Don't forget Campaign for Liberty's reading/listening lists, which I put together to get you up to speed on various topics with as little pain as possible. Today, in addition, the Mises Institute announces that its huge archive of educational media is now available at iTunes U. Here's the announcement, and here's the direct link. Enjoy!
Thank you Thomas for putting these on this website for free. The educational material has been a real help for me, especially the "economics in one lesson"
A kid in a candy store am I as well! I've listened to many mises podcasts, but found them very difficult to download and add to my ipod. I have actually been listening to a lot of podcasts from 'Library of Economics and Liberty' because they were easily accessed on iTunesU.
This should be MUCH better! I hope they are categorized well.
Tom, do you know anyone from the Library of Economics and Liberty? What is your opinion of the org?
Sweet. I commute to school 40 minutes now and listen to a lot of Mises lectures on the way. The education I get in my drive time make the one I am paying for "look like an idiot" - Thanks also, Dr. Woods for the killer Homer Simpson quote.
Posted by Thomas Woods on 12/25/09 Last updated 12/24/09
Merry Christmas to all Campaign for Liberty supporters out there. In case you've never seen this, it's worth watching: Paul McCartney plays a dual role in this music video that recalls the famous Christmas truce during World War I.
I remember watching this video as a child. I still love Paul, even though seeing him recently open a live show with Magical Mystery Tour made me cringe. Thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas.
Thanks for sharing Tom, and for all you do. Merry Christmas to all my CFL friends. May you have a wonderful day tomorrow celebrating our greatest gift of all, the birth of our Savour.
Hi Marilyn, Tom(s), Glenn and All,
Merry Christmas. I'm home in NH for a few days, enjoying the snow. It seems like I've known you all for years. May all of your days and ways be blessed today and as we head for the new year.
That's what Professor Joe Salerno tells Stuart Varney when the latter goes hysterical at the suggestion that "politicians" might want to know what the Fed is up to.
It's extremely difficult to make serious points in the rapid-fire atmosphere of cable news networks, but Joe does a nice job. The very fact that he shocks Varney proves he's getting a needed but previously neglected point of view out there. (For Joe's free lecture course in Austrian economics, scroll halfway down at C4L's economics education page.) HT: LRC blog.
I am sure that it is difficult to be put on the spot and to speak eloquently to an unknown audience. Given more time I do not think that Joe Solerno would equate greed with self-interest.
And I am curious about his choice to use self-interest instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to use the word subjective instead. Afterall there is a host of biases associated with self-interest which are cleared up by the acknowledgment that people are subjective and that they act subjectively (and therefore the proper methodology of economics is subjectivism).
Subjectivism is also what has the power to diffuse the hysterical cynicism of the neocon.
Rapid fire free-markets with Dr. Joe and the Judge!
Varney was brought in to act as the opposition - his afternoons on FBN show him to be much more aware then he let on here.
That is a great line about central bankers. Tie it together with Bunning's declaration that BerBumbler is a moral hazard and Dr. Paul's designation that he is the world's largest counterfeiter and we got ourselves a brand.
A good talk from Salerno here:
The Gold Standard - Theory and Myth
http://mises.org/MultiMedia/mp3/Salerno/10.mp3
Oh, thanks for the post Thomas Woods - just read the heading.
The North American and European western woman and wearing gold.
Why are N. Am.& Euro women recently adverse to wearing gold or silver jewelry compared to the middle eastern, south Asian, Central Asian, Asian, South American women?
No matter the socioeconomic class these women are in they still love wearing real gold and silver.
Central Banks and bankers from these regions lately have invested heavily in gold over paper currency.
Posted by Thomas Woods on 12/22/09 Last updated 12/22/09
In the comment section on this very blog, someone argued that wars "create great affluence" by means of the industries they stimulate.
I urge -- no, I beg -- readers to put this audio file on their iPods and listen to it. It's Robert Higgs on the myth of war prosperity. It is the best brief destruction of this view I have encountered. We have got to get this issue right.
My dad at eigthy-one and Fr. Paul at 83 have few recollections of the depression being 12 and 14 in 1940. The common thread both shared involved local support by community and family during the Depression.
I agree with you, Mr. Woods. War only profits those that have a vested interest in it. It is not a mystery that the military-industrial complex is working quite nicely for them. They win, while the rest of us sacrifice our very blood for a Pyrrhic victory. What we have now is an endless cycle of needless destruction based upon the logical illogicality of our own government. They tell us who "our enemy of the day" is and we nod and go along with it. It's utter madness!
The way I understood it was in WW2 we under-consumed to support the war effort but when we came home we put labor to more productive uses. Ex. Manufacturing goods for consumption at home.
Posted by Thomas Woods on 12/08/09 Last updated 12/08/09
This article by U.S. News and World Report's Rick Newman is bad enough. He repeats the usual nonsense about "deregulation," and (of course) assures us that "of all the villains responsible for the Great Economic Wipeout, the Federal Reserve is pretty far down the list."
All right, so no one is surprised that U.S. News instinctively parrots the Establishment line. But now read National Review Online on the Fed (ht: LRC blog). How many Establishment cliches can they cram into a single article? It is absolutely unbelievable (as is their low-IQ claim that Ron Paul favors "disbanding the military" [!]).
Every line of this editorial reads like it came from a Fed press release. One looks in vain for even a shred of intellectual curiosity, the tiniest inkling that the world might be a teensy weensy bit more complicated and interesting than the conventional view -- which NRO adopts hook, line, and sinker -- will allow. Seriously, am I reading The New Republic? Is there even a difference anymore? Pro-Fed, pro-empire, pro-bailout, anti-Ron Paul -- the left-neocons and right-neocons sure have a lot in common.
All gone is the Mises/Hayek view (remember when National Review editors knew who those men were and what they thought about these matters?) that criticized central banking for its destabilizing interventions into the free market. Instead, we read about the wondrous wizards who keep inflation at bay and smooth out the business cycle. Yes, there are people who still believe this -- people who actually think of themselves as supporters of the free market! -- even in 2009.
This is all tainted journalism and I think we should let these publications know that.
If anyone has the time and/or energy, here are the addresses to let these publications know that we can go elsewhere for journalistic integrity if we need to do so:
Mr. Woods as I have realized the left and right in America have merged into the gov't sanctioned party.
These parties are populated by insane clowns drunk on power fuelled by their paid facilitators in media. This is a direct result of 'tyranny by majority' 'winner-take-all' democracy, 'vote like a chimp' Republican-Democrat elections.
The only way this is corrected is to establish Proportional Representative (PR) Democracy multi party election participation as was once in American electoral history before the republican/democrat cronies again co-oped the electoral process with weak unfair legislation.
The intellectual battle is underway, even at Princeton, where the only outlet is on comments pages of the school paper (which not only always rejects Austrian-perspective articles, but outright ignores them!)
I'm having a little trouble reconciling "That intervention...very likely averted a much worse recession" and "most of the money appropriated for the first round has not yet been spent...it is therefore impossible to assess the spending’s efficacy."
I can't wait for a currency crisis to wipe the smug grins off the faces of all these fed shills. We should translate these articles into Mandarin and Arabic and plead for our creditors to teach the authors what fiat means.
I used to think most government shills were good-hearted and believed what they were doing was best. Now I think it really is the libido dominandi in effect.
http://classicalliberalismprotection.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Bad Economics Ignored By National Review.
On the Road to Serdom the short-run mentality of bad economics (and of ambitious ego-driven interventionists and their beneficiaries) is like the gas peddle to an immature teenager in a souped-up speedster. GO with reckless abandon with no thought of anything beyond the immediate thrill!
National Review (and its like) litter the sides of the road and stir around as the corrupt machine whizzes by.
Nowhere in National Review does it correctly predict that the wreck will be severe. Unbeknownst to the doubters, the equilibrium power inherent in the divine economy will carry the unConstituional coup careening over a cliff.
When classical liberalism ultimately triumphs the road will be used for peaceful and prosperous commerce.
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—Thomas Jefferson
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