JKJ,

I often find that big words are used to cover the lack of understanding.

The Austrian school of economics is part of the general body of scholars contributing to the development of economic theory.

"But the intellectual battleground today is much more defined by methodological issues than ideological ones. Indeed, many of the policy wisdoms which flow from an Austrian analysis of the market economy are part of the common knowledge of market oriented economists."

And if you happen to read some of their stuff you would realise that they advocate a free market laize faire approach, not socialist.

Facts not verbosity will help you win an argument.

The Economist magazine is Keynesian. Keynesians think what causes depressions is a mysterious fall in ‘aggregate demand’ ie spending. The Economist and the Keynesians think the Fed – a private body constituted by private bankers acting under a legal monopoly granted by Congress - should have a licence to print as much money as it feels like, whenever it wants, without audit, without transparency, without the public being able to know. They think the cure for depressions is for government power to print more mountains of paper money, encourage more mountains of debt based on nothing, inflate more bubbles, destroy productive businesses to fund loss-making projects and businesses, and institutionalise the ripping-of off millions more people using a legal monopoly of fraud and counterfeiting.

Since the Fed came into existence, it has inflated away the value of the dollar, reducing it by 95 percent!

Yet these clowns think we need the Fed to keep inflation low! A horse-laugh to that.

It is inflationary monetary policy that is causing the cycle of booms and busts in the first place. Then when it produces the depression the Austrians predicted, the Keynesians say the solution is more of the same, which is what’s happening now. What’s next? Negative interest rates? Are they going to start paying us to borrow money to spend on loss-making businesses?

In other words, the Keynesians are clueless; they are in actively making the problem worse.

Proof of their culpable idiocy is in this interesting interview, in which the (Keynesian) Economist magazine, interviews the (Austrian school) Ron Paul: http://audiovideo.economist.com/?fr_story=78d8c6ec44f78962754fcbbe3124cfccea02eb95&rf=bm

The paper money system is a total fraud. It shafts the poor and workers most, and also funds America's imperial wars. Ending the Fed is something on which both socialists, middle-way types, and libertarians should all be on common ground.

Businesswoman-turned-freedom fighter gives her report on the fashion show contest between “Laissez-faire” Mises and “Après Moi le Déluge” Keynes: http://mises.org/story/3571

If The Economist is Keynsian, Wing Ah Ling, how come it gave Greenspan the Bronx cheer?

The fact that they don't consider the gold standard, as promoted by Ron Paul, to be feasible in the twentyfirst century doesn't make them particularly out-of-step.

Especially as Ron himself (thanks for the link) hasn't a clue how it might work.

There isn't sufficient gold in the world, by the way, above ground or yet-to-be-mined, to support even a fraction of world trade.

I loved the part in the video where he was asked how people would buy stuff in his brave new world of gold certificates - I'm only surprised the interviewer didn't burst out laughing. Maybe it was edited out afterwards.

The reality is that none of the "paper money is evil" merchants have the faintest idea how an alternative system could operate without creating the biggest disaster this planet has seen.

Or perhaps that is what you are angling for?

The end-times, courtesy of a mad rush to dig up metal.

What puzzles me most is how you folks can possibly imagine that using some random metal that you dig out of the ground actually represents a commonsense approach to the financing of industry and trade.

Seriously.

It reminds me of that old Bob Newhart tobacco sketch.

http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/1003044449-4450.html (scroll down)

""You got another winner for us, Sir Walt, have ya? Sil-ver. What's sil-ver, Walt? A shiny rock. You've got 80 tons of it. (LAUGHTER) You bought 80 tons of shiny rock, Walt? Ha, ha, oh you're beautiful, Walt. (LAUGHTER) Look, Walt, I don't know if you noticed last time, we have plenty of shiny rocks over here in England...."

Unless you want to pretend that these shiny rocks have some magical powers, you must admit that as currency, they have some major limitations.

But the biggest flaw in your position is that you treat the population as moronic idiots, slaves to machine and pawns of the devil.

Whatever happened to taking responsibility for getting into debt of your own free will.

Or not getting into debt, if that's your choice.

Pericles
So collectivist economic planning works does it?

And the GFC has nothing to do with monetary policy I suppose?

Do you honestly think that the ‘financing of industry and trade’ requires a centralized government monopoly to constantly inflate the supply of paper money, which just happens to be used to finance imperial wars and the welfare state do you?

The billions of people should not be free to choose what to use as money because the wisdom of Pericles knows what better for all of them, than they do?

Without that, industry and trade would collapse because people would not be able to figure out how to make payment? Their wishes need to be forcibly overridden by a secretive cabal deciding how much fake money to print and give it to whomever they want without accounting to anyone?

Both the Keynesians and the monetarists are clueless. Both of them failed to understand or predict the GFC. Greenspan was the author of the policies that gave rise to the housing boom and bust. And Bernanke, as recently as April 2008, was saying the economy is fine.

The fact is, “most economists” are interventionists statist who believe in collectivist economic planning of the money supply. But government is no more capable of planning the money supply than it is of the wheat supply, or the sausage supply.

The forest of socialism has been cut off at the base, but remains standing because of the entanglement of its branches at the farthest ends, held together by the vested interests of the powerful, and the credulity of the conceited and ignorant.