Professor Russ Roberts from George Mason University recently helped create what I hope will be an influential video for many students and people of all walks of life.
In the video below, F.A. Hayek and John Maynard Keynes show up to an economics conference. (Sounds exciting already, no?) The men, giants in their polar camps of economic thought, rap their way through explaining their theories on economic booms and busts, or the business cycle.
For more on Hayek, read this excellent tribute by Murray Rothbard here.
.
In the nine days the video’s been up on YouTube, it’s already gotten nearly half a million views.
For a short refutation of Keynesian theories, read this article by Frank Shostak. He argues:
Rescue packages aimed at saving the economies of the world are just laying the foundation for more misery in the months ahead. Many commentators and economic experts who advocate strong government stimulus measures never bother to ask how those measures are going to be funded — and by funding we mean real stuff: where are all the bread and the potatoes going to come from?
It doesn’t occur to the Keynesian sympathizers that it is the fiscal and monetary policies of the past several decades that have given rise to nonproductive consumption. The outcome of all this is the vast amount of bubble activities. How can more of the same Keynesian policies — policies that have inflicted massive damage on wealth producers — revive the economy?
What is now required is not more Keynesian policies but rather allowing wealth producers to move fast and start generating real wealth. What is required is plenty of productive consumption. More government spending and the massive pushing of money by central banks only strengthens nonproductive consumption, thereby delaying prospects for a meaningful economic recovery.
And if you would like to read an in-depth look at why we mid-recession economic inquierers should look to Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School instead of Keynes, read The Failure of New Economics by Henry Hazlitt, available for free here. [pdf]
.
No comments:
Post a Comment