[andrew.esselbach]

I enjoyed Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt.

[andrew.esselbach]

Don’t forget the Panic of 1819, and his two volume history of economic thought. His book Against the Fed also has some historical background on the federal reserve.

[andrew.esselbach]

I wondered if the the documentary series ‘World at War’ was any good and worth seeing.

[andrew.esselbach]

That makes sense. Sometimes I forget that not everyone else reads as much as I do.

Thanks again.

[andrew.esselbach]

If you don’t mind me asking, is there a reason that these books were not included in the recommended readings for the WW1 and WW2 lectures?

Because time is somewhat limited, if you had to pick just one or two to recommend reading, what books would you choose for WW1 and also for WW2?

Thanks.

[andrew.esselbach]

Ok, Thanks

[andrew.esselbach]

osgood401, You’re right, that is an excellent book. I’ll have to consider that one as well for my list.

[andrew.esselbach]

Blake. Yes, Lessons for the Young Economist, by Robert P. Murphy and Economics for Real People, by Gene Callahan are the two introductory books that I also found to be good intro to Austrian Economics. I wonder if an Introduction to Economic Reasoning by David Gordon would also be a good book to serve as an introductory book?

I haven’t read Conceived in Liberty, A Beautiful Anarchy by Tucker, or The Great Fiction by Hoppe yet. Conceived in liberty doesn’t really fit my criteria, and the scary ‘A’ word is going to scare most people off from reading A Beautiful Anarchy by Tucker.

The Economics and Ethics of Private Property by Hoppe, while an excellent book, is a bit technical and is very heavy reading. I also enjoyed A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, and Democracy: the God that failed. I would probably recommend A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism to someone before the other two books, but it would depend on the individual, as the other books might not be suitable to recommend to the average person on the street.

[andrew.esselbach]

I think it’s beginning to make sense now.

Is there an Austrian literature that deals with this subject?

[andrew.esselbach]

“economic progress depends on the extent to which taxing transfers command over resources out of private hands into the hands of the state. Interestingly, this has little to do with tax rates”

Can you elaborate on this?

“The portion of GDP controlled by the government has stayed remarkably consistent since the early 1950s regardless of tax rates.”

I’m still not quite clear what the implications of this is, and how it applies to the claim that high taxes causes economic growth.

[andrew.esselbach]

I just listened to lecture 13 about the Washington Administration on my iPod a couple days ago and noticed the cut off at the end as well. I looked into it just now, and immediately noticed a discrepancy. If you look at the video\audio that you can play directly from the lecture page, both are 44:35 in length, and they do not stop abruptly at the end, But when you go to the main course page and download the whole course packaged into a ZIP file, lecture 13 is 52:09 long. I listened to the first few moments of both versions, and they seem to be different recordings.

I seem to recall someone saying that a couple of the lectures had to be redone at one point, but I don’t remember which ones. Maybe the audiobook download and the ZIP file that contains the whole course simply needs to be updated with the new audio recordings that are on the individual lecture pages?

Andrew

[andrew.esselbach]

That off budget surplus data is interesting, as I wasn’t aware that such a category existed. I knew about the social security tax increase under Reagan, but I didn’t realize that Social Security had been in deficit. I find it interesting that the off budged surplus increased until it peaked at $186 billion in 2006, but has been decreasing every since and is estimated to go back into a deficit around 2016. Is there any particular reason why it peaked in 2006? I have heard of the controversy of whether or not Social Security is in the red, will be in the red, or as some claim, is perfectly fine. Does Table 1.1 prove that it is indeed in trouble?

How much of the off budget surplus did Clinton use to offset the on budget deficit?

Looking at the Table 1.1 Total Receipts and Outlays, I couldn’t help but wonder if inflation, credit expansion, and the tech bubble contributed to Clinton’s surplus in addition to higher higher tax rates. It seems somewhat plausible to me that as the economy was being artificially pushed higher and higher by inflation coupled with higher tax rates, the total receipts would increase, but when the bubble finally pops, receipts would decrease due to less taxes from lower incomes, corporate revenue, asset values, capital gains, ect. But because government spending continually increased the budget surplus vanished. If this explanation was the case, wouldn’t partial credit go to the federal reserve for the surplus instead of Clinton being a thrifty, fiscally conservative president?

But i’m probably aggregating too much, and making an over simplification of a highly complex event without fully understanding everything else that happened in that time period.

-Andrew

[andrew.esselbach]

Right click on the link and select an option to download.

[andrew.esselbach]

Each course does have a link to download Zip files with all the audio lectures packaged in it.

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