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A question for the Econ guys on the board.......

It's the fire and brimstone. It gets the souls going every time. Even Friedman succumbed to free market fundamentalism in his later years.

But let's get back to the real discussion: That video was ****ing awesome.

A. I didn't have the luxury of guides, so I'm always unconfident I'm spurting out something that misses the obvious, but my understanding of Friedman has long been that he was essentially post-Keynesian without ever (as in to his death ever) pushing a completely workable system. We ended up with monetarism, but that didn't really hit the spot with him. It was pragmatic. Friedman was very much in agreement with Keynes on the benefits of a government iron from at least the 1950's.

B. I couldn't find the short documentary on round one, but memory says it was by professionals for professionals. They performed live at an econ conference. It's not your usual youtube made for the CNBC is manipulating us all so buy gold crowd. Thus the badassness.

C. I have a page of responses but they'll have to wait sobriety. I know Kicky will be here sooner or later, but you're in question Pearl. Please stick around and add responses. TIA.
 
I find this time period in economic history, if viewed objectively, as laying waste to most of the experts and their theories. Once the public gets their butts handed to them when the precious metals roll over and the dollar rebounds, logical people should put the last shovel of dirt on the Austrian grave. The illusion that any government official when put in the hot seat requiring them to make a decision and implement action is anything but a JMK follower should now be fully exposed.

Bernanke has gone from a total idiot who has no idea what he was doing at the bottom of the crisis to another level of idiot because what he did when he didn't know what he was doing is working so well that again he doesn't know what he is doing. This from the same crowd that killed him in 07 for not fighting the hounds of inflation, months away from the swiftest commodity reversal in generations. Of course the public continues the folly moving from tech stocks, to "flip that house", and now to buying gold and silver. And not just gold and silver ETF, but physical gold and silver because you know if you own physical gold and silver, you are much more sophisticated and the ETF schmucks.

But hey, I forgot this time the markets will work differently.


I finally get you since you pretty much confirmed you're a money manager in another topic. You've had guys calling you saying, "Hey Pearl, why the hell aren't we in gold and silver" for the last decade or so. That can get kind of annoying.

The good news for you is that they are painstakingly trying to bring silver down to earth with increased margin buffers. I don't think Gold is going down anytime soon, but silver could be wild.
 
Check out the silver action today:

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I find this time period in economic history, if viewed objectively, as laying waste to most of the experts and their theories. Once the public gets their butts handed to them when the precious metals roll over and the dollar rebounds, logical people should put the last shovel of dirt on the Austrian grave. The illusion that any government official when put in the hot seat requiring them to make a decision and implement action is anything but a JMK follower should now be fully exposed.

How can you bury the dead corpse of something that never was? Hayek couldn't have hit the nail on the head any harder, yet it's never enough for Keynes as bastardized by his children. Government actions lead to bubbles no matter how good the intentions started. There is nothing clearer than this post-2008.

I think it perfectly captures the allure of free market fundamentalism by giving Hayek all the best lines and the fire and brimstone levels of rhetoric while preserving Keynes as probably correct.

Kicky proves the point by completely missing the main theme of the video and instead seeing what he wanted to see. It won't matter what support is shown as the deck is loaded to assure Keynes' political victory.

If neo-Keynes need a pat on the back then I'll give it to them. I'm sure it took Keynes to resurrect the hogs that Keynes sent to slaughter. Voodoo degraded into witchdocter economics, and congratulations on the fabulous outcome. New ******** need to listen to George Soros more.

BTW, which industry benefited the most from the stimulus and who was left behind? Who works in that industry?
 
I'm sure I didn't get it all, but it looked to me like Hayek won the fight but the refs held up Keynes hand and called him the winner.

Given the institutionalized form of our political economy, that would be true to life. Major media owned by the beneficiaries of the Gov Racket and the people with their govenment-managed education all cheering for Management.
 
How can you bury the dead corpse of something that never was?


The Austrians have existed and have had prominent proponents of their views for a century, including a significant period of time before the work of Hayek ever existed. They are not some force that has never been heard from or had a role in government decisions. Except for a period of time between 1945 and the late 1970s, they have had a prominent voice. You're overselling the case.

Hayek couldn't have hit the nail on the head any harder, yet it's never enough for Keynes as bastardized by his children. Government actions lead to bubbles no matter how good the intentions started. There is nothing clearer than this post-2008.

And the other side of this debate is about the need for regulation, which points the other direction. So it isn't actually that clear.



Kicky proves the point by completely missing the main theme of the video and instead seeing what he wanted to see. It won't matter what support is shown as the deck is loaded to assure Keynes' political victory.

Always so caustic, always with so little reason or provocation.

At first I thought the song was slanted towards Hayek (like I said, he gets all the best lines), but the reason I think the message is more subtle than that is for two reasons that are not immediately apparent:

1) There is an acknowledgement, for example, that Hayek and the Austrians dismiss out of hand any economic data that doesn't support their conclusion;
2) There is similarly an acknowledgment through omission that Hayek has virtually no prescription for action in a crisis. (Keynes asks him what they should do, he says he thinks there's plenty to do and lists not a thing).

So Hayek does get all the best lines (I particularly like the lines re: "pretty perverse to call that prosperity"), but criticisms of Hayek are well represented. Given that type of fevered pitch generated by thosee who buy in to Hayek's position (and one might say demonstrated in your post), that's totally appropriate.

Finally, I've heard these two guys talk about the first edition of this battle rap a little over a year ago on NPR and they frankly acknowledged that there was supposed to be some level of balance rather than simply being in the tank for a specific school of thought, similar to what Russ Roberts does on his actual podcast where he treats it as an actual debate rather than an advocacy project. The current (hour plus long) podcast in which they discuss Malthus and Say at length indicates a deep understanding of the philosophical divide and not two people who came out to create an attack video on Keynes.

And lets be clear here, the video is designed to entertain and does it well. There's a reason they hired a comedy team to portray Keynes and Hayek.

If neo-Keynes need a pat on the back then I'll give it to them. I'm sure it took Keynes to resurrect the hogs that Keynes sent to slaughter.

Actually I think the problem of the last 30 years has been that while Keynes preaches countercyclical fiscal and monetary policy, we've instead treated it as a one way ratchet. One could easily argue that we're only Keynesians half the time.
 
A. I didn't have the luxury of guides, so I'm always unconfident I'm spurting out something that misses the obvious, but my understanding of Friedman has long been that he was essentially post-Keynesian without ever (as in to his death ever) pushing a completely workable system. We ended up with monetarism, but that didn't really hit the spot with him. It was pragmatic. Friedman was very much in agreement with Keynes on the benefits of a government iron from at least the 1950's.

My statement re: Friedman succumbing to fundamentalism in his later years refers to the big differences between where Friedman was at in 1938 (arguing that a US recession in 1937 was the result of a decrease in the money supply, which looks suspiciously like a QE-style prescription, although in an more old-fashioned format) and where Friedman was at by the late 1950s, where most of his work was done bringing back the idea of the fully rational consumer in a classical model. That trend was only heightened by the late 1960s when you start getting ideas like the Permanent Income Hypothesis, which literally argues against short-term stimulus of all kinds as totally ineffective. By 1976 he was a totally different guy than he was during the Great Depression, regularly writing op-eds while in semi-retirement romanticizing the era of robber barons.

People change over time and even a total stud like Friedman succumbed to the siren song of the totally free market solving all problems.
 
The Austrians have existed and have had prominent proponents of their views for a century, including a significant period of time before the work of Hayek ever existed. They are not some force that has never been heard from or had a role in government decisions. Except for a period of time between 1945 and the late 1970s, they have had a prominent voice. You're overselling the case.

First off, I'm not being caustic and agree almost entirely with your views, and with what I interpret Pearl to be saying as well (although that can be plenty difficult). I improperly used you as an example and apologize for doing so. I need to point out that I'm excluding the gold standard era from Hayek's views, which is the only place you'll find any semblance of an Austrian economy. The modern economy is strictly absent Hayek, and Keynes for 1/2 the time as you've pointed out.

And the other side of this debate is about the need for regulation, which points the other direction. So it isn't actually that clear.

Sure.

At first I thought the song was slanted towards Hayek (like I said, he gets all the best lines), but the reason I think the message is more subtle than that is for two reasons that are not immediately apparent:

Producer John Papola is libertarian and has said it's about Hayek figuratively knocking out Keynes theories but the judge, jury, and crowd are in Keynes' corner so it doesn't matter.

1) There is an acknowledgement, for example, that Hayek and the Austrians dismiss out of hand any economic data that doesn't support their conclusion;
2) There is similarly an acknowledgment through omission that Hayek has virtually no prescription for action in a crisis. (Keynes asks him what they should do, he says he thinks there's plenty to do and lists not a thing).

I'm aware and agree, except Hayek wasn't exactly dismissive like his bastardized children are. Hayek is a philosophy of a preference for first best, and not a prescription. The Keynes crowd has become hostile to first best and everyone knows it. They're as hostile to it as the right is to any government intervention, especially in banking, which has been tied to government since day one.

Actually I think the problem of the last 30 years has been that while Keynes preaches countercyclical fiscal and monetary policy, we've instead treated it as a one way ratchet. One could easily argue that we're only Keynesians half the time.

I blame it on Reagan and Art Laughter's deception, but that's probably to spite contradicting conservatives more than anything. Like I alluded to before, Friedman was also a proponent of smoothing both sides of the cycle, but never advanced a mechanism. He started into full reserve banking, but never put the whole thing on paper. One important note that gets left out is these folks were literally experimenting in philosophy as they went, and their search for answers has morphed into absolutes in modern discourse.

I actually think Keynes, Friedman, and Hayek would be in high agreement if they were all alive today, and probably at least as sick of the one-sided commentary as any of us are.
 
Franklin,

I was trying to essentially say what you did above in that Keynes, Friedman, and Hayek would agree much more than your average politically motivated econ blogger or average partisan citizen. Kicky hit a home run when he said Keynes is/has been one sided. Those that are rigid supporters of his theories never want to cut back, ever. Hayek,et al ignore human behavior in terms of application. There is no way Ron Paul, if President and Peter Schiff as Secretary of the Treasury are going to go in front of the American people and proclaim some ideology which motivates them to do nothing and commence to going to play Angry Birds on the Oval Office computer. People in charge usually do something, destructive or not. Inaction is never an option. You don't get reelected by inactivity.
 
This is amazing to watch. It feels like watching stocks drop a few years ago only much quicker. My favorite quip from Eat the Rich comes to mind:

"Speaking of folly, you can also invest in the commodities market. This is where you buy thousands of pork bellies and still don't know what you're going to have for dinner because, in the first place, you're broke from fooling around in the commodities market."
 
Got out at 46!

Nice, I feel bad for the people that didn't at least lighten a little. Make no mistake about this, this is an attack on the individual retail investors. The margin buffers are easily avoided by the bigger players. At least today is not disjointed. The dollar is looking strong.
 
It is over for silver. It will be mid double digits in a few years. That is a multi-decade double top. Everybody who bought SLV or physical silver in the last year is going to have zero returns over the next decade. Classic herding behavior.
 
Silver is tough too because you can't really run tight stops on the thing. It somebody gets kicked out of GLD - no sweat. The trend has probably changed. SLV you might as well just book the fact that you're going to lose money if you use a tight stop. And then the next day it runs 6%.

I wish I had the nuts to ride ZSL. FAZ and FAS taught me a good lesson though, so I'm never trading those types of things again.
 
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