[samgheb]

Not sure what you mean by that Prof. Woods?

[samgheb]

Ok I thought for a minute that I had misunderstood it because the number was so insanely high that I figured it was down to a misreading of the table on my part. In a talk Higgs gave he said that it was a bit of strech to assume that America had their best growth in history with the best people of to sea and the inexperienced, young,old and women being left to do the rest. That statement alone should tell economists to think of the supposed data.

Anyway I delivered my paper and I want to thank you deeply because without your help it wouldn’t have been half as good. It has also been a very good learning experience. It certainly helped me understand more of the history economic thought and especially the divergences with keynesianism.

[samgheb]

I think this will probably be my last question because I’m almost finished.

In Higgs article on Wartime Prosperity he has a table 2(page 6 in the pdf) where he has several numbers for Real Gross National Product. To take Kuznets numbers as an example, it says that in that in 1939 the number is 100 and by 1943 the number is 148.6.

A)What does this index number mean? Because surely this is not GDP growth correct?

B)What does this 50% increase from 1939 to 1940 mean?

[samgheb]

I agree completely. I suppose their thinking is that they won’t compromise on the means.

The problem is that among mainstream libertarians they don’t even see the problem with allowing free migration in a welfare state not to mention seeing any problem allowing migrants into a society of free association. Steve Sailer has pointed how many libertarian economists can’t apply even the most basic economics to immigration.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/economists-on-immigration-whats-the-matter

[samgheb]

On a slightly related topic I wonder about the significance of the changing in the calculation of the CPI. I asked Gary North about this and he said that what matters is the trend and not the actual number. John Mauldin has argued against John Williams Shadowstats as well on the same ground. Do you agree or does the actual number matter?

[samgheb]

Arturo
I’m inclined to agree with you. To be more specific I would be somewhere between a right-libertarian and a paleo-conservative.

SmartMuffin
That is not the only difference. Most libertarians don’t tend to have any problems with open borders and if they do it is mostly because we have a welfare state. Other than that they don’t see any problem. Also the libertarian view on abortion as expressed by Murray Rothbard is abhorrent to me although I don’t personally fault Rothbard for trying to think logically about what libertarianism implies. I just can’t support. Then again Ron Paul has argued against this interpretation and stated his own libertarian justification of libertarianism.

Also I should add that Paleo’s tend to be against legalizing drugs but I suspect they would agree with libertarians that the War on Drugs is bad.

[samgheb]

Am I right in saying that before Friedman and Schwartz(1963) came out with their book that for mainstream economists the emphasis was mostly on the effectiveness of fiscal policy rather than monetary policy?

I think I understand what you’re saying. But I’m not arguing that the monetarists don’t have a keynesian world view. I’m arguing that their emphasis is different within that world view and that they managed to change the emphasis in the mainstream analysis of the end of the Great Depression or am I overstating the monetarist influence?

[samgheb]

Ok thanks for that. The article is quite good and helps explain in even the simple things so newbies can follow.

[samgheb]

Ok this is very helpful.

My impression so far has been that the evolution of this debate went from keynesian to a mix of monetarism and keynesianism. I believe Friedman and Schwarz’s book helped create this consensus correct?

Also I found a journal article by J.R.Vernon from 1994 entitled “World War II Fiscal Policies and the End of the Great Depression” where he tries to restablish that fiscal policy matters as well and that consensus view still holds. This was a direct answer to the work of Romer, Delong+Larry Summers which emphazised monetary policy as being important in ending the Great Depression and that it ended before 1942 and did not attribute that to the war. Those are big names so I’m wondering if they have succesfully changed/challenged the consensus view?

Update:
I also just found Krugman basically agreeing with the Romer/Delong/Summer line of thought on the Great Depression. Back in 1998 he was saying monetary policy was the primary driver and not fiscal policy.
Robert Murphy through Scott Sumner found this.
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/12/scott-sumner-devastates-paul-krugman-on-the-liquidity-trap.html

I mention this only to further argue that perhaps the consensus was changing among keynesians in the 90’s after Romer/Delong/Summers came out with their work.

[samgheb]

Is there any sort of policy recommendation that neoclassicals would take though?

I mean keynesians would focus on the fiscal policy and monetarist would focus on monetary policy. Is there an equivalent policy of that for neoclassicals?

[samgheb]

I think he is making a sociological/economic point here rather than a moral/ethical one.

[samgheb]

Prof. Herbener,
Is there a unique neoclassical view of the WWII economy distinct from both the keynesian and the monetarist view?

I ask because I have to give an account for each school that is relevant in the discussion.

[samgheb]

Gary North just had an article on this but I can’t link to it because it is on his membership site. But he keeps saying that gold is not a hedge against recession. Rather it is a safe haven when there is an expectation of mass(not just 2%) inflation.

His point in the article is that he seeing recession coming and that is why gold is falling. However he also says that the Fed is likely to start pumping more money into the system. This isn’t the first time gold has fallen when the expectation of recession has risen. He thinks that the Fed is likely to allow mass inflation but NOT hyperinflation. It is important to make that distinction.

[samgheb]

Paleoconservatives believe the nation is made of blood and soil. They are traditionalist for the most part. They are pretty standard conservative as far as I can tell. I think Tom Woods has said of Patrick Buchanan that he simply holds the views that exists pre-social revolution of the 60’s. (not negatively meant btw)

They cherish private property but not to extent that libertarians do. They are based in history while libertarians are based in universal principles that hold for all people at all time. They are more focused on community. They are localists whereas neocons are globalists. This is also partly why you see some hostility from them towards the market although I’m not sure it is as representative of the movment as one would gather from the presence of Buchanan.

While paleoconservative can resemble libertarians the opposite is not true. Libertarians are for the most part left-libertarian from my experience. What is often (falsely)said about libertarianism(atomistic, etc) is quite often true of libertarians. Many libertarians are also very economistic. The best case is immigration which is a pretty good way to seperate left-libertarian from a right-libertarian.

Murray Rothbard used to employ the test of what one thought of Martin Luther King or Lincoln(and by extension the civil war). In the 90’s we saw right-libertarianism or paleo-libertarianism but it died out.
http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1993dec-00001
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html

[samgheb]

There is a little space after the part that says “Invite Tom To Speak”. I imagine that one guy who is neutral to midly pro market might be convinced by your hardcore stance on one topic and if he also sees that you fact have a ressource page for many other topics then that person is on beginning of the road to getting the big picture.

I hope you can find some space for it. When I was in that phase I remember just searching for topics on Mises.org and hoping for a good article. Eventually I found that simply typing Rothbard plus x was a pretty good start.

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