Responding to Bryan Caplan's Continued Critique of the Austrians

[@aturner687]

Wow, didn't even wear a mask? I could have died through the internet. We should shut down the economy just to be safe

[@BlackJesus8463]

lol

[@YouLoveMrFriendly]

My favorite Anarchist 😊

[@marcusdavenport1590]

Great episode!

[@billmelater6470]

I think a lot of people gravitate towards "Scientism" because of the comfort hard numbers can give. Just based on many conversations I've had with people, they seem intrinsically convinced that things like interest rates and prices can be set and standardized wholesale if you do X, Y, and Z but doing those things usually amounts to, "If the experts do something". They never have a real answer and sure enough when they try and things go wrong, it's somehow never their fault. More importantly, Science is philosophy. Sure you can get data to analyze yes but data doesn't mean anything without sound theory. There's a reason you can't just do whatever you want and call it Science (unless you're a lockdowner of course).

[@svenva]

Good comment, I agree!

[@alieskandari6863]

One of the best episodes of the human action podcast I've watched so far.

[@mljenk21]

👀

[@John-c4r1o]

17:45 The thing is with interest rates being 'artificially low' and rational expectations would consider future rates. The issue with that logic is I know from first hand knowledge that most business leaders simply play the absolute short term, they're focused on this years targets and bonuses. They can take positions that are not optimal for the corporation over the medium to long run.

[@reilysmith5187]

Surely Bryan has heard about game theory and the prisoners dilemma. Well the ABC and its implications can be modeled exactly as such. There was even a paper which did exactly that. So expectations can be fully rational and ABCT can still work at the same time.

[@AseoLimpieza]

Don't work for money; make money work for you. Invest wisely today to create the freedom you desire tomorrow.

[@semendx]

Many new tra-ders face challenges without proper guidance. I found success by learning from James Clark's expertise.

[@thesearethefables]

​@@semendxexactly that's why I always seek Mr J Clark's guidance in all I do 😊

[@Cradlethegrave-n9d]

I recently sold half my tech stock holdings due to all-time highs, leaving me with $400k. Should I invest in ETFs now or wait for a market correction considering potential inflation?

[@bayhunter6]

Celebrating a $30k stock portfolio today from a $6k start. Investing wisely has given me time for family and future plans.

[@AudricEnriquez]

From $37K to $45K that's the minimum range of profit return every week I thinks it's not a bad one for me, now I have enough to pay bills and take care of my family.

[@JamesAndrewMacGlashanTaylor]

The finance world, despite being heavily involved in model building, seem to walk the line much better than Bryan, perhaps bc their careers/reputations are not tied up with being "anti-austrian". This niche of finance practitioners is too grounded to deny downward sloping demand curves, for example. And that wherever the opposite might be observed, this would not occasion doubt as to the law of demand. Just as a rocket ship leaving the earth's orbit does not cast the doubt as to the existence of gravity. This is just based on how I hear finance guys, at least the ones I follow, speak. But I do a lot of listening.

[@rutessian]

Any chance you could critique this study: General Equilibrium Effects of Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence From Kenya?

[@AustrianDuration]

Not using mainstream tools is the silly part. We can hold to Mises & Menger's insights and add mainstream insights.

[@dariuslegacy3406]

My sentiments exactly. If anything Mises' insights should be a reminder of the limitations of those tools, a warning to be weary about the conclusions reached by their use, but not a reason to outright reject them. Bob should know since he went ahead and wrote a paper infusing Austrian theory with classical capital theory and showed it was a tenable endeavour.

[@srichman]

Re the business cycle, mightn't a suspicious entrepreneur go for somewhat shorter term projects than he would have picked had he been confident the low interest rates were genuine?

[@BlackJesus8463]

line go up

[@Castle3179]

Yes, and immediately recycle the gains from the short-term projects to reinvest in the next project.

[@jgrif7891]

19:15 I don't discredit Physics just because the initial concepts I learned were simplified.

[@jackreacher.]

I recall a fascination with respect to the differences in taste between pennies, nickels, and dimes minted prior to Eisenhower's Presidency.

[@CentrifugalSatzClock]

When mentioning books to read or recommend you left out some very important ones. One the books I have been getting all of my friends to read is Money Mechanics! Now when they hear about reverse Repo they know what it means!!

[@23Skeetoo]

A response to Gene Callahan's objections to Austrian economics would be cool too.

[@baselinefreedom5616]

As we get closer to Austrian School Economics becoming mainstream through the incredible success of Argentina's President Javier Milei, all the rats along for the ride - controlling the dissent - are jumping ship...

[@troll_kin9456]

Caplan's dissent from the Austrians long long outdates Milei. This is like an annual tradition at this point.

[@baselinefreedom5616]

@troll_kin9456 I'm referencing the recent ship-jumpers. The plain truth is there is no tax advantages, subsidies and Bail Out money for the political Influence Peddling Corporate and Collectivist Classes in Austrian School Economics.

[@wowhallo]

Why is there only a spanish PDF on the website, and not an English version?

[@Richard-ki4nkgm]

Souch hype around Bitcoin. Good but if people don't understand why and how then it will ultimately fail. If BTC needs to be custodial (to use practically- for many low value transactions, cup of coffee, ease of use, not having technical n specialized knowledge, etc) and people don't demand full reserve banking, and don't have limits on derivative/debt stacking, insidious gov regulation , etc....then BTC becomes useless and a huge waste of energy. So far it's not looking good for BTC. Same or similar applies to gold or any hard money

[@keven-x5c]

Thanks for the forecast! I have a quick question: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). What's the best way to send them to Binance?

[@Hernsama]

Good old Bastiat!

[@stephanesurprenant60]

You actually don't need a controlled experiment to estimate causal effects. While it is true that we are comparing counterfactuals and that it therefore always involve assumptions, it does not follow that the exercise is pointless. For one thing, quantifying the counterfactual and clarifying the assumptions under which different results obtain can indicate you that at least some stories are implausible. There are combinations of assumptions that just won't make sense of enough of the results of the empirical analysis to be defensible and it sometimes only become clear when you get into the details of statistical analysis. If it never happened to you to look at statistical results and revise your views or pause, then there's a problem. Either you're too dogmatic or you never given such analysis the time of day. And I know that because that's what I do -- I'm a PhD economist, just like Mr. Murphy here. Sometimes, the restrictions you impose in your head just doesn't work well with the proprties of the data. Now you can definitely make the case that it will not resolve all disputes. That's fair enough, especially in macro where we don't have all that much data to work with. But to go from there to believing it will never resolve any dispute is excessive. You actually do not have the arguments needed to justify that extreme of a position on the role of data. I am disinclined to believe it because I actually am one of those person who (a) read thousands upon thousands of pages of statistical analysis, (b) is actually trained to understand the methods used and have ample experience with using them myself, and (c) have changed my mind about dozens of things reading about and doing empirical work. I do agree, though, that many people are *too optimistic** about what questions data will ultimately settle and are **too rigid** in their interpretation of what results we do have in the academic literature or in policy papers -- that is, they are way too confident in how well their framework applies and how poorly others might. It's probably never going to settle very big questions entirely, but Devil is in the details and bothering to analyze the smaller stuff with some degree of humility and care is a valuable contribution to those discussions. If all I end up doing is narrowing down the corridor of defensible views on a topic, that's better than nothing, isn't it? I'm happy to provide more specific examples of what I mean. Now, I am catching Murphy in the middle of a summary and I am responding with a much softer statement than what most people have in mind when we talk about testing theories. I prefer the term evaluation, if we're being honest. He may have a slightly different response to my comment than to most of the literature -- which I think he's closer to correctly criticizing than not. The whole obsession with robustness comes to mind here. Like, yeah, maybe sometimes the damn likelihood is just too flat and you need to commit more strongly in one direction or another to get an answer. If that's the case, so be it -- repport that aspect of weakness of the evidence you have and maybe vary the assumptions to see how conclusions move. That's CLEARLY not the attitude of most of my colleagues. A lot of people want to be able to go "but the data says." Well, no, the data plus assumptions says, and so maybe Murphy and I disagree a little less than people might guess reading the start of my comment. I don't know -- he'll be the judge of that. Maybe he wants to revise the role of statistical analysis to zero. PS: If anyone is curious about what I do, all my work is public. You can find it on my website.

[@TeemuSintonen]

It's exactly the opposite of what Bryan Caplan argues. The neoclassical economics acknowledged the Misesian and proto-Austrians' advancements of subjective value theory but incorrectly tried to apply the empirical framework and scientism to economics. It's full of epistemological problems, as discussed by Mises, and HARKing, p-hacking, publication bias etc.

[@goldenplayroblox5985]

Hi, from London.

[@YashArya01]

8:11 Henry George quote

[@modelmark]

No controlled experiments in climate science as well. Or for epidemiology. That's when they go for the computer models

[@justinshindelar6722]

imagine thinking, to any degree, that reading Cantillon, Smith, Hayek, and others is less helpful than reading "the courage to act" lmao

[@chriswebb4797]

Early in the video, you mention thought experiments and then go on to the tariffs between countries. Isn't there something to the US being the richest and largest market? Similar to an upscale country club for the nsurance salesman. He pays for access to the club members, Isn't a tariff like a club fee for access to the US people? In this case it is not like country A trading with country B, the US is 1 of 1.

[@PhilanderingBastard]

Except in your example the club members would pay for the insurance salesman‘s fees.

[@chuck-wv9nh]

Has Murphy weighed in on what happened to Walter Block? Is being an Israel supporter a no-no with the Austrian school guys????

[@CPubi]

yes austro-libertarians are opposed to governments (states) and war. even rothbard was writing critically about israel and zionism in the 1960s

[@chuck-wv9nh]

@@CPubi I've gathered that much myself.... I was just wondering if he's said anything directly about Block's ...errrr..."oustracization"... Woods referred to it in one podcast but wasn't clear on the details.

[@RobertLee273]

​@@CPubi Rothbard was also against sectarianism😉

[@denrelly9]

If you really want to know you should read Hoppe's responses to Block. It's not that Block got denounced for supporting Israel, he got denounced for making property claims in favour of the Israeli settlers over the Palestianians because of collectivism and bloodlines. As Rothbard pointed out there should be no statue of limitation so if you can prove your family owned something 200 years ago then you should be compensated, but there is obviously no such proof from 3000 years ago. And he didn't just stop at the confiscation of property but even went as far to defend Israel's tactics of murdering innocent civilians in destroying Hamas. Both of these are the greatest violations of the NAP you could have which therefore does not make him a libertarian.

[@chuck-wv9nh]

@@denrelly9 Ouchy!!!

[@sczoot6285]

Caplan just seems like a guy who never quite got it

[@brianomoli4]

Brian is the same guy that says open borders raises GDP. His opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. So does perpetual war, Brian.

[@balintg]

joooooooooooooo