Bill Maher showed extraordinary open mindedness by having Representative Ron Paul on his show via satellite to explain his view of the current economic situation and the stimulus. It seems to me that liberals are, all to frequently, as intolerant of opposing ideology as are many conservatives. Maher frequently confesses that he knows little about economics; unfortunately this does not discourage him from siding with the Keynesian, big government policy. To his credit, he allowed Rep. Paul to explain the real cause of the ‘crisis’ and a give a brief overview of what should(not) be done. President Obama and other top government officials are refusing to hear, much less consider, the Austrian/ free market solution. It is quite refreshing to see a liberal who is willing to thoughtfully consider ideas with which he disagrees.
It is important to expose as many people as possible to our views. We can connect with people by finding common ground. Dr. Paul connected with Maher on social issues and was able to then expose him to a new economic perspective. We can reach out to those who agree with our economic viewpoint and use that as a foundation for exposing them to our social perspective and vice versa. So I encourage everyone to try to find an ideological commonality and use it to build upon when disseminating our views.
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re: newson
What’s a good site for Aussie analysis?
to selena:
gerry jackson (brookesnews.com) does a few articles every week on the australian economy (an austrian view).
leithner.com.au does lengthier articles, another austrian-style analyst.
i particulary like steve saville, another austrian-australian, who runs an investment newsletter from hk. go to the archive section at safehaven.com, and search him out.
some of my other favourites for the us and international markets are tim woods (dow theory, but grounded in austrian analysis) and frank barbera (technical, but sympathetic to austrianism), who write regularly for financialsense.com.
for short, international economic updates, i like stefan karlsson’s blog, which is linked on mises.org home page (more austrian). i think he’s one of the sharpest economists out there.
too much austrian is never enough.
re: newson
thanks for the articles and sites – much appreciated.
btw does a rebound in commodity prices always lead to an increase in stock prices? just not sure how mining companies would fare even under this scenario, given increasing protectionism of all stripes
rob- I know libertarian ideas are nutty. I mean making decisions on your own and letting people who make bad decisions fail… that is completely nutty. I don’t know how I ever became a libertarian.
maher is an idiot. talking about health care and environment. because of these environmentalists, I try to pollute enough for the both of us. tired of it.
also, one point I want to bring up, is most Austrians I talk to keep mentioning China, when I don’t think they understand China is still communist and their growth takes into account government spending. They make labor intensive goods that are predicated on demand for America. Once America stops, they are done. Peter Schiff, I’m sorry but Chinese won’t consume little shitty plastic toys and be prosperous. Asia will not survive any crisis because they will nationalize before europe will! There is not much capital intensive goods there and all business leaders are American. This is a fact even in Dubai. I would like to open up a dialogue on the fact your money is not safe in Asia either and we need to stop that non sense.
to selena:
mining companies with positive cashflow will survive to ultimately move up in line with metal prices. they will swallow up most of the pure explorers, who’ll be starved of cash. most of the smaller miners disappear from the boards, but this is the usual course of events.
given the enormous downsizing now happening, i think there will be a real panic to gear up capacity in a year or two. unlike the end of the seventies, there aren’t huge metal inventories now.
I thought Bill was more fair than I’ve seen him, ever. At one point he asked Ron Paul essentially, “Didn’t laissez-faire capitalism get us into this mess?”, to which my homeboy replied, “Well, no, there’s the Fed tampering with interest rates and money, and the fractional reserve, etc. Just look at this historical example…”
The odd part was that Maher basically replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ancient history.” I mean, if he’s going to ask the question on how we got here, he ought to be patient enough to hear out a logical argument. (Speaking of which: my other homeboy has a new book out, perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s called “Meltdown”, and is a great argument against this MSM hogwash blaming the free market. Tom Woods FTW.)
Also, I agree with Capitalist. “Doing nothing” is a misnomer. We ought to respond with “Restoring money to those that earned it,” or “Stimulus for the productive,” or “Stimulate the taxpayers.”
In the president’s scenario, a small elite “do something” with everyone else’s money. In the libertarian scenario, the whole country “does something” with their own money.
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