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Refuting Keynes? Refuting Keynes?

01-27-2010 , 05:32 AM
Any advice on some good short digestible sources for explaining the potential flaws in Keynesian thoughts? I'm looking for something that would be accessible to the average person.
01-27-2010 , 06:02 AM
No one on this forum is capable of refuting a genius at the level of Keynes. They will probably trot out the old broken window fallacy in some sort of feeble attempt to influence you in their social Darwinistic/Objectivist worldview.


"Every time I argued with Keynes, I felt that I took my life in my hands and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool." -- Bertrand Russell


"I am spellbound. This is the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to. Does he belong to our species? Or is he from some other order? There is something mythic and fabulous about him. I sense in him something massive and sphinx like, and yet also a hint of wings." -- some fruitcake on the Canadian High Commission



"He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him." -- Friedrich Hayek



Lionel Robbins, a former Austrian School economist who had suffered many heated debates with Keynes in the 1930s, had this to say after observing Keynes in early negotiations with the Americans while drawing up plans for Bretton Woods:

"This went very well indeed. Keynes was in his most lucid and persuasive mood: and the effect was irresistible. At such moments, I often find myself thinking that Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived - the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement."
01-27-2010 , 06:12 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by KUJustin
Any advice on some good short digestible sources for explaining the potential flaws in Keynesian thoughts? I'm looking for something that would be accessible to the average person.
Worth a look.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...2_GmZfPYXXHKjg
01-27-2010 , 06:23 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by A_C_Slater
No one on this forum is capable of refuting a genius at the level of Keynes.
Give me a break, look where Keynes has got us...

at the edge of a cliff, jump off it feels great, and it will only take 15 years to get back up there... so you can jump off again.
01-27-2010 , 06:29 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by A_C_Slater
No one on this forum is capable of refuting a genius at the level of Keynes. They will probably trot out the old broken window fallacy in some sort of feeble attempt to influence you in their social Darwinistic/Objectivist worldview.


"Every time I argued with Keynes, I felt that I took my life in my hands and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool." -- Bertrand Russell


"I am spellbound. This is the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to. Does he belong to our species? Or is he from some other order? There is something mythic and fabulous about him. I sense in him something massive and sphinx like, and yet also a hint of wings." -- some fruitcake on the Canadian High Commission



"He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him." -- Friedrich Hayek



Lionel Robbins, a former Austrian School economist who had suffered many heated debates with Keynes in the 1930s, had this to say after observing Keynes in early negotiations with the Americans while drawing up plans for Bretton Woods:

"This went very well indeed. Keynes was in his most lucid and persuasive mood: and the effect was irresistible. At such moments, I often find myself thinking that Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived - the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement."
Sounds like he is the ultimate sophist.
01-27-2010 , 09:10 AM
Henry Hazlitt's The Failure of the New Economics is a devastating line by line refutation of Keynes' General Theory, but it is not accessible to casual readers; it is too thorough. There is a new book out that I haven't read that is apparently a much more readable recapitulation of Hazlitt. I'll have to look it up.

Good places to start that aren't intended as refutations per se are Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson and Tom Woods' new book Meltdown.

For what it's worth Keynes' main problems are inappropriate aggregation and lack of a granular theory of capital and the structure of production.
01-27-2010 , 09:36 AM
The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek. Also a great one.

Read this a while back and enjoyed it.
http://nrd.nationalreview.com/articl...M3NmI2MDYxNjA=
01-27-2010 , 09:58 AM
the one major thing wrong with keynes is he forgot at least one extremely important dimension in all of his reasoning. His economics is like physics that only incorporates space but not time. A lot is missed by neglecting this dimension and time is in fact the dimension he most neglected, sometimes admittedly (remember him saying the long run doesnt matter cuz we're all dead?).

his paradoxes, prescriptions, analysis, etc. all are fine if you follow his incomplete assumptions regarding reality.
01-27-2010 , 10:47 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by A_C_Slater
"He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him." -- Friedrich Hayek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keynes
"In my opinion it is a grand book ... Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement."
Talking about Hayek's The Road To Serfdom.

Can I pretend to be the smartist too now cuz I wikied successfully?
01-27-2010 , 11:42 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by A_C_Slater
No one on this forum is capable of refuting a genius at the level of Keynes. They will probably trot out the old broken window fallacy in some sort of feeble attempt to influence you in their social Darwinistic/Objectivist worldview.


"Every time I argued with Keynes, I felt that I took my life in my hands and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool." -- Bertrand Russell


"I am spellbound. This is the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to. Does he belong to our species? Or is he from some other order? There is something mythic and fabulous about him. I sense in him something massive and sphinx like, and yet also a hint of wings." -- some fruitcake on the Canadian High Commission



"He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him." -- Friedrich Hayek



Lionel Robbins, a former Austrian School economist who had suffered many heated debates with Keynes in the 1930s, had this to say after observing Keynes in early negotiations with the Americans while drawing up plans for Bretton Woods:

"This went very well indeed. Keynes was in his most lucid and persuasive mood: and the effect was irresistible. At such moments, I often find myself thinking that Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived - the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement."
None of this really says anything about his theories. Just because people admire the man doesn't mean they agree with him.
01-27-2010 , 12:44 PM
This is about as succinct refutation as you can get:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
01-27-2010 , 12:49 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdaddydvo
This is about as succinct refutation as you can get:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
Ha! Beat me to it. I just watched this earlier today and was going to post it.
01-27-2010 , 12:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nottom
None of this really says anything about his theories. Just because people admire the man doesn't mean they agree with him.
right... and note that they are talking about the man IN PERSON.. I have no doubt that debating him one on one, or "out mathing" him would be nigh impossible. But refuting his theories is trivially easy most of them are false on their face without even trying.
01-27-2010 , 01:01 PM
Quote:
No one on this forum is capable of refuting a genius at the level of Keynes. They will probably trot out the old broken window fallacy in some sort of feeble attempt to influence you in their social Darwinistic/Objectivist worldview.


"Every time I argued with Keynes, I felt that I took my life in my hands and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool." -- Bertrand Russell


"I am spellbound. This is the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to. Does he belong to our species? Or is he from some other order? There is something mythic and fabulous about him. I sense in him something massive and sphinx like, and yet also a hint of wings." -- some fruitcake on the Canadian High Commission



"He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him." -- Friedrich Hayek
All this does is confirm my belief that he is an Alien (with mind controll LDO) implanted in our intellectual culture in order to destroy our economy to facilitate a take over with minimum use of violence.

Using occams razor, it is the only logical explanation for Russel getting all giddy over someone who argued that saving equals destruction.
01-27-2010 , 01:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by A_C_Slater
No one on this forum is capable of refuting a genius at the level of Keynes. They will probably trot out the old broken window fallacy in some sort of feeble attempt to influence you in their social Darwinistic/Objectivist worldview.
I love the preemptive (fill in the blank) is so smart that no one here is capable of even challenging their awesome genius.

But really, I don't think an argument needs to be made. History has been ample enough an argument against Keynes.
01-27-2010 , 02:21 PM
Keynesian economics would be dead if it weren't so appealing to politicians. It has never worked as a macroeconomic policy.
01-27-2010 , 02:46 PM
All those quotes by A_C_Slater are made up right?
01-27-2010 , 03:10 PM
"If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions."
- Winston Churchill


Keynes is generally lauded for his mastery of the art of persuasion, which incorporated the ability to believe all things at once.
01-27-2010 , 03:39 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProphetofProfit
All those quotes by A_C_Slater are made up right?
no, they are real. hayek was good friends with keynes. though hayek always thought keynes was extremely wrong for the major part, keynes clearly had some influence on hayek. all of it was negative IMO.

nonetheless, keynes was well respected by many intellects and high public figures, hence the extent his theories were adopted. for an alternative view of his personality, listen to rothbards lecture, "keynes the man".
01-27-2010 , 03:59 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NeBlis
right... and note that they are talking about the man IN PERSON.. I have no doubt that debating him one on one, or "out mathing" him would be nigh impossible. But refuting his theories is trivially easy most of them are false on their face without even trying.
So basically you can easily refute his theories as long as there is no one intelligent around to argue the Keynesian's side?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdaddydvo
This is about as succinct refutation as you can get:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
This is awesome.

Last edited by Not_In_My_Name; 01-27-2010 at 04:05 PM.
01-27-2010 , 04:05 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not_In_My_Name
So basically you can easily refute his theories as long as there is no one intelligent around to argue the Keynesian's side?
keynes is supposed to b e the intelligent one on the other side. and he's said enough for his own side. regardless, it does not take someone of above average intelligence to grasp the rightness or wrongness of these theories. my six year old cousin knows there is no such thing as a free lunch, yet paul krugman clearly still does not.
01-27-2010 , 04:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zygote
the one major thing wrong with keynes is he forgot at least one extremely important dimension in all of his reasoning. His economics is like physics that only incorporates space but not time. A lot is missed by neglecting this dimension and time is in fact the dimension he most neglected, sometimes admittedly (remember him saying the long run doesnt matter cuz we're all dead?).
Hans Herman Hoppe has an awesome explanation of this. It's because Keynes was homosexual apparently. Homosexuals do not have children and hence "tend to have a higher degree of time preference and are more present-oriented."

Don't listen to anyone who tells you that Hoppe is a homophobe. They're just PC crazies.
01-27-2010 , 04:38 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not_In_My_Name
Hans Herman Hoppe has an awesome explanation of this. It's because Keynes was homosexual apparently. Homosexuals do not have children and hence "tend to have a higher degree of time preference and are more present-oriented."

Don't listen to anyone who tells you that Hoppe is a homophobe. They're just PC crazies.
non-***** may also have high time-preference. low time preference ***** also exist. your logic is flawed.

Last edited by ElliotR; 01-28-2010 at 01:34 AM. Reason: Whee I circumvented the profanity filter and got banned
01-27-2010 , 04:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zygote
non-***** also have high time-preference. your logic is flawed.
Your sarcasm detector is flawed
01-27-2010 , 04:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not_In_My_Name
Your sarcasm detector is flawed
i was gonna say it was a funny joke, but wasnt so sure, so yes, my detector sucks. my parents once told my brother to get off my case, and i told them my knapsack aint even in the car, so its not a new problem for me.

      
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