Hygro
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  • I don't hate Paul Krugman, I hate his economic positions, which aren't exactly the same thing. I am far more likely to focus any hate I may have at the people who have the actual power than at an economist who has no power beyond persuasion. I also have no idea what his other positions are, and my opinion of any political figure is based on more than just their economic views. For instance, I think the economic views of Dennis Kucinich are pretty much horrible, but I still respect him because of his foreign policy views. I couldn't vote for him, anyone who trusts the government enough to let them outlaw guns is someone I couldn't vote for, but I do respect him. By contrast, I have far less respect for someone like George W. Bush even if he is closer to me on economics (Although still a far way off.) Foreign policy matters more to me than economic policy anyways. It is war, not economics, that is the health of the state after all.
    I am quite sure that it would "Fix the economy" but anyone who seriously suggets it is an idiot. It may be that he was kidding though. Honestly, I'd prefer to believe that. I hate his economic ideas (The man lives and breathes government intervention) but I'd like to think that nobody is stupid enough to seriously suggest an alien attack be faked.

    Of course, if such a thing ever "Happens" I obviously know they are lying.
    Regarding states being micro, just wondering, but do you think that would have the effect of a Libertarian or anyone else who was an economic noninterventionist having positive results at the state level moreso than the Federal level?

    I'm not sure if I'd agree that macro is necessarily different than micro, although I don't really have a good argument against it. It just intuitively seems incorrect, I guess.

    Regarding full employment, how do economists really know what this is? I've heard that they can't even tell whether its 4 or 7%?

    FDR... From what I've heard his policies may have reduced the STRENGTH of the depression but they also made it go longer. Would you say that this is incorrect?

    To ask another unrelated question... about Paul Krugman, is it just me or is he completely off his rocker? I mean, I can understand monetary policy disagreement but the man advocated that the United States fake an alien attack... why should we take anything he says seriously?
    How do taxes remove money from the economy? I mean, government obviously spends it on something, its not like it just disappears. Unless taxation is deliberately done to create deflation. But yeah, taxes don't create inflation like inflation does. Inflation, however, does function in ways similar to a tax in some areas. Namely, the fact that they reduce the amount of money that certain people have to spend.

    By "Being responsible" I didn't mean to simply horde money, I meant not to spend your way into debt.
    I don't have enough knowledge about most of that stuff to make a viable argument, but I do have a couple of things I want to comment on. Firstly, saying "Tell that to" when dealing with the word "Crisis" is somewhat unfair, because obviously someone is always in a crisis type situation at any given time. What I meant was something more along the lines of the entire country being in a crisis. A depression could potentially qualify, although I don't think that FDR-type policies really work, but I was more thinking of, say China attacked us out of the blue. It wouldn't make sense to say "Let's not borrow any money, we need a balanced budget" in that type of situation. In an all-out war situation, you kind of have to spend a lot of money and pay it back later. I do not think, however, that this sort of policy is a good idea during normal situations. We should strive to be debt-free, or as close as possible, since that means we don't have to spend money on interest payments.
    To me inflation just seems to be rewarding irresponsible choices, which should hurt the economy long term. I may be the only one, but I wouldn't buy government bonds for this reason as well. I know I'm being scammed because the currency will be highly inflated by the time I can actually cash them in. Better to roll the dice on gold.

    Regarding US debt, we are of course never going to pay it off, but I don't see how taking a trillion dollars a year from the American taxpayers for interest payments is making us any richer.

    I can understand why you'd borrow money in a crisis situation, but this isn't a crisis situation, unless that crisis was CAUSED by US debt, which is possible.
    Inflation being a tax is not necessarily contradictory to inflation being a good thing, not even for me. Of course, I do think inflation is a bad thing, but not necessarily just because its a tax. I'm not against all taxes (Although I think they are a necessary evil at best.)

    All taxes benefit SOMEBODY, that's not really in question. And yes, inflation does benefit certain people as well. Of course anyone who is actually holding on to cash, or who loans money (Which discourages them from doing it, or makes them more likely to demand more interest) And yeah, I get that technically its not a tax. Functionally however, it is similar. Money doesn't grow on trees, and the inflation of fiat money is as much a redistribution of WEALTH from people holding it as taxation is.
    I have no idea to what extent unions are good or bad for the economy. I suspect that that's a tough question to answer. They are certainly good for workers in the union (There are exceptions: See Hostess;)) and bad for the business. I'm not really sure how they affect everyone else. I'd suspect that they are bad for businesses, and good for workers, pretty much across the board, but maybe not. I would say, however, that a closed shop contract does not infringe on anyone's right so it shouldn't be illegal even if it were "Inefficient."

    Inflation is basically a form of tax on everyone except whoever first spends that money. As such, I'd tend to think that its bad and should be avoided. Same with debt as it wastes money, although there are certain extreme cases (Such as a defensive war) when I could justify debt.

    Just wondering, how high would you estimate my knowledge of this stuff is? I'm no expert cetainly, but am I at least getting the basic jist of economic reasoning?
    Yeah, I get what you're saying. I'd oppose reasoning like "To make people better themselves" on moral principle. I don't think government should have that kind of control over how people live their lives. On the other hand, if you think having no minimum wage laws will lead to everyone making a low wage, I can see supporting it. To me, if this were the case, everyone would just make minimum wage. I don't see how anyone currently making more than minimum wage should be affected by a theoretical abolition of the minimum wage laws. Although maybe I'm missing something.

    Right to work legislation is a bad idea as well. For better or worse, Libertarians don't really take a side in market disputes. We don't generally care that businesses make a huge profit, we just don't want the government to take away what people do make. So if unions manage to successfully get a closed shop bargain with a business, Libertarians do not believe government should ban such a contract.
    A fair point I suppose, but I'm not convinced that it actually works in reality. The reality is still that you aren't going to hire me if I'm not worth what the government is forcing you to pay me. Nor do I see how minimum wages necessarily mean you have to work less, it may just mean you get paid more for whatever work you do do.

    I certainly don't know nearly as much as you do, so I'm not really qualifed to argue this point further, but this definitely seems like a theory/practice divide.
    I see no reason why the basic income, or Friedman's NIT, is any more "Governmental or Welfare" than the minimum wage (Even though I oppose both). Either way its a government intervention, its just that the minimum wage does this by banning certain contracts and the Basic income does this through taxation. Both are direct government intervention.

    How does people seeking training or taking time off to watch their kids create more jobs?
    Didn't Ron Paul predict some economic bust like several years before it happened? Using Austrian economics?

    You made the claim awhile ago that minimum wages do not cause unemployment. Apparently over 70% (Possibly as high as 90% depending on which poll), disagree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_wages#Surveys_of_economists

    Why are they wrong?

    Just to use my own logic, it seems as though if a nonessential worker was only productive enough to warrant pay of, say, 5 dollars an hour, yet the government mandates a minimum wage of 7, he's not getting hired. He could have got a job, but he didn't.

    You obviously know I'm not a big fan of intervention in the economy (Much, anyhow) but even if we accept for the sake of discussion that the government does indeed need to step in to help its poorer citizens, the minimum wage seems like a really bad way of doing it. Basic income would probably be better, at least the externalities are fewer.
    Economics has been a struggle for me in school (Although the class I'm taking now is a sophomore college level course[I'm currently a twelfth grader], and does both micro and macro in one semester. Even still, I don't think I'm able to master it, so I highly doubt its going to become my "Thing" so to speak. Which is probably why I focus less on macroeconomics and more on other stuff when debating.

    I took the 25 question "Are you an Austrian" test on Mises, and I scored as an Austrian on like 2/3rds of the questions, and Chicago on most of the others, although I did get the Keynesian answer for national defense.

    And since there are people who have far more economic training than I do that are Austrians, I find it odd that you'd say the school can be conclusively disproved. Why are there still (Albeit few) economics professors that still believe in it?
    I saw your comment on the 'how to improve the ignore list' thread. I hope I'm not the one and only person on your ingore list!
    Why do you say the Chicago School is "Now obsolete"?

    How can an economic theory be proven obsolete? I was under the impression that it was pretty darn difficult to prove or disprove just about anything in the social sciences.
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