If you don't want to remain completely ignorant on a topic, the only alternative to believing the experts is to be an expert yourself. So, how much time have you spent learning economics and climate science before you decided they can't be trusted?

You seem to have a serious obsession with going around posting charts that actually don't tell the story you think they do. I notice you do that a lot. It's like you think all that's necessary in any debate is post a graph or chart and pretend it's saying what you want it to. The chart you posted doesn't in any way refute what I wrote. The government is borrowing money to run budget deficits, the Fed is knee deep in the bond market with QE and operation twist with a goal of keeping interest rates down, the monetary base has drastically expanded. Yeah, private debt vs public debt. Are you even aware who the biggest holders of US government debt are? Do you not understand where demand for US government debt stems from? Pull that chart up as well and post it here buddy. So you're now making the case that the Fed doesn't need to print money and buy bonds to sustain the bond market? There's enough private demand? I'm bad? Lol.

But aside from that, perhaps you should spend some time thinking critically about the chart you posted and difference between the type of debt being acquired now and what it's being used for, how the government actually does the accounting for their debt (contingency liabilities?), the breakdown of the privately held debt and whether it's influenced at all by the Fed and government, as well as the difference in the GDP composition these days compared to historically. Sorry that it's not as simple as looking up a quick chart and being done. But it certainly explains where your views stem from.

The only alternative to being ignorant is to read from multiple different sources and viewpoints, think for yourself, do some homework on the views different sides espouse, and come to form your own opinion on what's most likely correct. Not to just decide to find out who the public deems the "experts" and then accept everything they say as fact. That's akin to the public perception being that the experts they see on TV like Phil Helmuth and Doyle Brunson are the industry authorities, and then dismissing some unknown online player they haven't heard of because he has no credibility. Then you get someone like PaulyD coming in posting a link to a Phil Helmuth "fact sheet" of how many bracelets he has as proof that listening to anyone else over him is blatantly wrong.

No. You clearly have no clue about economics and give the ol' "gubment is the root of all problems" speech. It works for Hayek and Friedman, not for you. Know why? They were educated in the field. You do not seem to be.

Too bad and so sad you refuse to actually learn economics.

most people are not capable of realizing which sources are legitimate, those sources oftentimes require years of training and prerequisites to understand. Most people are not capable of thinking for themselves.

That's why we have experts: smart people confirmed to be smart by other smart people. Publicly known experts first became experts amongst other smart people. I realize that some people might see some kind of conspiracy going on. But those people, in absolute majority of cases, have no clue what's actually going on in the profession, so their opinion is irrelevant.

Steelhouse mentioned Krugman earlier itt. That's a good example. Economists realize he is talking bull**** nowadays. Most economists laugh at his columns..and most likely he realizes that too. However Steelhouse doesn't know that Krugman got Nobel prize for basically revolutionizing trade theory and that his academic work is respected and it had nothing to do with macro, or public policy. He deserved the prize. Then he decided to bail on academic career and use his perceived credibility to fight right wing ******s with left wing, equally stupid, claims.

Get a Phd, publish in top journals and then write a decent paper proving that Austrian ideas are correct. If your arguments are correct, people would listen. PhD are people who sacrificed a lot of money and prestige and gave their life to pursuit of knowledge, and they will listen to good ideas.

That hasnt been done because those ideas are not correct. They've been considered, tested and rejected as wrong.

Your claims are as legitimate as laymen's belief in creationism. Your sources are equally ridiculous.
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I need to give up my attempts to knock some sense into you people, I just wasted 15 minutes of my life

I just want to know if you think it's likely true that we are worse off as a society because of all the historic (both in depth and scale) investments the government made in technology in the 20th century that directly ushered in the technological age?

I know you guys are proud of your little Chalmun's Cantina politics subform here - consisting of mostly steeeeeelhouse et al. but I find the religious delusion and anti government zealotry both amusing and dangerous, so I think the non cult members owe it to ourselves to drop by and ridicule the nutters from time to time.

you said:
You can't possible have a non cult-like* interpretation of technological investment and the 20th century and think this is anything other than utter bull****?

*cult-like meaning : fervent anti-government zeal being the main article of faith - often marked by revisionist delusions of reality, including extreme mental contortions of framing anything and everything in a anti-government imaginary reality of the empirical world. These types are known to hide out in low traffic subforums where they can congregate amongst similar believers allowing a deluded sense of consensus, without being ridiculed as often as they otherwise would be.

Nice shift from the original argument. You were busy before trying to make the case that the Fed isn't printing money to help the government spend money and that private debt is way bigger than public debt. You also attempted to post a pretty graph. I basically explain why your insights are misguided and off base and you resort to ad hominem as usual. There's actually much better arguments that can be made from the left that are still wrong, but you're not even making them. The PaulyD method is to make a claim, post an unrelated graph, refer to graph as fact, then go with the ad hominem. But yeah, it's indeed better for you to discontinue trying to make the case that there's all this private demand and the Fed isn't printing money to keep the government spending -- kudos for that.

Ok this thread is kinda depressing...

What are the drivers of economic growth?

1) Labour and capital productivity (making people and machines work smarter)

2) Population - having more available workers.

3) labor force participation - getting the people who can work to put their hands up to get a job.

I guess you can debate what combination of government/ private sector involvement you need to increase those mentioned above, but that is somewhat of a secondary argument.

So an appeal to authority for PhDs in economics, amirite?

Clearly there's no way to know for sure what would have transpired had the government not made those investments and left the money with the free market, but even if we assume those investments were +EV back then, what makes you so sure that continued investment in the same industry at it's current stage will produce the same results?

Let's assume that out of all the money the government did spend or invest for us that technology was one where we are better off. Ok, so that must mean if we just direct some more money into the technology sector we can reap a hefty return because it's been proven in the past? Even with the stage technology is at already in it's evolution? Investment doesn't work that way. The government borrowing more money to invest into technology is still not addressing the structural problems with the economy.

It's basically throwing a hail mary investment out based on assumptions using past performance, with the hopes that it can bail our economy out of jail to pay for our monstrosities in healthcare, entitlements, government, etc. Those investments can be tolerable when you have a sound economy and money to spend but if the OP was asking about the most effective way to get the US economy moving then investments in technology aren't going to be as important as the government shrinking.

Uh, I never made that argument about QE. If you continue to try to misrepresent things I say by your poor ability to read you are hopelessly a dullard.

You piped off at the mouth that the government was so bad at accruing debt so I posted a chart that refutes your claim and shows private debt is way higher than public debt. Of course you do not seem to understand the simplest economic principles. And just like to espouse things that aren't exactly true because it suits your needs.

Um:
You are attempting to suggest that the government doesn't have to print and spend cash with this statement because "private demand is much higher than public" (either that or you are tying one claim in with another in the same sentence). So even with this "private" demand you're referring to it's a fact that the Fed is still making up the difference. The Fed printing money so the government can continue spending money is what is going on with QE, which is what you were referencing in your initial post.

You'd think that with how many threads you're going around being owned in that you'd calm down with the name calling, but then again that typically is the final sign that someone really has nothing relevant to say.

And of course you don't seem to be capable of doing any type of critical thinking whatsoever beyond looking at a chart and making silly leaps in logic to think it confirms what you want it to mean. Ok, so you look at a chart and see that there's more private debt out there than pubic debt. Good job on being able to read. Now, give thinking a try and explain who the private holders of the debt are and what you think is driving that demand for US debt:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bigges...ov-t-debt.html

ya, you're right, Im sorry, apparently you are smarter than almost any other economist in the world. They just dont get it. You go girl!

So... still an empty appeal to PhD authority?

The purpose of savings is to spend. Encourage savings is to encourage spending. This can be done by balanced budgets and low taxes. Deflation stimulates the economy.

We should discourage debt by making bankruptcies do some community service and possible jailtime. Government should raise all their loans to 10% to discourage government lending. Banks should also rasie their loans rates above the deficit/debt ratio or 10%.

The mafia should make most loans thus, is someone is late on their loan they can break a leg.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor— your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

Before even reading steelhouse's comment, um, No.

I skimmed the post and i think he is hardcore strawmanning. Funny thing is, I'm fairly strongly right wing myself by any reasonable std. Here I feel like ***** commie.

Boobies
Yes. You are not willing to properly educate yourself, so stfu. Stop writing opinions, start asking questions. Read more. Figure out why do economists think the way they do: read graduate level textbooks, read papers. once you realize that these opinions are complex and it's hard to claim truth, once you realize where do disagreement come from, once you stop saying "it is" and start saying "i think it might be", come back. You seem to think that anyone's opinion holds the same weight. It does not.

Do ypu appeal to authority of Physics PhDs? Do you appeal to authority of doctors? Before you reply: unless you actually read romer, blanchard, new keynesians monetary policy textbooks, MWG, gazzilion other books and ****load of papers: you have no idea whether economists are worth listening to.

Give bonuses to the lowest earning workers. They charisticaly spend all they make. The money spent will trickel up the supply chain, being an eventual bennifit to everyone.

Yeah, I'm sure you've properly educated yourself on the extensive literature of ABCT and mises. You're the one who doesn't ask questions. I've read from both sides of the aisle plenty, unlike most of the drum beaters who think Austrian economics equates with hyperinflation and people shuffling around with gold bars in their pockets. I've seen plenty of these econ professors or econ PhD graduates fumble around at the mouth any time they have to argue in an open discussion with someone outside of their echo chamber.

Economics is not clear cut like math -- it's a social science that's subject to all sorts of views that can't be objectively measured, data that must be interpreted, revisionist history, potential timing lags with cause and effect, selective data, etc. Not to mention it contains a built in bias where government, politicians, the establishment, banks, and plenty of other beneficiaries prefer to subscribe to the school that suggests we can control booms and busts through manipulation of the money supply. To not acknowledge there are groups who gain more from policies founded in a certain school of economics is naive.

No, I don't blindly appeal to the authority of anyone. I take into account their opinion and their experience and then if the issue is important enough to me I'll do my own research from various different "authorities" and judge for myself what I believe. Blindly appealing to authorities in 2012 with all the information on the internet is pretty ridiculous. There's plenty of examples out there in life where groups or individuals can actually research and learn more than someone with an advanced degree in a field.

One simple example is in the field of nutrition. You have people learning things in school about nutrition that is accepted as the consensus among people in their "field", and then you have actual people dedicated to the bodybuilding world/lifestyle that have different views. People in the bodybuilding hobby know very well that an advanced degree in nutrition often means nothing. There's plenty of authorities within the bodybuilding world who don't have any academic credentials. Very common for someone to come onto a bodybuilding forum with people dedicated to the lifestyle and then appeal to the authority of their degree in nutrition and begin to spout off dated textbook information, as they ask "ok but how many of you have degrees in nutrition?".

Same goes for doctors. I've visited health forums where a small community of people with a condition dedicate all their time to doing the research regarding their plight and came to conclusions that all of them said their doctors never even mentioned or recommended. The health field has all sorts of built in bias as well for how they diagnose or treat due to pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, government regulations, etc. Sure, if you're too lazy to read a lot, then just winging it with the publicly known authorities seems like the best bet. Definitely better than reading nothing and disagreeing with them. Another easy example is in poker, how there's a consensus among the public of who the experts are, and within that group they may all believe things that are contrary to a small group of "online nobodies" from 2+2 who have different views and aren't smart enough to digest the wisdom from Phil Helmuth on playing NLHE. But sure, nobody has degrees in poker so this doesn't count I suppose, but as soon as we can get some people to study poker in 12 years to get some academic credentials, then we'll all know where to turn for knowledge.

If you can't see a potential problem with blindly accepting information from people with degrees, especially in a field like economics that is so tied in with politics and not black/white, in an age where everything can be scrutinized far more effectively on the internet due to masses of people able to organize and collectively analyze different information and studies, then by all means continue being a sheep. But these days, one of the big reasons the Austrian perspective is even gaining traction is because of the internet and more people being exposed to different schools of thought and literature that they wouldn't be taught in school. If someone has actually gone through the different schools and landed on Keynesian then good for them, but that doesn't mean it's required for everyone to, and certainly ridiculing others for not following the herd is counterproductive.

Ok, so I actually searched through your posts because I had a vague association of the cat eating corn avatar being some guy who had posted nonsense before in some thread I couldn't remember. When looking I ended up coming across this and it explains a lot:

Yeah, so basically you're in here defending the appeal to authority so hard because this is the authority you aspire to have one day and don't want to have it discredited. You're dealing with cognitive dissonance because you want to believe a PhD that will give you some self-worth once you get it, but you have these doubts that you may be dedicating your life to studying information that could very well be wrong and that having the PhD doesn't seem to be as stringent as other fields.

This is a quite dynamic plaguing the field since people who identify with certain views like Ben Bernanke don't even like to entertain the idea they are wrong because of the identity crisis that would ensue. I do love how you attempted to make reference to those textbooks you've studied in some authoritative manner though. And I guess that also answers my question about how much Austrian economics you've studied considering from your posts you've barely even studied much of the mainstream stuff. Don't let me disrupt your path in life though, keep the delusion strong.

couple of points in no particular order

1) first two quoted posts are quite old. Ive come a long way as far as mainstream econ understanding goes. I still would not feel confident actually debating about it on any serious level. When I say "I'm macro newb", I'm still likely far ahead of some posters in this forum, just not as delusional. That said: yes, obv I question mainstream econ too. Obv they have their, oftentimes serious, issues, because they are actually trying to build sensible science, that's hard.

2) Ive read hazlitt's book, hayek's road to serfdom and some chapters of mises's theory of history (because throwing that Bs trash away). I also used to read mises.org. We have also really extensive history of economic thought course that covered austrians extensively. After a while I noticed some repeated arguments. Im also exposed to top, world renowned austrian economists and I audit their courses. Walter Block named my uni as one of the best places in the world to study AE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwWoY3OuBYA). I believed that stuff too, thats why I chose this uni. Then I started learning econ. I'd like to read more, but there is a lot of **** I need to study and time is limited - I havent read anything but papers/textbooks since semester started.

4) AE does not have any traction beyond people who get paid for those ideas and 16yo boys. It's laughable to think that I'd defend "appeal to authority" because I dont want it discredited. Discredited by whom? AE is not even in contention of being taken seriously by the profession anymore, this is not a threat.

5) bodybuilders metaphor: those guys who emprically proven results. Also, they are not ****ing up public discussion and are not getting paid to do it.

6)gl reading physics papers and evaluating ideas for yourself, jesus ****ing christ.

7) not sure how does NLHE metaphor help you. Levitt is a joke, Krugman is a joke, Ariely is a joke, pretty sure that like 75% of undergrads don't know who Acemoglu is. So what? If anything, people like rockwell, block etc might be known by avg Joe, since he can read blogs and can't read Ecta.

8) I'm not blindly accepting any information. Did you notice ANY claims about econ that I made? I'm reserving my judgement till I know more. Again, this does not mean that I know less than you. That's unlikely. I'm just not arrogant enough to think that my thoughts on econ are worth reading. There are a lot smarter people on this forum. But I'm not out there claiming that 100% of economists are wrong and I, couple of 16-30yo guys who want to feel superior, and couple of guys at GMU faculty who get paid by Koch brothers are right (I just described like 95% of self described austrian economists). It pisses me off when people do that, because some poor guy who was like me 4 years ago might actually read and believe it. Plus I don't like hypocrisy and stupidity.

10) Do you realize that mainstream econ is very right wing, pro market itself?

11) are you actually claiming that govt is influencing econ research in order to justify its interventions? Where were you last 30 years? Huge wave of deregulation supported by economists. A lot of institutions heavily profited from implementing free market policies. I realize that this is thin ice and you can attack here.

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What neoclassical econ sources/textbooks have you ever read? Feel free to list stuff like Freefall by Stiglitz too. Please start your reply with answering this question.

Clearly no way to know if instead of government playing this significant catalyst role in funding high tech and science in the 20th century that lead to the digital age and the technological revolution -- if alternatively in the 20th century we had had no government funding of science/technology and focused instead on pagan sacrifices of small animals with incantations for a technological revolution, would that have had a better result? we can't know for certain it wouldn't have worked similarly or better, who is to say it isn't a better option at this point?

This is kind of OT, but i addressed the main point in the past 100 years of innovation thread, here.

So you list off two books you've read and that you've trolled a few threads on mises.com and now it's my turn to tell you some textbooks I've read on neoclassical economics as a way to prove who knows more? Anyway, I've read a couple books by Keynes but my reading of neoclassical and Keynesian economics comes all from the internet mostly. I read websites, essays, and articles that detail their theories on different subjects, ie interest rates, credit/debt, wages and spending, fiscal policy, etc etc. I spent a lot of time reading analysis and critiques comparing the different schools, and listening to lectures/debates from different "experts" with different views, as well as a ****load of time reading back and forth debates from very knowledgeable people on different forums, some of whom have the almighty PhD. But of course, it's impossible to have your own opinion about which expert you agree with more, we all need to get our PhDs and publish articles in top journals before we can think for ourselves.

The one where you said you were a newb is less than 6 months ago.

So in other words, you want to pretend as though you don't have an opinion/bias on any of the coursework you're studying and that you're "reserving judgement", while simultaneously making the argument that having an opinion contrary to what the highly regarded "experts" in the field have is arrogant. With that mentality, you already decided what you believed in before you started. Just seek out the top experts and accept what they say because they're smart. But yeah, with thinking like that I'm sure you're giving Austrian economics an equal fair shot, as evidenced by the fact that you had some "exposure" to this Austrian economics professors class and have read road to serfdom.

Interesting that you think even voicing an opinion in a discussion on a discussion board is arrogant. You realize, it is possible to be open-minded while still discussing/debating a certain position on the internet? I mean, discussing and debating your views with others can be helpful during the learning process, as anyone in any field knows. It lets other people scrutinize and be critical of weak points that are not fully fleshed out in the sources you're reading, point out a leap in logic being made, give other considerations, etc. You may find that the people you once considered to be experts are not the actual experts, or that their ideas are biased for whatever reason, or that there's another group of experts in the field with a different opinion, or anything really. You don't know what you may find until you bother to look and compare. An easy example of that is all the financial experts prior to 2008 recommending investments to their clients that they were simaltaneously shorting behind the scenes or the economic experts that were arguing why housing prices were sustainable.

The process of identifying who the experts even are in and of itself contains margin for error with different considerations, and in economics it should be very obvious how perceived experts in the field can have it wrong. There are not controlled experiments you can run to compare different policies over 30 years and then rewind and try something different. Seems more likely to me that you don't want to risk having the things you're learning questioned, since if you want to be taken seriously in your field, as you say, you must subscribe to certain views or be outcast and money down the drain. Sounds like a self-perpetuating cycle. And nobody is claiming that 100% of economists are wrong, that's just apparently the impression you're getting somehow since in your world the only people considered true economists are the ones who think alike.

Depends on how you're defining mainstream and what you consider pro market.

Do you think the government having a preference and implementing policies more often that abide by a certain school of economics influences the research or the amount of available data economists have to analyze?

None of this disagrees with what I said though. The net effect of government vs the private sector is a loss, and since you can't hand select and know which investments they make will be net gains and which will be net losers, we are better off long run overall with them leaving investment to the free market. Unless of course you think the government can micromanage the economy and lead it to a net gain in efficiency? Seems to me like you're just assuming they can in this area because you're convinced they did so much good before. As I said though:

yaaay, more cultish free market rhetoric.

More rhetoric based on nothing but assertion. In the real world we can look at how every developed country in the world didn't follow this path, and isn't following it now. But just assert that isn't true or they would be better otherwise, since the religious doctrines of the extreme free market cult says so!

Just for a laugh define "free market" for me? I know invoking the free market is kind of like invoking god, it doesn't really exist, but you can't disprove it, and if you ask a million people you get a million different answers to what constitutes a "free market". When talking to fringers in forums like this, the free market is synonymous with how other religious people talk about heaven.
Sorry I don't think in cultish extremes (since those don't actually exist in the modern world), it's not all one or the other, but a hybrid economy is better than any fringe free market imaginary modern economy. Government did play a key role in technological gains and industrial efficiency and production(A lot of big gains came when the industrialized war economy switched to civilian uses). Same way china is becoming a big player in technology production with massive government support. Not that the empirical world matters to you guys, we have are extreme beliefs, after all!!

sigh. I'm not saying it's impossible to have your own opinion. I'm saying that if you have not proven to be knowledgeable on the subject and at the same time your opinion disagrees with what 100% of people who are knowledgeable believe, then you are arrogant and not smart.

I'm also saying that if your opinions are taken from people who are funded by people who would benefit the most from these ideas, you are naive.

I'm also claiming that people who are influencing public opinion by intentionally targetting ignorants (educated people do not believe these things) and exploiting the fact that everyone can vote for their benefit are downright evil.

Basically I'm saying that believing that the world is flat, just because it seems intuitively correct (AE is a set of unproven intuitions. Deriving conclusions from axioms without rigour of math ftw, you basically can't fail), is stupid. And just so we're clear: you are claiming exact opposite of that, make no mistake about it.

just so we're clear: here are main issues with ae imo

1)fubar methodology (first chapter of theory and history talks about this, can you really read that and not think "jesus what a ******").

2)abct (read caplan, http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/27718.aspx)

->gold standard (read economic history)

But then again, your knowledge comes from freaking internet blogs, so wtf do I know. Textbooks are for ******s, real scholars read MR.


Oh and everyone who ever said "Keynesian economics" just proves that he is ignorant on the subject. I'm not aware of anyone who actually believes that ideas in the General Theory are correct, current econ is like third derivative of that. That said, Stiglitz actually uses the term in Freefall and it tilted me to no end reading it. I thought that if this is a first "mainstream" book that AE believer opens, he will assume that keynesian/austrian distinction actually exist.

Jobs, Dell? and Gate were college dropouts. Hewlitt-Packard started out in a garage. Microprocessors were invented to replace slide rules. But colleges have played in improving products mainly as a means to gain employment. While much money has been wasted on those just seeking the grants or funding.

The internet was not created by government, its roots were the telegraph and it was only time before that and the radio would lead to cell phones.