[jmherbener]

Here are a few pieces to get you started. An article by Jeff Tucker:

https://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=120

Henry Hazlitt wrote on the Marshall Plan:

http://mises.org/daily/5922/Will-Foreign-Loans-Make-Us-Rich

Tom Woods wrote on the Marshall Plan in his Politically Incorrect Guide to American History:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods35.html

[jmherbener]

No one can understanding the meaning of human action by external observations. Empirical evidence is about activity, not meaning. For example, while I’m in Wal-Mart I see someone pick up a tube of toothpaste, put it in a cart, hand it to a clerk, who puts it in a bag, and so on. I interpret this activity as human action because I presume the someone I observe is a human person like me. So, I infer that this person has an end he is trying to achieve with this activity and that he is employing means to do so on the basis of assessments he has made in his mind about the value he perceives in different courses of action.

We don’t observe human action in others, we infer that the activity we observe others engaged in is human action and we interpret this activity according to the meaning of human action which we acquire, not by observing others, but by reflecting on our own human actions.

[jmherbener]

When the Fed’s monetary inflation generates a credit expansion through the banking system as it does during a boom, entrepreneurs who borrowed the new money buy capital goods driving up their prices. As asset prices rise, claims to those assets also rise in value, i.e., stock prices rise.

Even when the Fed’s monetary inflation does not generate a significant credit expansion as is happening now (i.e., in a bust), investors who have liquidated their assets earlier in the bust and are holding cash begin to invest in assets and claims to assets in anticipation of their prices rising from the impending monetary inflation. Prices of commodities, land, houses, stock, etc. begin to increase even without improvement in the underlying economic conditions.

There are scenarios in which monetary inflation does not boost stock prices. For example, if price inflation is already raging, then more monetary inflation can collapse stock prices as in the 1970s.

[jmherbener]

Yes, reading in the Mises line gives you the foundation. If your interest is more in economics than other related subjects, you might even consider reading Rothbard’s book, Man, Economy, and State before tackling Mises’s book, Human Action. Having mastered the main line, then move on to Hayek’s economics (for example, his book, Prices and Production).

http://library.mises.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/Man,%20Economy,%20and%20State,%20with%20Power%20and%20Market.pdf

http://library.mises.org/books/Ludwig%20von%20Mises/Human%20Action.pdf

http://library.mises.org/books/Friedrich%20A%20Hayek/Prices%20and%20Production.pdf

[jmherbener]

After the war, the government was rolling back intervention, i.e., freeing markets and private enterprises, and returning assets, wealth, and income to the private sector. Before the war, the government was increasing government intervention, i.e., restricting markets and private enterprises, taking assets, wealth, and income from the private sector.

Robert Higgs’s articles on Regime Uncertainty in the G.D. and Reassessing Wartime Prosperity are essential reading:

http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_4_higgs.pdf

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=138

[jmherbener]

Carl Menger founded the Austrian school. Two lines of thought came from his work. The main line was developed by Boehm-Bawerk and Mises. The branch line was developed by Wieser and Hayek,

Joe Salerno has written about the differences between the two branches:

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae6_2_5.pdf

[jmherbener]

Rothbard said that we should reject out of hand any inconceivable state of affairs as a goal for human beings and that any move toward such a goal should also be rejected.

http://library.mises.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/Egalitarianism%20as%20a%20Revolt%20Against%20Nature,%20and%20Other%20Essays.pdf

And just so there’s no doubt about Rothbard’s view that communism is an inconceivable goal for human beings, here is Rothbard on Marx:

http://mises.org/daily/3769

[jmherbener]

Rothbard’s treatment of production in MES is more advanced than Skousen’s. But Skousen wasn’t trying to advance production theory in his book, he was trying to provide an exposition of “capital based macroeconomic theory” as Roger Garrison would phrase it. Garrison had the same project in his book, Time and Money.

[jmherbener]

I can’t find this quote online to read the context. Can you provide a link to it?

Here is the only Rogers’s quote on Marx that I could find:

http://jimrogers-investments.blogspot.com/2010/05/karl-marx-is-probably-dancing-somewhere.html

The statement in the quote you give is just a commonplace: people with wealth influence politics, culture, etc. Such a view is not, then, distinctly Marxist. If Marx repeated commonplace truths, then he got those things right.

Here is one thing Marx wrote about money:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm

If Marx repeated commonplace truths, then he got those things right. But the things that are distinctly Marxist are wrong.

Here is Rothbard on Marx:

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae4_1_5.pdf

[jmherbener]

Here is the Bundesbank statement on repatriating German gold:

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/01/bundesbank-official-statement-on-gold_16.html

[jmherbener]

The concept of endogenous money is post-Keynesian, not Austrian.

http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp-pdf/wp17-wray.pdf

The Austrian Free Bankers have the concepts of Inside Money and Outside Money.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2307&chapter=218696&layout=html&Itemid=27

There are some alleged affinities between Post-Keynesians and Austrians because they both criticize neoclassical general equilibrium.

http://www.thomaspalley.com/docs/articles/macro_theory/endogenous_money.pdf

But the Post-Keynesian conception of endogenous money is traceable to Hyman Minsky and by association, Joseph Schumpeter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_Minsky

Here’s a commentary on the “debate” between Krugman, who is a New Keynesian, and Minsky, who is a Post-Keynesian.

http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2012/04/02/krugman-versus-minsky-who-should-you-bank-on-when-it-comes-to-banking/

In answer to your first question, not only is 100% reserve possible, but it was realized in history. For example, the Amsterdam banks of the 1600s were 100% reserve.

In answer to your second question, money substitutes are claims to money payable on demand at par. These are part of the money stock. In contrast, claims to be paid money in the future are credit claims. Normally credit claims do not function as a medium of exchange. Your buddy’s IOU would not be accepted by merchants as a medium of exchange, i.e., the most salable good in the market, under normal conditions. So, credit that comes from someone’s saving does not create money.

[jmherbener]

It’s more than just the rejection of mathematical formalism, but that’s part of what distinguishes Austrian economics from neoclassical. As Mises pointed out, mathematical functions cannot be used in economics theorizing because there are no constants in quantitative relationships generated by human action.

Take a look at Human Action, pp. 347-354; 706-711.

http://library.mises.org/books/Ludwig%20von%20Mises/Human%20Action.pdf

More generally, Austrians accept human beings as they are without the reductionist assumptions typical of neoclassical economics. For example, Austrians accept genuine uncertainty as an integral part of economic theory.

While Austrians reject mathematical formalism (and hence, optimization), they don’t reject the logic of economizing. Because of this, Austrians and neoclassicals can produce similar conclusions. For example, both would argue that production in the market economy is regulated by profit.

Thomas Taylor’s monograph provides some highlights of the distinctiveness of Austrian economics:

http://library.mises.org/books/Thomas%20C%20Taylor/Introduction%20to%20Austrian%20Economics.pdf

[jmherbener]

Optimization is a modeling technique. For example, a utility function is stipulated for an economic agent and solved for the maximum utility bundle of goods. A rational economic agent is assumed to be one who would choose the utility maximizing bundle of goods instead of a sub-optimal bundle.

[jmherbener]

It might be better to say that they’re books of economic history with digressions on applied economics.

[jmherbener]

Economic history requires the economist to make judgments whereas applied economics does not, it is a theoretical exercise.

Take the recent housing boom and bust to illustrate the difference.

Economic history requires the economist to make a judgment about the importance of the different causal factors in producing the event. Which was more important, the credit expansion or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac propping up MBS or various government regulations on mortgage issuers and so on.

Applied economics tries to isolate the effect of each cause, given the other circumstances of the event. Given the circumstances of the American economy in 2000, what would be the effect of a credit expansion.

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