balls to the wall and disrupt that bitchfest convention as much as possible. They won't respect us in the least, but I've already heard Paul supporters say that NAP should be followed...we remember two people for non violence in the last...how many centuries?

I remember John Brown, Alexander, Joan of Arc, etc.

Just as Malcolm X said 'We must retain the threat of violence lest we be laughed out of relevancy.'

Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet; audio version here

The Mises Community

Achilles and the Tortoise

What's your beef with Roderick Long and "left-libertarianism"?

When ethics break down

What Kind of Military Intervention Into Other Countries Is Acceptable?

Communicating the Idea of Rational Human Behavior

What was the cause of the Great Depression of 1929?

"Incendiary" economics video - is it correct?

Question

The Free Market and Free Will

Silver is Back in the 20's! - 5/24

Is Civilization Evil?

What, if anything, is wrong with chaos?

Ron Paul will win majority of Delegates in Louisiana!

*** May 2012 low content thread ***

Jevon's Paradox?

I don't think it is possible to engage other schools of thought on non-meta issues

The fundamental problem with 'Science'

Permanent Keynesian Refutation Thread

Hoppe and the Malthusian Trap

Austerity In Ireland Disproving Krugman?

Minor Website Issues

Thoughts on this SF School of Economics

The road to Austrian school

PJTV stumbles to a new low: d**k measuring

MA forces delegates to sign affidavit to vote for Romney

* May 2012 low content thread *