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Source link: http://archive.mises.org/9176/one-cheer-for-paul-krugman-or-why-the-bubble-economy/

One Cheer for Paul Krugman, or Why the Bubble Economy?

January 1, 2009 by

As a long-time critic of the part-time economist and full-time political partisan Paul Krugman, I would be remiss if I did not give him at least some credit for being able to point out the obvious: Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme really is a prototype for the modern US economy.Yes, Krugman is right, but, alas, I am also required to add that a broken clock is still more consistent at telling time than Krugman is at explaining economic phenomena. FULL ARTICLE

{ 47 comments }

Inquisitor January 1, 2009 at 10:12 am

I’d like to see Krugman present analysis on the level displayed by this article in his own popular writings.

gene berman January 1, 2009 at 10:27 am

Inquisitor:

So would we all. But then…he wouldn’t be Krugman.

gene berman January 1, 2009 at 10:53 am

Dr. Anderson:

I don’t know whether there’s such a thing to which the name “Law of cause and effect” applies. As far as I can see, we know nothing more of it than it’s an integral part of the structure of the human mind we call “logical,” to which our thought is necessarily subordinate (and much the same can be said for the idea of “time”; which, whether a real thing or not, is indispensable to all thinking, that which enables differentiation between “want” and ‘satisfaction” or, indeed, between “cause” and “effect.”

Every now and then (not more often than once a decade, I assure you!) I muse on whether, when they finally succeed in producing “artificial intelligence” with spoken (or typewritten) output. a vocabulary comprising all known words (in at least one language), and a logical structure of mind, whether it would be capable, as real, live humans undoubtedly are, of making nonsense statements or using words that, in combination, make no sense.

D. Saul Weiner January 1, 2009 at 11:28 am

One other point which always bears repeating. Does not the tremendous milititarization of the U.S. economy also hamper the productive segments?

john January 1, 2009 at 12:30 pm

When you have complete faith in the State, you can easily blame someone else for the problems it sreats. Most of us would rather try to patch the problem than solve it.

Charles January 1, 2009 at 12:34 pm

Inquisitor, I fail to find the level of analysis you tout this article contains. All I find is the author’s allusory use of stifling state regulation. In none of the examples is the type of business or even the offending regulation given. I personally find the article to be nothing short of the typical white-washing with insinuation free-traders espouse.

Brent January 1, 2009 at 12:57 pm

Charles,

They are called daily articles because they are short, which assumes prior knowledge. So, no, the laws of supply and demand weren’t explained and neither were the many other basic economic concepts. The cure for this is to take an economics class or to read a book.

Robert A. Meyer January 1, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Gene Berman: Concerning artificial intelligence. What you said about creating “artificial intelligence” is rather interesting. The questions we must ask is “Does the logical structure of the mind include both sides of the brain? Does it include all the various emotions humans experience along with their power of reason?

If the “artificial intelligence” were solely created with the reasoning side of the brain, it would probably reason efficiently and correctly. If all the various human emotions were included, it would be quite capable of making nonsense statements and arriving at erroneous conclusions.

Of course, I could be missing something in my analysis. However if the “artificial intelligence” is patterned from the totality of the human brain it will probably ignore or disregard cause and effect relationships just as many humans so blatantly do.

David C January 1, 2009 at 2:17 pm

The thing that bothers me about Krugman isn’t his crazy economic theories, but the way he has been so highly propped up as of late. That tells me that the free market is in for a full frontal assault.

cliffrosson January 1, 2009 at 2:36 pm

This is a great article.

“For example, I remember touring a manufacturing plant 20 years ago and the plant manager telling me that nearly all of his new capitalization expenses were going toward pollution-control equipment.”

I think Hazlitt also put it equally well that for every dollar spent or otherwise directed to be spent by the government thats one less dollar spent by private industry. For every state hired employee thats one less employee hired in the private world. For every generic unit of resource consumed by the government, thats one less unit consumed by the people and the free economy.

American’s especially forget that there is a finite amount of raw capital resources (fuels, materials, not money) AND a finite amount of labor. The aged old phrase, you cannot eat your cake and have it to.

My point is, the bigger your government is the smaller your economy is. For everyone dollar spent by the Gov, thats one less dollar available to be spent and directed by consumers and business.

Thanks for the article Mr. Anderson.

Greg Ransom January 1, 2009 at 2:45 pm

Well done.

It’s remarkable how Krugman’s conspiracy theory economics fit so well his crazy guy darting eyes and his rambling, sneering, know it all, crazy guy speeches. The man is a piece of work.

Michael Orlowski January 1, 2009 at 3:13 pm

Krugman and others alike make my blood boil.

Mark Knutson January 1, 2009 at 3:27 pm

Krugman is nothing more than a lite marxist who has earned his pay criticizing bush for the last 8 years. With a democrat in the white house, he will now earn his pay praising the very presidential policies that he faulted bush for.

To generalize a bit, one of the enjoyable aspects of Kindleberger’s book on the 1930s depression is his wry compendium of pronouncements from economic experts, leading wall street financiers, ivy league professors, and so forth, all praising the country’s 1929 financial health and the wisdom of government policies that lead to it.

When listening to the “sage” pronouncements of today’s court intellectuals, I am always reminded of the unanimous blather of the fools, designated as experts and leading the country, in 1929. Hopefully this generation will do a better job of preventing the statist media from turning the blameworthy into heros in the eyes of the uninformed masses like they did with the New Deal.

HCSKnight January 1, 2009 at 3:37 pm

Mr. Anderson,

As someone who shares your admiration for Mr. Krugman it was nice to see a job well done regarding some of Mr. Krugman’s erroneous thoughts.

One thing I’d like to see eloquent apologists such as yourself include more often is the use of the authors own word against their point.

For example, Mr. Krugman wrote; “the average salary of employees in “securities, commodity contracts, and investments” was more than four times the average salary in the rest of the economy”

As my Jesuit philosophy professor drilled in, “define your terms”. Of course Mr. Krugman, conveniently, does not reveal which type of average he is using. It is in these situations I think commentators such as yourself can do great good by explaining the error and deception of using a mean average and the appropriateness of a modal average.

amdg
HCSKnight

Eric January 1, 2009 at 3:37 pm

Over the years (as a computer programmer), I’ve noticed that many people are incapable of keeping more than one level of indirection in their head at one time. And the other area I see the most difficulty is in understanding events where two or more things may happen at the same time.

I think this is the case with Krugman. He simply can’t follow a logical argument that has indirection. And he has a problem understanding that some processes take time.

For example, he gives these two questions on ABCT:

“The trouble with this theory, as I pointed out way back when, is twofold:

1. It doesn’t explain why there isn’t mass unemployment when bubbles are growing as well as shrinking — why didn’t we need high unemployment elsewhere to get those people into the nail-pounding-in-Nevada business?

2. It doesn’t explain why recessions reduce unemployment across the board, not just in industries that were bloated by a bubble.”

I will leave it to others to refute this, although I’m not sure his grammar is even correct. However, he certainly doesn’t seem able to understand that some effects are an indirect effect of some other cause and effect and that some things take time to happen.

peter helbich January 1, 2009 at 4:01 pm

this is vienna austria .where it all began.
mozart, menger, mises, hayek
this theorem proofs mathematically that the austrian school of economics is right.
send it to all your friends and let it loose in the internet

perhards peter helbich

Oil Shock January 1, 2009 at 4:14 pm

Mr. Anderson, Great article. Keep hitting krugpot hard, especially in places where it hurts him the most.

Matt January 1, 2009 at 4:27 pm

Excellent article, Mr. Anderson. I look forward to your semi-weekly Krugman bashing – keep up the great work!

Tom Human January 1, 2009 at 5:58 pm

I also am mystified as to how Dr. Anderson’s article in any way rebuts Dr. Krugman’s arguments.

“Translation: the financial services industry is the cause of wage stagnation elsewhere, as Wall Street has “diverted” wealth that would have gone to other workers.”

The financial services industry has just evaporated the last 20 years of supposed profits it made – profits which turned out to be the result of systematic fraud at all levels.

During that last 20 years, an increasingly large amount of the GNP was diverted to bankers and financiers, even though they were in fact consistently producing negative value during this time (to say nothing of the still-unrealized huge and systematic negative value of a disrupted financial system).

Now these individuals sit on vast fortunes, acquired through crime (at the very least a criminal lack of attention to their specific legally mandated fiduciary responsibilities, but I believe in most cases a more-or-less conscious decision to assume unreasonable risks, knowing that in the final reckoning they would not have to bear responsibility).

Note that similar countries like Canada with stronger regulations have not suffered bank collapses. The regulations actually preserve “free” markets, by preventing criminals from hiding huge risks “in the system” and then getting out while millions of people suffer, some of them knaves, some of them fools (but it’s bad business for the people to allow some of their weaker members to be taken by unscrupulous criminals!), but most of them more or less innocent bystanders, an auto worker, someone’s wife or kid.

Rob of Economic News TV January 1, 2009 at 6:04 pm

HCSknight – I believe he was referring to the mean. It is the most commonly used form of average and is what I generally assume someone means when they say average.

Gurdip Sidhu January 1, 2009 at 6:17 pm

As someone who understands economics, but is not an economist, I found your article very illuminating. However, I cannot refer this article to any of many friends who are not economists, but who would like to understand what is happening, and why. I suggest you summarize your case, not as a criticism of Mr. Krugman, but as a way for my friends to understand the points you are trying to make. That is the only way you are going to hold their attention for the full length of the article. Remember, they are voters.

Eric January 1, 2009 at 9:52 pm

Tom,

I can’t dispute whether Canada has fared well, given their regulations, but wasn’t it a set of regulations, and/or laws that forced lenders here to lower their lending standards?

It seems to me that some regulations do more harm than others. And often some regulations actually are in opposition to others, which makes it almost impossible to comply with the law. And how can you say that it was good regulations that has somehow saved Canadian banks. It may just as well been the absence of bad regulations.

Some effects are seen while others are not. It’s easy to have regulations that ensure that nothing can go wrong; just make sure that nothing can happen at all. And then ignore the lack of growth.

It’s a bit like how some say that Canada has a great socialized health care system and then ignore all the bad effects, such as a 6 months wait to get an MRI. No problem, it’s free, isn’t that great.

Perhaps Canada has yet to create regulations that force bankers to make bad loans. I don’t really know the situation in Canada. Are you from Canada? What happened in Iceland then? Are they working with the criminals in the US? What kind of regulations did they have?

anon January 1, 2009 at 10:49 pm

There’s an old Shostak interview where he concedes that financial deregulation and central banking are fundamentally incompatible. So long as central banking (regulation) exists, financial deregulation is just asking for disaster.

newson January 1, 2009 at 11:33 pm

to anon:
shostak implies not to regulate private banking further, but to get rid of central banking. treat cause not symptoms.

thesprot January 1, 2009 at 11:46 pm

It is difficult to have a debate on these subjects because there are misunderstandings or misinterpretations of basic concepts like free markets deregulation etc .

This because the “deregulation” that Krugman refers to, isn’t exactely Deregulation. In many instances it rewarded some and punished others, it provided access to markets, and unlimited cheap credit to some and restricted it for others.

The introduction of LasVegas slot machines in financial markets is one such case. Under the guise of deregulation officials from the Fed and the government gave free reign on markets to the biggest banks, with an unlimited amount of cash, and with the support of the law, hence making them the biggest market players, who would have the grates influence on market pricing mechanism. This is what led to what many call “financial innovation”. In fact it was more of a financial piracy, most of these products like the myriad of different kinds of derivatives have no place in financial markets but belong in LasVegas. They where allowed to grow to the size they are now, because they provided returns for a long time to firms such as goldman lehman and all, in return these firms provided “prosperity” good stock market performance ( at least in nominal terms ) so government officials could get voted again. “Deregulation” was not deregulation it was more government intervention and corruption. The case of Fenny and Freddie is another example. On one hand greenspan urged the government to do away with these two firms, and on the other he advised the Bush government to ” promote home ownership ” . The reason was that Greenspan wanted the investment banks to take the biggest slice of the pie and not because he loved free market. When that wasn’t possible Greenspan gave the green light investment banks to “Spread Risk” and securitized mortgages, and ofcourse the result was, as everyone knows by now, the CDO square and cubes of all kinds that are infecting balance sheets around the world.

Another point is the free marketeers that Krugman normally refers to, among them the most notable are G.W. Bush, and A. Greenspan. Again we come back to interpretation. These people in the eyes of most austrians, are the opposite of free marketeers, they are the wolf in sheep’s clothing. They are corrupt semi socialisto-fascists, and use free market cache phrases to corrupt even more.

If they really wanted free markets and real deregulation they would have first at the very least limited the interventions by the government and the manipulation of money by the Fed. Instead during their reign we find them being the biggest interventionists and the biggest market manipulators.

So yes Krugman is right to an extent. The actions of these clowns have backfired big time, but contrary to what Krugman believes these actions where not for the purpose of deregulating nor to give free markets a chance. They failed because they increased government intervention, corruption, manipulation, and introduced selective favoritism. In other words they introduced Socialism for the Elite.

Inquisitor January 2, 2009 at 2:16 am

“Inquisitor, I fail to find the level of analysis you tout this article contains. All I find is the author’s allusory use of stifling state regulation. In none of the examples is the type of business or even the offending regulation given. I personally find the article to be nothing short of the typical white-washing with insinuation free-traders espouse.”

It’s still deeper than anything Krugman can produce. Other articles have identified specific regulations ad nauseam. Why should Anderson have to do the same when articles doing so on this site exist?

Tom, why don’t you prove that the regulations helped, as opposed to the US’s regulations aggravating the financial crisis? Perhaps it’s more a matter of one country having even worse regulations than the other. No, not perhaps. That is in fact the case. The best “regulation” Canada could implement is the termination of central banking. Same with every other country in the world.

anon January 2, 2009 at 6:29 am

“shostak implies not to regulate private banking further, but to get rid of central banking. treat cause not symptoms.”

I agree. But central banking will be here for a while llonger, like it or not – I don’t believe a gold standard is ‘perfect’, but it’s definitely necessary in the absence of fiscal and monetary discipline on the part of the state. Countries which have had low money supply growth (~2-3%, similar to what you’d get under a hold standard) have done pretty well.

Michael A. Clem January 2, 2009 at 8:03 am

The problem is that too many mainstream people are equating “deregulation” with the free market. The alleged deregulatory effects are still government actions. In a true laissez-faire free market, the freedom to act is necessarily linked to the responsbility for one’s actions. If people are free to act, but never have to suffer the consequences of bad actions, that means someone else is being forced to suffer instead. This is a crime that, on the scale of the current crisis, only the government could pull off, not a free market.
On the plus side, the crisis is proof that the coercive activities of the Fed and the politicians are not immune to the laws of economics, however much they insist that they are not to blame for it.

newson January 2, 2009 at 9:08 am

anon: “Countries which have had low money supply growth (~2-3%, similar to what you’d get under a hold standard) have done pretty well.”

but which are these mythical countries that have averaged anywhere near these minimal levels of money growth over all but brief periods? this was the original friedman concept and was pursued for a while by switzerland’s central bank years ago, but quickly abandoned.

Brad January 2, 2009 at 9:36 am

Tom,

You are right about the “financial criminals” in the financial industry. And yet you seem to be in favor of “regulations” as if the Biggest Criminal of all wasn’t the State with its very same regulators. Not one mention of interest manipulations, not one mention of over heated money presses, not one mention of the $54 TRILLION accrual basis debt, not one mention that the middle class has approximately 50% of their labor taken in taxes at all levels while the poor pay little or nothing, nor do the “financial criminals”.

The proper way to look at the thing is we have had 90 years of central banking, two world wars, varying degrees of regulation, and decades of business killing Federal decrees (unionism, taxation, regulation) which has all rolled forward into this corporo-fascistic model we have today. YES the financial gate keepers we have have been part of the problem, but it’s not like these fellows emerged from a free market process, they evolved from a closed system of Statism. Simply rubbing your lucky FDR Medallion (otherwise known as a dime, pretty much what you have left over after all this) and say that all we needed was a bit more regulation and THAT would have fixed this is to ignore that THIS came about by rank, Statism not its opposite. You are merely saying that the fascists need to get the gun butts out a little more often then everything would be fine.

Do I believe that Ponzi schemes existed before Statism? Sure, but they were limited in scope and people were taught to be much more wary than they are today thereby. A level of State that punishes fraud combined with a savvy investers is what we need, not the biggest Ponzi schemers of all simulatneously “policing” their own system and lulling the gullible into “investing” (i.e. not resisting forced impounding) into their schemes.

The shortest way to say is that much of Big Business is corrupt, but it is so because of the gamemanship they maintain playing on the field made by an enterprise one thousand times bigger than the Biggest of our Big Businesses – the Federal Government. Those predisposed to “rent seeking” are now the intrepid leaders of Big Businesses. Those are just the type that are needed to wrangle with the Leviathan. And you go on about fiduciary responsibilities as if the Federalistas care a whit about them?

Again, these people are a product of the environment forged of a century of Statism. Should we expect anything else from those who abide parasites invading their private matters? It shouldn’t surprise us that those positions we might have expected some degree of virtue to evolve into parasites themselves. Once you accept racketeers as your Government, should you hold out hope that those who produce, if they want to keep doing so, don’t reprogram under the glare of Legal Thuggery and become part of the Great Fleecing? So by all means, point your finger at the “financial criminals” but realize that they are a symptom, not a cause.

Bill Ross January 2, 2009 at 11:40 am

The most basic fact that any economic “theory” (apart from Austrian, all others are faulty philosophies) must address is the fact that when division of labor is interfered with and/or the fruits of labor of the productive are stolen, by any means or rationalization, then, the consequence is inevitably: Collapse of civilization (the rules by which we cooperate for MUTUAL self-interest), as we are now experiencing.

Easily Proven – “Mathematics of Rule”

http://www.nazisociopaths.org/modules/article/view.article.php/c1/32

Bill Ross
(Electronics Design Engineer)

anon January 2, 2009 at 10:18 pm

re: newson

Singapore has done pretty well – one of the few who have consistently maintained the purchasing power of the currency, abetted by (relatively) free markets. Though for the past decade or so they have been ‘naughty’, leading to CPI inflation and an asset bubble. They have heavily debased their currency (which had been shooting up like mad) – but recently it seems that they’ve decided to sober up.

I’m not sure what happened to Switzerland. Their old central bankers would have frowned on any of this. Sort of sad that the Swiss were conned into joining the IMF – which led to the final abandonment of its currency link to gold.

newson January 2, 2009 at 10:54 pm

to anon:
here are the last few years of singaporean money supply growth. please focus on the percentages in the lower part of the table.
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/ess/essa131.pdf

there’s nothing like 2,3% in the figures, and far from sobering up, 2008 is similar to previous years. inflation isn’t measured by cpi, this is the monetarist’s error.

anon January 2, 2009 at 11:55 pm

re: newson

You just precisely demonstrated what I said.

I have had a healthy respect for their defacto central bank (MAS) especially in the past – up till the early 90s, money supply growth had been constrained to 2-3% (perhaps a bit higher, I can’t recall now).

Goh Keng Swee (one of the most brilliant finance ministers i.m.o.) on the rationale behind Singapore’s monetary policy and his views on Keynesian ideas:
http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?newsID=985794405

anon January 3, 2009 at 12:06 am

> there’s nothing like 2,3% in the figures, and far from sobering up, 2008 is similar to previous years

In recent months they’ve hinted at less intervention in the forex market – allowing the Singapore dollar to float more freely. We’ll see what happens.

newson January 3, 2009 at 2:54 am

to anon:
ok. here are the various aggregates back to 1991. still nothing like 2 or 3%. more like averages of 10%.
https://secure.mas.gov.sg/apps/msb-xml/view.jsp

how far back are you referring you? the last 17 years ain’t that special.

Koh Choon Lin January 3, 2009 at 3:46 am

3 Singaporeans here on Mises! Nice discussions about the country’s monetary policies. I would just say I possess SGD, YEN, FRAN in a higher level than the USD.

newson January 3, 2009 at 4:48 am

i think the sgd and yen are better bets than the usd, too. but as to the mas’ monetary policy, they certainly don’t target the m’s! (as per the friedman prescription). they use some black box approach balancing exchange-rate, gdp, cpi and perhaps even the gizzard of chicken and dark incantations to steer the economy free of shoals.

ooga booga!

newson January 3, 2009 at 5:06 am

as for singapore and keynes, well, i’m only ever a visitor, but it seems like central planning big time. with a specially heavy dose of social engineering, for good measure.
huge mandatory superannuation scheme (people are so silly with their money), public housing mania, and personal tax rates that aren’t exactly rock-bottom.

ok, as a domicile for international companies it’s fair (but then, it’s forced to be, otherwise hello hk!). the rulers love picking winners too, unless my memory serves me wrongly.
lovely green and clean city, though, and completely non-threatening for tourists.

nonphixion January 3, 2009 at 11:00 pm

“All things are subject to the law of cause and effect. This great principle knows no exception, and we would search in vain in the realm of experience for an example to the contrary.”

This isn’t necessarily true..
Belief in free will supposes an uncaused cause, and on a quantum level there are uncaused causes happening all the time, which gives rise to the possibility of free will.

Completely irrelevant to the conversation of economics, but still important to understand

TokyoTom January 4, 2009 at 11:14 pm

Bill, I agree with the thrust of your criticisms of Krugman, but have a few small quibbles.

First, while you rightly condemn “most economic regulation … of the command-and-control variety”, you blame all of this on “the whims of bureaucrats and environmentalists” and completely fail to note that state and federal environmental regulation (i) initially responded to real environmental problems and (ii) also represents the successful efforts by established firms to raise barriers to entry and to cartelize their industries. See Roger Meiners & Bruce Yandle, Common Law and the Conceit of Modern Environmental Policy, 7 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 923, 926-46 (1999), http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/pages/environmental-markets-links-to-austrians.aspx, and Walter Block, Environmentalism and Economic Freedom: the Case for Private Property Rights,
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/12/23/limited-liability-produces-both-pollution-and-political-meddling-block-on-environmentalism.aspx.

Second, while you are correct that Krugman fails to understand the role of the state in creating the distortions that underlie our current problems, it seems to me that you have neglected one of the key state interventions that has fuelled the rent-seeking and risk socialization that we see today – the grants of legal personhood (with unlimited purposes and life and Constitutional rights) to corporations and blanket limited liability to shareholders. http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/12/22/the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-the-state-grant-to-shareholders-of-limited-liablity-for-torts-committed-by-corporations-dialogue-with-stephan-kinsella.aspx.

Limited liability has enabled corporate managers to act without close shareholder oversight and management; this I believe has played a key role in the vast misalignment of incentives that Michael Lewis and David Einhorn describe here, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html?em=&pagewanted=all, and in the risk mismanagement that Joe Nocera of the NYT describes at length here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04risk-t.html. Those taking large bonuses (whether in the financial industry or large corporations) were essentially playing with OPM – Other People’s Money – and capturing the upside of short-term gains while leaving shareholders and taxpayers holding the bag for loses.

I hope that you and others here will look more deeply at the role of the state in the problem of misaligned incentives that continue to corrupt American capitalism.

anon January 5, 2009 at 11:01 pm

re: newson

I have no idea which MAS figures you are referring to – but the correct one to look at is M2. There was even contraction of the money supply in the early years of this decade.

btw singapore is the only ‘socialist’ country which has had some ‘success’ (using terms very loosely here). Even if state powers have heavily expanded over time and plenty of social engineering attempts (which I admit there *could* be a case for it), a dictatorship which understands and respects economic laws isn’t too bad i.m.o.

While I don’t fancy the place (having moved elsewhere long ago), there is tremendous freedom in Singapore i.m.o. The lack of democracy can be good for freedom, and vice versa.

newson January 6, 2009 at 8:49 am

to anon:
https://secure.mas.gov.sg/apps/msb-xml/view.jsp

m2 only had one flat year, 2000 (maybe tech bubble popping?), otherwise m2 has grown fivefold since 1991. not exactly snail-pace.

the anti-democratic aspect to singapore doesn’t concern me, it’s more the paternalistic aspects like high superannuation levies, and public housing, and higher personal tax than hong kong, as well as an active state investment fund.

Russell Cole January 9, 2009 at 7:48 am

A predictable argument. However, how do you account for Scandinavian countries – and in particular Finland – which have developed robust technologically driven economies while managing to maintain more regulations and worker rights than the United States?

Also, how do you account for Germany, which is currently the largest exporter in the world, keeping in mind that Germany possesses far more regulatory fixtures, ensuring both the rights of labor as well as the rights of its citizenry not to suffer the effects of excessive pollution.

Furthermore, your argument relies upon assertions, such as government’s responsibility for diverting cash flow away from investments in industry, in order for the capital to be directed toward investment banks. This begs for some empirical evidence.

Also, how do you think that the creative destruction of free-market capitalism is funded? Apart from venture capitalists, it is the banking sector that allows for the allocation of capital in support of innovation.

Russell Cole January 9, 2009 at 7:49 am

A predictable argument. However, how do you account for Scandinavian countries – and in particular Finland – which have developed robust technologically driven economies while managing to maintain more regulations and worker rights than the United States?

Also, how do you account for Germany, which is currently the largest exporter in the world, keeping in mind that Germany possesses far more regulatory fixtures, ensuring both the rights of labor as well as the rights of its citizenry not to suffer the effects of excessive pollution.

Furthermore, your argument relies upon assertions, such as government’s responsibility for diverting cash flow away from investments in industry, in order for the capital to be directed toward investment banks. This begs for some empirical evidence.

Also, how do you think that the creative destruction of free-market capitalism is funded? Apart from venture capitalists, it is the banking sector that allows for the allocation of capital in support of innovation.

Mike S. August 3, 2009 at 10:47 am

To quote the author: “Indeed, the US economy has gone through two destructive financial bubbles in the past decade, although the government’s response to the last bubble has been to spread the damage throughout the economy to where the damage can no longer be relatively contained.”

Exactly how has the government spread the damage throughout the economy. Do you understand what a generalized credit bubble is? The widespread effects are inevitable. Yes, the government helped to create the bubble, but what did they specifically do to spread the damage to the rest of the economy?

Austrians like to tell stories. They even often seem plausible in many respects. However, doing economics without numbers is like doing accounting without them. You can go broke if your accounting is based on fuzzy conjecture.

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