corentin

And what's the connotation with "taxpayer money"?

> austrian economics has probably become too dogmatic for some

Milton Friedman once said "there is no Austrian economics - only good economics, and bad economics".

The question is not whether the theories of the austrian school are too dogmatic or not; the question is whether they are right or not.

> So if people decide to spend less on investment goods, doesn't that mean that they must be deciding to spend more on consumption goods—implying that an investment slump should always be accompanied by a corresponding consumption boom? And if so why should there be a rise in unemployment?

Does he have a good reason not to mention the elephant in the room here? (I'm thinking of monetary policy and trade partners such as China)

Yeah, that's the good thing about stable APIs and ABIs.

But why bother?

Except he hasn't.

Under the gold standard, there is a feedback loop allowing the market to control inflation (that is, people can invest more or less in mining technologies/companies).

To some extent, this feedback loop also exists in a central banking system; it's far from being as efficient.

Nearly all the professional applications (engineering, finance, accounting, etc.) only run on Windows (or Mac OS X for the design stuff).

Like most of us, I discovered programming using proprietary software (namely MS-DOS and QBASIC), and if an intolerant idiot tried to prevent me from using those tools, he would have been hit by a (then) heavy keyboard.

(by the way, the case against using BASIC is certainly stronger than the case against using proprietary software.)

That's not what I'm talking about.

Stallman declared he'd rather see computer clubs closed than using Windows. He wants to convert (I'm quoting the article) the "important resource" (read: people 'unspoiled' by Windows) to free software (just like Che Guevara who went to Africa to convert people unspoiled by capitalism to the ideal of communism).

So I rest my case: as far as software is concerned, he is a totalitarian.

He certainly is serious. But as long as his ridiculous totalitarian/communist ideas only apply to software, he's mostly harmless.

I assume such a hypothetical company would become a huge Fortune 500 company selling their database technology at a very high price!

Usually it's the size of a business card.

There's no such thing as "public" money; it always comes from private pockets and ends up in (different) private pockets.

I can't see what's pejorative about taxpayer money. That's whom it comes from.

So, if (let's say) you raise a group of boys isolated from the rest of the world until they are 15 and then, all of a sudden, tell them: "oh, by the way, there's this thing called 'girls', have a look, you'll probably like it", you've created an artificial want?

It's true that before seeing the ad for a MegaBananaChoco cereal bar, I didn't want to eat one. Yet I've always wanted to eat nice things. That's what's so great about ads: they provide information about good stuff.

Don't worry, they won't eat more than what is produced.

Malinvestment also applies to labor. Workers need to retrain before they can start new productive jobs, and they need capital as well (not easy, since the US are borrowing instead of saving).

Companies doing risky stuff shouldn't be too surprised when they suddenly run out of good luck.

On the other hand, if I were running a company and I knew that my buddies in Washington would end up bailing me out with other people's money because I'm "too big to fail", I would be a fool not to take as much risk as I can. With state capitalism, you can have your cake and eat it.

The system doesn't self-correct everywhere at the same time (unless there is a central bank point of failure, if you see where I'm going...), so if your company is bankrupt you can find a job elsewhere.

Mind you, people who were careful with their money and didn't believe in the pipe dream of ever increasing home equity need not worry about what's going on (well, they need to worry about what the government is doing, but that's another matter).

Well, then just how much did regulation helped prevent this whole fiasco?

Do you know what your neighbours want? What they like and dislike, what they want for their children, and so on?

Now, do you think a genius would know? And if he knew, would he know better than them?

You can "run the economy" (that is, rule other people) to achieve your goals (e.g. if you are a pharaoh and want your own pyramid) but you just can't go against people's will to help them achieve their own goals.

MP3?

In essence, they're telling their employees they're too stubborn or stupid to follow guidelines and use their judgment when it comes to responding to email.

I think you may be confusing two things here. The federal debt indeed is backed by the taxing power of the US government. That is, if you lend it 100 dollars today, you can have some confidence that you will get them back plus interests in the future.

But the dollar isn't backed by much; it's backed by trust, which itself depends on the acts of the Fed (i.e. it really depends on what the Fed does). If you can buy two widgets for 100 dollars today, you don't have much confidence that you'll be able to buy them in the future.

In either case, there's nothing to guarantee your purchasing power. With gold, your purchasing power isn't 100% protected either (because new gold is digged every day) but at least you're much safer from arbitrarily high inflation.

But you are obviously correct when you say that money isn't worthless.

What I love is living in a very comfortable house in front of the sea, with nobody else around me for miles. What I love is sitting in a hot bath and reading a book. What I love is travelling and being entertained. So far, nobody has offered to pay me to do what I love. It's a shame.

So I have to work for money like the greedy bastard I am, to make the world a better place for me.

Let me quote one of Ireland's most successful businessman, Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair, on "doing what you love":

"I am not a cloud bunny. I am not an aerosexual. I don't like aeroplanes. I never wanted to be a pilot like those other goons who populate the air industry"

Well, the successful person is the one who reaches the goals he sets for himself.

If your goal is to become rich no matter what, you can become very successful as a drug baron.

It looks like you're confusing successful and respectable.

To start with, in France, you'd have to remove price control on books...

French politicians are as self-serving and corrupt as everywhere else, except they really believe they're helping the people with their braindead policies, so they actually do even more damage.

Most french people still want to believe in communism. If you remind them of the disastrous failure it was everywhere it was tried, they certainly won't disagree with you, but nevertheless add something in the form of "yes, but if we really..."

> "Because French schools are good across the country"

There is a huge protest of the teacher's trade unions right now in France (as usual...) because the government wants to test the abilities of children when they leave primary school.

I guess we'll never know what the results will be.

Krugman forgot to talk about the unemployment level, endemic urban violence and behemoth deficit, though.

You're right about the magazine but you're dead, dead wrong about the pastry. Come on...

edit: I don't know if you're talking about the real french pastry you can buy in any village in France or what passes for french pastry anywhere else in the world. It's not the french name or the tricolor flag on the packaging that makes the quality.

Well, I think it's more than necessary to explain what "Alternatives Economiques" is, because most people here probably have never heard about it. Indeed, it's a very well respected journal in France, written by scholars in a very scholarly style, on the topic of "alternative economic policies". As in, alternatives to capitalism. Chomsky stuff. Except that in France it's mainstream (most high-school economics teachers swear by it, and it's also very popular in universities).

Enough said.

edit: actually, I think it's a fair description. I could have said "Naomi Klein stuff", but it's far from being as stupid. So it's Chomsky stuff.

> Unless you happen to live in les banlieues.

Actually, the banlieues (suburbs) are the most subsidized areas of the country. The infrastructure there (schools, libraries, sport clubs, etc.) has a mysterious tendency to spontaneously consume itself, but usually it's promptly rebuilt thanks to the generous taxpayer.

The thing is, those cities were planned and designed from the ground-up by progressive, visionary social engineers as part of a social experiment (in collectivism, it goes without saying) funded with money from the Marshall plan. And the result of this experiment seems to be that, no, people really don't like living in cities that look like Brasilia.

But that's just one part of the problem. The big picture is gloomier and it reveals a massive failure of the French socialist-minded government in economic and social policies. The most rigid labour laws in the world prevent employers from hiring anyone but the most productive and qualified workers. Everyone else (too old, too young, not qualified enough, etc.) is excluded from the job market and lives on welfare.

The social policies are probably even worse than the economic policies. They say racism is evil and we should all live together and love each other and so on, yet they don't seem to really believe in what they preach since they have this nasty habit of forcing people to integrate; which, of course, only results in more racism, hatred and violence.

Oh, I forgot about justice. It's very humane. After all, criminals are themselves victims of society and should be treated as such, aren't they?

You're right about the word time-bomb, but it's far from being as simple as a clash between two classes. The government has generated hundreds of antagonist interest groups. The CRS is extremely efficient at dealing with random bursts of violence (it's one of the most efficient European police force when it comes to dealing with urban violence). But of course it can't prevent or control a civil war.