[samgheb]

Thank you for everything Prof. Herbener

[samgheb]

Ok thank you very much. This has been very clarifying for me and the sources have been very good.

One very last question on this topic. I heard the speeches Gary North and Joseph Salerno gave in 2010 on the bankruptcy of macroeconomics. I understand their points but can you think of any mainstream economists who have admitted as much?

I just want some confessions for my paper so I can prove that we are indeed living in an era where economists have admitted that they can’t solve the problems

[samgheb]

Thanks, I will try to look those books up

Is it correct to say that in the post-Bretton Woods system, the American welfare-warfare state can “export” their costs because Asian economies want their currencies pegged to the dollar so as long as the Asian states maintain this policy, the costs can be shifted away from Americans?

And a related question, is it fair to say that without this system America would not realistically be able to maintain current expenditures because a) American’s wouldn’t want to pay the taxes needed to replace the inflation and b) America wouldn’t be able to borrow as much since their current borrowing is predicated on America having the reserve currency

[samgheb]

The problem is that Rothbard ends the story before the 80’s so at the moment I don’t have too many sources in the period from 80’s and forward. I have listened to some of Joseph Salerno’s speeches and especially the one called International Monetary Systems which does give the overview but I can’t find any detailed writings of his that covers the same material. Stockman does a pretty good job in his book.

“The oil crises was an assertion of power by the middle-east, oil- producing countries against the large oil companies of the first world countries.”
Do you have a good source on this?

[samgheb]

Thanks for the links. They are very useful for understanding the system and its breakdown.

I also want to figure out what the effect of the post bretton woods system was in terms of political and economic consequences. There are different opinions on this in the literature but none of them are free market or if they are they might be monetarists which will mean they look positively on the floating currencies system. So 2 questions:

Was/is the post Bretton Woods system a positive for American political power, that is to say that it enhanced American global hegemony? Or did America benefit more from Bretton Woods since other countries were subsidising the American welfare/warfare state?

Would it be fair to say that the post bretton woods system led to directly/indirectly :
a) the oil crisis
b)price controls
c) global monetary instability which result in financial crisises like South Asian financial crisis and the third world debt problems in the late 70’s/early 80’s?

[samgheb]

I’m writing a project on what the role of Bretton Woods was before and after its breakdown. I want to explain the centrality of monetary issues in international studies through the austrian perspective. So I want to know the effects of monetary systems on political and global issues.

Was the break down of Bretton Woods tied into the debt problems of developing countries in the late 70’s?

Are there any writings on the general effects of the break down of Bretton Woods?

[samgheb]

What about what happens in within countries?

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario:

Country A is rich and Country B is poor with a lot of equality.

B opens its economy and invites investments from A and the ruling elite is replaced by a new class of entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will then go from being in the bottom to being in the top. The actual living standards of the the poor will also be raised but the few entrepreneurs will surely be much much better off no matter what the poor does. In this sense is it not correct to say that globalization increases inequality in a country even if it equalizes it between countries A and B?

I mean I remember Friedman and other free market people basically making the point that you can live in a closed economy and where most people are somewhat equally poor or in one where everybody is better off and some in the top are much better off. Although my teachers assume a priori that inequaliy=bad and this is assumed but my assignment is a purely analytic one. I am not to make ethical judgements here.

[samgheb]

“The portion of GDP controlled by the government has stayed remarkably consistent since the early 1950s regardless of tax rates. Here are two charts: the first taxes and the second expenditures”

Yes, I have heard of this graph but does this mean that it doesn’t matter one way or the other what has happened to taxes in the last 60 years? I’m assuming that where those 15-20% have come from has changed according to the change in different forms of tax rates so while the overall number has remained steady the extraction of taxes has come from changing sources or no?

Also is this an American phenomenon or is there a similar upper limit for other western countries?

[samgheb]

I like Epstein too but I suspect this is really a question of the culture war rather than about economics or politics or strategy. In Denmark we have a term called house clean and the only translation I can think off is respectable. I don’t think Rothbard will ever be respectable in the eyes of beltway libertarians. Ron Paul has been accepted, for bandwagon reasons imo, but Rothbard is a step too far. Hans Hoppe? Forget about it

[samgheb]

Are we to trace this back to policy structures in Europe vs America?
Or is this merely the reflection of different cultures expressing themselves?

[samgheb]

Ok then I have indeed understood it. This means that if any of my International Studies teachers were honest they would start any discussion of the power of the financial markets by talking about how goverments have empowered these markets by relying on them.

Another related question is that of economic models. In our class we talked about an Asian model(old school mercantilism just with US bonds instead of gold) and a German model(presumably industrial) as well as the Anglo model(heavy emphasis on financial markets. In the case of Asia I know their economic system is due to government policy. However with regards to Germany vs America/Britain is there really any difference and if so what is the cause of it?

[samgheb]

I ask because I kept hearing in International Studies class that since the 80’s the financial markets have grown in power and that this was horrible and caused by deregulation. Often they refer to the 50’s/60’s as a golden age where financial markets had less power. Am I right in saying that without this breakdown of the last link to goal the financial markets wouldn’t have had grown to the size it has in the last 30 years?

[samgheb]

Prof. Gutzman

I meant a defence of the existence of God.

[samgheb]

Is there no easy books like say a Economics in One Lesson but in theology? Surely some good theological defences must have been written in a popular format, no?

[samgheb]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

I meant books defending the existence of God. I know Prof. Woods reviewed The Last Superstitution by Edward Feser for example.

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