Paul Krugman seems to have a very unhealthy obsession with Austrian economics and especially the school’s theory of the business cycle. More than two decades ago, he attacked it (wrongly calling it a “Hangover Theory” and trying to make a morality play out of it), claiming it had the credibility of the “phlogiston theory of fire.”
Originally published by American Thinker.
In the view of most economic illiterates, speculators do not bake bread; they do not supply medicines; they are AWOL when it comes to working on the shop floor; they don’t teach math or the cello. They are thus parasites on others who do supply such needed everyday goods and services.
After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed
By Andrew Bacevich
Metropolitan Books, 2021
Xiv + 206 pages
Andrew Bacevich, a history professor at Boston University for twenty-three years, has written an excellent book on American foreign policy, but it is embedded within a larger and more questionable book. Fortunately, the merits of the former book outweigh the problems of the latter.
The deep political and moral divisions between Americans were plainly exposed during the controversy over the police sparked by the death of George Floyd. The Left further radicalized, while conservatives dug their heels deeper into the status quo, staunchly defending what appeared to them a hallmark institution of Western civilization.
Jeff Deist: You recently completed a series of articles for the Mises Institute, which we will publish in book form, on how money works today. Why is it important for average people to understand the mechanics of the plumbing of central and commercial banks?
In a recent column for the New York Times, the world’s most famous Keynesian, Paul Krugman, attacked Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT).
