charlie.simm

IMO, being willing to at least listen to all sorts of different opinions is pretty important. Even if you don't agree with them, at least analyze those opinions because otherwise, you'll do what the average Joe is constantly guilty of: if you're a Democrat, you'll only accept information from Democrat-friendly TV stations/newspapers/whatever or if you're a Republican, you'll only accept information from Republican-friendly sources.

Fuck that.

ITT, please share your favorite economics-related sites or blogs and tell us a thing or two about each. The author's philosophy and so on.

I'll start with a few links.

First of all, 3 links to let's call them Austrian School sources, so websites that are mostly read by people agree with the Austrian School's theories:

1. Mises.org - it's a pretty popular website on WF, so no additional info is required, definitely the most frequently quoted Austrian School-related site

2. ZeroHedge - lots of info/articles that one can't find on mainstream sites, I don't like the fact that they're excessively bearish; by being *too* bearish, even if you're right when it comes to the big picture, you're leaving the money you could have made via short-term strategies on the table IMO

3. Peter Schiff's YouTube Channel - he called the housing market crash back when everyone made fun of him, he predicted the financial crisis and so on; however, keep in mind that he owns Euro Pacific Precious Metals, so he tends to aggressively recommend... precious metals

Alright, now here's one Keynesian blog:

Paul Krugman's New York Times Blog - a lot of ZeroHedge readers hate the guy but he is a Nobel Prize winner, so at least listening to what he has to say can't hurt; he's definitely the most popular Keynesian author at the moment of writing

Alright, now it's time for a site I'm having a hard time categorizing:

Martin Armstrong's Blog - like Schiff, he made several accurate predictions but his theories are completely different; I'd say Martin Armstrong presents more history-related arguments than most authors, so even if you don't agree with his assessments (he thinks hyperinflation isn't a realistic risk and explains why), taking those arguments into consideration can't hurt

These are the 5 sources I'd recommend, share your favorite sites and let's compile a list. WF is a good place to find people who think outside the box, should be interesting.

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IceToEskimos

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chigga102

http://player.vimeo.com/video/57364562?autoplay=1

yast

Obama has also a nobel prize, doesn't mean shit anymore.
Krugman is a fool controlled by the propaganda machine, it's a waste of time listening to him.

cziffra

EconomicPolicyJournal.com is the site I read most often these days. It's mostly written by Robert Wenzel. His posts are mainly about day to day economic events. I agree with him on most things, but he is wrong about intellectual property.

Tom Woods | The Libertarian View is another good site. It's not focused entirely on economics, but he does have a lot of good articles that include historical information on economics.

I ocassionally read Free Advice, mostly when it's linked from another site. For some reason, I never subscribed to the RSS feed. I probably should correct that.

All of these are Austrian School.

Unarmed Gunman

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amateursurgeon

The Nobel Prize in economics isn't a real Nobel Prize. Prizes for Literature, Chemistry, Physics, Peace, and Medicine were established in Alfred Nobel's will.

The prize for economics was established in 1968 by Sweden's Central Bank, to try to give legitimacy to the pseudo-science of economics. The 'achievements' of its laureates so far have included the Markowitz/Miller/Sharp theory on asset pricing, which hugely underestimated risks and contributed massively to the 2008 economic meltdown.

The economics Nobel Prize isn't a reason to listen to someone.

(arguably, any Nobel prize isn't a reason to listen to someone.... you should judge each piece of work on its own merits)

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Zsaleem

My Maths teacher is brilliant at Economics.

BlokBlok

I would clap at Paul Krugman's funeral.

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sixthcutuan

Stiglitz is my favourite right now (some of his books are great), also quite like Krugman.

Celebrating death. That has made your opinion is one of an educated member of society ...

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infoslob

An upside of his choice to advance agendas in lieu of shedding real insight is that he can delight in high profile back-and-forths with Jon Stewart.

He's something like the Tyson DeGrasse of economics.

Unarmed Gunman

The guy that thinks a trillion dollar platinum coin is a good idea and that the real solution to fixing the US economy is to fake an alien invasion?

That Krugman?

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dmnEPC

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JakeStratham

Tread carefully. There are some Grade A knuckleheads in those parts. Worse, they don't realize it.

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VinBed

He's basically just some zany professor playing the partisan politics game, paid to make politicians like Obama feel validated about their terrible money management.

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BlokBlok

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sixthcutuan

Fuck off. Economy is tough. Having to pracitice writing content for indians now :L

My opinion is matters...

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Moxie

Barry Ritholtz - The Big Picture


"I ripped into each side as corrupt partisan hacks...

I am not a Democrat, because I have no idea what their economic policies are; And I am not a Republican, because I know precisely what their economic policies are."

Democrat or Republican ? | The Big Picture

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guerilla

I had to stop reading Bob. He's really petty, and I don't like the way he attacks Tucker and Kinsella. He's also attacked Peter Klein (as a proxy for attacking Mises) on entrepreneurship. In both cases (entrepreneurship and IP) Wenzel can't articulate a cogent or intelligent position.

I agree with following Tom Woods and Bob Murphy, although Woods is more a historian than an economist, he's still a superior economist to Krugman.

For those who say Peter Schiff as an Austrian, I'd be careful with that. Schiff is much more a Classical Economist than an Austrian. Since marginalism is not exclusively an Austrian concept, I'd say that a defining concept of Austrianism is Mises' Praxeology. Schiff is not a Praxeologist.

Also, most, but not all Austrians are anarchists. Schiff is very much a minarchist, which political philosophy aside, is a contradictory position economically.

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guerilla

Economics is the study of human action in a social environment.

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lukep

At the risk of revealing my retardation, I really don't understand how any Austrian can be a minarchist. Are you using the term to include newbies to the fold or just the economically-educated, proud Austrians?

Wouldn't the latter group have considered the moral aspects of government in their decision?

dreamache

yup

guerilla

Mises was a minarchist. There is debate as to whether he accepted Rothbard's anarchist stance towards the end of his career.

Mises however said, that if it was possible to devolve political power to the individual, then it should be done.

I have no idea what you're asking here.

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JarredLv

Went ahead and fixed that for ya.

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guerilla

Economics, properly done, is value free. It's like math.

1 + 1 = 2

If you do X, Y will happen.

Whether X and Y are good or bad things, is the field of ethics, which is related, but different.

What most people see online re: economics is in fact social commentary made by economists. The promotion of various opinions, stances etc.

It's important not to confuse preferences as facts. Facts are matters of record in material reality. Preferences are psychological biases.

My point is, Schiff, Krugman, Wenzel etc etc etc usually aren't functioning as economists when they post on their blogs.

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charlie.simm

Life would be a lot easier if what you're saying were true but unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated.

Maybe hundreds of years from now, we'll be advanced enough as a species to know what the best solution to pretty much any economics-related problem or at least advanced enough to have a foundation that's as solid as what we have with math for example but right now, that's not the case (not by a long shot).

Therefore, it's not an exact science... at least, not yet.

Let's analyze the math analogy:

We know that 1 + 1 = 2, there aren't any debates as to whether or not 1 + 1 = 2 and to extrapolate, there aren't any debates when it comes to the "foundation" of math.

The same thing can't be said about economics.

We have the current financial crisis as a more than eloquent example.

Keynesians think that central banks should print money... to them, this solution is "textbook economics" as Krugman often says.

Austrians think central bank involvement via money printing is the worst possible solution, that's "textbook economics" as far as they're concerned.

IMO, we can't say economics = exact science until there can at least be consensus as to what exactly constitutes "textbook economics"

Maybe it will be an exact science in the future, maybe not.

Right now though, it's a combination between an exact science and an art form, the art of capital allocation or whatever people choose to call it.

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JakeStratham

Charlie, at the risk of sounding pedestrian, what "economics-related problems" must we try to solve?

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hehejo

Some time ago a number of scientist thought that the earth was flat, another group of them thought that was not the case.

One economist group's theories keep failing while the other group can even roughly predict the future of the other group's market intervention.

If you take the average opinion of both groups, then yes, it's inaccurate. But why not just listen to the accurate ones who's theories actually make sense?

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JarredLv

That's not an example of economics. That's an example of corruption.

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Unarmed Gunman

I think you're missing his point. Krugman is a quack, and it's entirely accurate to say Schiff or Ron Paul or whoever have been much better at predicting the result of Fed policy, but that doesn't make them correct 100% of the time, as they would be if economics were as exact as math. For instance, it's easy to say the housing bubble is going to burst one day (as The Economist did in 2003) but nobody was able to predict when.

It's like when Nostradamus said "A king will rise in the East one day". No shit.

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guerilla

I understand what you're saying, but that's not economics. Math tells you that 2 + 2 = 4, but it also doesn't predict when 2 and 2 will occur.

Economics is as exact as math within its domain. Prediction (which is mostly charlatanism) is not part of economics.

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lukep

That's anarchist enough for me... Every anarchist but the extremists have that same stance if you think about it.


I was just asking if the most learned and respected Austrians, (i.e. professional economists and professors with published works) took the time to study the Moral reasons for anarchy as well as the economic ones.

It seems to me that if you are well versed on the subject, and you already agree with all of the economic reasons for anarchy, (but are only led to support minarchy) then the moral reasons should make any monopoly of force at all in the equation too uncomfortable for them to stop short of full support for anarchy.