Here is my summary and study guide for the first half of chapter four, up to (but not including) the section “Treasury Currency” on page 116 of the fifth edition.
Rothbard is hitting us hard with data and references in this part, so be prepared!
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Murphy and Newman on MMT
Very quick post here, but as a part of Mises University, the great Bob Murphy and Jonathan Newman did a fantastic talk about Modern Monetary Theory and some of the sticking points people walk into when they try to argue against it.
At the end of the talk, Dr. Newman mentions the book “The Theory of Idle Resources” by William H. Hutt. What he didn’t say is that the whole book is available free at the Mises Institute website.
Get your copy here!
Breaking down the fallacies and dangerous conclusions of MMT is one of the best things you can do today!
I am pleased to say that the Mises Institute has published another one of my essays! This time, it’s an essay that organizes and crystallizes my thoughts about Modern Monetary Theory, specifically the negative effects of moving goods from the private sphere to the public sphere.
Find it at the Mises Institute website here.
This last part of chapter 3 finishes out part one of the book, and should be the last bit of really heavy lifting in economic theory. The next part starts Rothbard’s historical examination of the circumstances leading up to the Great Depression, so we may find things less dense, but who knows!
My notes can be found here.
Return to the series list here.
Trying something a little new for this video–I’ve got a lavalier microphone and my phone set up in my office instead of in front of my PC. The audio quality is a bit worse, but the background is nicer. Is that an improvement?
Aaaaaanyway…
Today we’re covering the first half of Chapter 3. We’ll be looking at Rothbard’s arguments against Overproduction Theory, Underconsumption Theory, and the Acceleration Principle (which is actually a variation of Underconsumption Theory).
Check out my notes here.
Return to the series list here.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find a convenient way to access W.H. Hutt’s “Coordination and the Price System.”
The best I could find were listings from a few university libraries: https://search.worldcat.org/title/28785415
However, the Phillips/McManus/Nelson book Banking and the Business Cycle is available free at the Mises Institute.
This video is available on Odysee and BitChute as usual.
Now, also available on YouTube!
I was inspired by part of a Lew Rockwell speech that was posted at the Mises Institute website last week!
Today, I’m talking about the dangers of positivism in economics. Basically, in complex systems like the economy, you need a logical, causal framework to evaluate ideas. A purely positivist (i.e., each idea must be tested empirically) approach can be disastrous.
Why? Because empirical testing of uncontrolled systems can lead to counterintuitive and non-generalizable results!
The temptation to fiddle endlessly becomes a source of wealth for the fiddler and a source of poverty for everybody else.
Not only are there unlimited legions of bad ideas to “test,” there are an equally unlimited number of statistical tests to apply to the subsequent data, and a finite confidence interval means some of those statistical tests will give you false positives!
Anyway, check out the video up top, and the show notes here.
This video covers chapter two, including an in-depth explanation of Figure 1 on page 48, with additional visual elements to help make it easier to understand.
I’ve been reading a bit about Modern Monetary Theory lately, and one argument I’ve seen a few times is that inflation and taxation are merely methods to transfer goods from the “private sphere” to the “public sphere.”
It continues, on a reasonable time scale!
Welcome to the second part of my tutorial/study guide on Murray Rothbard’s seminal book, America’s Great Depression.
I’m trying to figure out fun things to do for blog entries, and I thought it would be fun to go through books and create video notes or study guides.