And the whole world is right.
“With all due respect, U.S. policy is clueless,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told a conference. “(The problem) is not a shortage of liquidity. It’s not that the Americans haven’t pumped enough liquidity into the market, and now to say let’s pump more into the market is not going to solve their problems.”
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The next step, hopefully, will be for the ‘whole world’ to say that Keynes was an idiot (or at least loudly proclaim that he was nothing but a closet socialist).
They are also idiots no less. Most of their objections are usually for reasons that are as idiotic as the policy they object to.
Two observations:
Not only can the rest of the world hate us for our militarism, now they can hate us for screwing up their economies.
You know you’re in deep when the Communists say, “The artificial setting of a numerical target cannot but remind us of the days of planned economies”.
From DiLorenzo:
“During the post-war occupation of Germany, American ‘planners’ rather liked the Nazi economic controls, including price controls, that were in fact preventing economic recovery. The notorious Nazi Hermann Göring even lectured the American war correspondent Henry Taylor about it! As recounted by Schuettinger and Butler, Goering said:
‘Your America is doing many things in the economic field which we found out caused us so much trouble. You are trying to control peoples’ wages and prices — peoples’ work. If you do that you must control peoples’ lives. And no country can do that part way. I tried and it failed. Nor can any country do it all the way either. I tried that too and it failed. You are no better planners than we. I should think your economists would read what happened here.’”
Even the highest-ranking Nazis figured this stuff out. A little late, but still.
By “we”, I thought you meant Austrians. That would be unfortunately close to the truth.
Congratulations. You have proven the correctness of your assertions beyond any reasonable doubt, and have shamed my into giving up Austrian economics and free-market libertarianism because you implied that they are idiotic.
I hope that you come back to blog.mises.org everyday just to disparage those poor idiots that continue to rely on self evident axioms, ceteris paribus logic, and making falsifiable claims about the human economy.
Any chance you have a better theory, or do you just know that Austrians are wrong? For that matter, are you reacting emotionally, or do you actually have proof that Austrians are wrong? I’d really like to know, because apparently what I believe is stupid.
When we start gathering trolls, you know we’re doing something right.
Yes, of course.
Why, pray tell? I’ll be charitable and assume you mean the “world” (Keynesian/monetarist ignoramuses) thinks Austrians are idiots, and not that they are actually idiots.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Lee was saying that it’s true that Austrians are idiots. I think he was saying that it’s true that the world says Austrians are idiots.
The Reuters article is clueless. The claim that the “whole world” opposed QE2 is rubbish.
The markets have welcomed it:
World stock markets rally on Fed move
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/04/world-stock-markets-rally-federal-reserve
So has the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund:
http://imarketnews.com/node/21831
Thanks for the news flash: Central Bankers and Their Crony-Insiders Cheer Self-Serving Actions of Other Central Bankers.
Well, knock me over with a feather.
Next you’ll tell me that protected industries applaud increases in protectionist legislation. Any more stunning revelations, genius?
Read: whatever opposes Keynesian religious doctrine is “rubbish”. Well that proves it.
To quote Dennis Hopper from the under-rated Waterworld: the turd that wouldn’t flush.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gold is not pleased.
The claim that the “whole world” opposed QE2 is rubbish.
That is MY assertion. It is completely correct.
Your straw man (“whatever opposes Keynesian religious doctrine is “rubbish”) is pointless.
In any case, QE is an essentially monetarist policy. Keynesians are saying correctly that it will not stimulate demand much at all, just as it did not in Japan.
What is needed is fiscal policy.
So you can’t even distinguish Keynesianism from monetarism.
Actually I’m pretty sure even inflationist neo-Banking-School hacks like the Friedmanite monetarists, obsessed with monetary price and allegedly inflation derived financial stability and presuming that restructuring of the economy is inherently inefficient during prolonged deflation essentially because they presume the paradox of thrift, would not support further quantitative easing. This is because they would support containment of liquidity crises by expanding the money supply, not inflation for the sake of raising prices if there is no bank crash looming contingent on the system being without inflation, as without it a banking crash would arise from to excess leverage on malinvestments and pyramiding of bad loans on tiny reserves allowed by the system of fiduciary media redeemable in nothing but printable fiat money. On that note the German’s analysis is correct insofar as there not being a liquidity crisis but rather a balance sheet problem of unliquidated debt which is hardly eased by quantitative easing when that devalues some of their good assets as creditors. Anyway I somehow doubt that an Austrian is incapable of distinguishing between between monetarist who argue for inflation on the basis of restricting liquidity crises that might cause solvent institutions to go bankrupt, and the Keynesianism of praising prices to lower liquidity preference and speculative hoarding, as they think that not spending destroys the economy and doesn’t allow production for the future, future-oriented production enabled and impelled by low profit in production for the present, that is clearly the productive system of low or no present consumption.
“That is MY assertion. It is completely correct.”
…based on what?
“Keynesians are saying correctly that it will not stimulate demand much at all, just as it did not in Japan. What is needed is fiscal policy.”
No, what is needed is economic sanity, not more idiotic spend spend spend spend spend till you’re dead lamebrain policies.
“So you can’t even distinguish Keynesianism from monetarism.”
How, pray tell, will Keynesians finance their fiscal policies…?
“That is MY assertion. It is completely correct.”
…based on what?
The claim of this Mises article is bascially “all the world opposes QE2″.
This could be interpreted in a few ways:
Proposition 1: All people in the world oppose QE2, outside the US
Utterly false. The chief economist of the International Monetary Fund supports the move.
The markets reacted positively which suggests large numbers of investors approving the move:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/global-markets/Asian-markets-rise-as-traders-welcome-US-easing-plan/articleshow/6869605.cms
Proposition 2: All government leaders in the world oppose QE2
Wrong. Thailand’s Finance Minister has supported it:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-06/thailand-splits-with-emerging-markets-over-outlook-for-fed-bond-purchases.html
Simple empirical evidence.
I checked with the Finance Minister of Antarctica (currently GWAR’s manager, Sleazy P. Martini), and he also supports QE2. However, he keeps us well “medicated”, if you catch my drift, so who am I to complain?
And you can check with the millions of investors who have given a vote of confidence through the markets IN QE2 while your about it.
But wait!! Millions of international investors don’t matter, do they?
I’m sorry, you have proof that they actually support it as opposed to gaming the system? Come out with it.
The Grand Poobah of Pedanticland, Hans Asperger, has also weighed in: yep, you guessed it — supports QE2.
Add him to the list, dude! You’re on a roll!
Or substitute all, for most, you know, because “all” isn’t to be taken literally. I know Keynesians can only think in the simplest black and white terms.
These days, Keynesian is a pejorative term used by those who’ve never even read, let alone digested, Keynes. This phenomena is worse on Zero Hedge than it is on LRC or the MI Blog.
The singular is phenomenon, by the way. As for the rest: ipse dixit.
Yeah sure we haven’t.
Which is the reason that this school has actually written detailed critiques of the Whole Keynesian system.
You know, like “Failure of the New Economics”
Or “Dissent on Keynes”
Or George Reisman’s extremely detailed account of the system in his “Capitalism”.
We clearly have never really read him.
We have not “digested him” because he makes us vomit whenever we read him. We TRY to swallow his crap but it so amazingly bad that we can;t keep it down. When a fundamental point of your economic system is that the interest rate does not perform any socially useful function, and you’re only causation for a recession is “animal spirits” , we are supposed to accept this as legitimate economic analysis?
Are we supposed to take this seriously?
“And that’s why Austrian economics is a pitiful bunch of cultists confined to the margins of the economics spectrum. It’s as irrelevant as Marxism.”
Well if utter and pure bullshit is taken for “logical” economic analysis, sure. You’ve sure as hell done nothing to successfully defend your religion from criticisms on this site, in fact you’ve come across like a rather pitiful idiotic troll, so why is it you think it is Austrianism (which your Messiah, Krugman, is too afraid to even debate on and which your other Messiah, Brad DeLong cannot even get right a fraction of the time) is “irrelevant”? Irrelevant to people who praise illogic and like dwelling in little comfort zones that tell them “everything will be OK if you just keep up with the heroin injections”? You should be shouted out as the fucking quacks you are.
For you, a free economy, people exchanging on a voluntarily and untampered basis, is an unwanted situation. A lazy ass’ mentality, like a baker that bakes crap instead of bread, and instead of doing better, forces people to buy it nonetheless, at a set price.
Voila, ‘State’ has born, Inquisitor. That is your… ‘religion’, haha.
The best “achievement” of said baker isn’t that he forces people to buy baked shit but that there will always be some professorial lout voraciously shoving it in his face as if it was divine ambrosia.
Even in the Gulags, people wept when Stalin died. Though granted, at least a quarter of them from happiness.
These days, Keynesian is a pejorative term used by those who’ve never even read, let alone digested, Keynes. This phenomena is worse on Zero Hedge than it is on LRC or the MI Blog.
These days, astrology is a pejorative term used by those who’ve never even read, let alone digested, Jeane Dixon. This phenomena is worse at the MIT Astrophysics Division than it is on nasa.gov.
There. Fixed it for you.
“Stupid is as stupid does.”
Link
I am reminded of famous quote by Baron Rothschild in the 18th century: the time to buy up assets in a country is when there’s blood in the streets. That is, at a time of maximum chaos when people are as eager as possible to sell what assets they have just in order to survive the strife and bloodshed around them.
It’s one thing to buy low when, due to circumstances completely beyond your control, “sh_t happens”. It’s another thing if you actually hold the power to help make sh_it happen. That is why some of the more paranoid observers of the financial world detect behind the operations of the Fed and the EUCB a willful urge to destruction.
Just saying.
Thanks Henry. It was Roosevelt, if I recall correctly, who said basically that if anything big happens, it was planned that way. It continues to annoy me that the rich and powerful are considered stupid as they become yet more rich and powerful by their “stupid” actions. Seems like I would have to be stupid to believe that…
A little reminder of the irrelevance of the recent elections:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_biden_israel
Beefcake,
You may have missed it, but Obama was not up for re-election this round.
This Republic thing isn’t like Alkaseltzer.
I think it was Ben Franklin who responded to the question, “Well, did you form a Republic or a Monarchy?” with “A Republic, if you can keep it.”.
Or maybe I missed your point, again?
This just in, rom the Financial Times:
Zoellick seeks gold standard debate
By Alan Beattie in Washington
Published: November 7 2010 22:31 | Last updated: November 7 2010 22:31
Leading economies should consider readopting a modified global gold standard to guide currency movements, argues the president of the World Bank.
Writing in the Financial Times, Robert Zoellick, the bank’s president since 2007, says a successor is needed to what he calls the “Bretton Woods II” system of floating currencies that has held since the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime broke down in 1971.
Mr Zoellick, a former US Treasury official, calls for a system that “is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and a renminbi that moves towards internationalisation and then an open capital account”. He adds: “The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values.”
His views reflect disquiet with the international system, where persistent Chinese management of the renminbi is blamed by the US and others for contributing to global current account imbalances and creating capital markets distortions.
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