"Don't make any loud sounds around the Mises Institute..."

[StrangeLoop]

http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2010/10/dont-make-any-loud-sounds-around-mises.html

@Daniel Kuehn

OK so a little while ago I blogged on how fricken paranoid people over at the Mises Institute were. You had a great New York Times article covering the influence of Hayek and Bastiat and they managed to be insulted by it. They just knew there had to be some sort of nefarious motive behind the Times article. The author was a known liberal, and the thinking was that that liberalism had to spill over into what she was writing. There was no way that a liberal could be dispassionately interested in reporting on the influences on the Tea Party. And they even admitted that you had to “read between the lines” (i.e. - make shit up) to get this.

So they’re back at it. First is Jeff Tucker responding to Ben Bernanke’s speech. In any other economics blog you could have woken up this morning to lots of good commentary about the economics of Bernanke’s speech. Jeff pulls out one passage where Bernanke highlights the simple point that inflation is a function of both (1.) the money supply and (2.) expectations - he takes the point about expectations and he says that Bernanke is saying “If inflation goes wild, it is your fault for not trusting the Fed”. Persecution complex, just like before. Something is seriously wrong with the way Jeff Tucker sees the world.

The next one is J. Grayson Lilburne who writes a long post disputing a year and a half old anonymous Youtube video criticizing the Austrian school. Lilburne makes some good points - the video was a little sloppy on some claims. The thrust of the video, though, is fine and similar to points I’ve made on here. But the point is it’s an anonymous Youtube video that’s pretty old as Youtube videos come. How defensive do you have to be to see that and think “I need to go and write a response to this thing!”? If I wrote an extended critique of every poorly reasoned video disputation of Keynesianism it would (1.) be all I write about on here, and (2.) probably crash the Mises.org server from all the searching I’d be doing on their video library.

Paranoia and hypersensitivity is not a healthy quality to have in a community of scholars. There are days I wish the Mises Institute would just convert into a publishing house and leave it at that. And I’ve thought of saying this out loud for a while but have withheld - I really think Jonathan Finegold Catalan’s considerable talents are wasted on the Mises Institute. I understand it’s a great venue to get started at. God knows breaking into publishing is tough for young scholars. But I think Jonathan would be better off getting out of the Mises echo chamber. Or at least submit things to the QJAE if you submit there.

Speaking of publishing in Austrian venues, I got the official word last weekend that my article on the 1920-21 depression was accepted for publication in the Review of Austrian Economics (it had been in an R&R holding pattern for a while). They’re typesetting and all that right now - very exciting stuff.

I would second the high praise of Jonathan Catalan.

[Azure]

Paranoid? Who’s paranoid!? Why are you calling me paranoid!? Oh dear God he’s going to kill us! Get him!

[Snowflake]

You can’t be too paranoid about the federal reserve and mainstream media.

[Metus]

That you are paranoid does not mean that they are not really after you.

[liberty_student]

I don’t think personal attacks and critiques of this nature on LvMI staff are appropriate content for the forum.

I don’t even understand why someone would post that here.

@StrangeLoop

http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2010/10/dont-make-any-loud-sounds-around-mises.html

@Daniel Kuehn

OK so a little while ago I blogged on how fricken paranoid people over at the Mises Institute were. You had a great New York Times article covering the influence of Hayek and Bastiat and they managed to be insulted by it. They just knew there had to be some sort of nefarious motive behind the Times article. The author was a known liberal, and the thinking was that that liberalism had to spill over into what she was writing. There was no way that a liberal could be dispassionately interested in reporting on the influences on the Tea Party. And they even admitted that you had to “read between the lines” (i.e. - make shit up) to get this.

So they’re back at it. First is Jeff Tucker responding to Ben Bernanke’s speech. In any other economics blog you could have woken up this morning to lots of good commentary about the economics of Bernanke’s speech. Jeff pulls out one passage where Bernanke highlights the simple point that inflation is a function of both (1.) the money supply and (2.) expectations - he takes the point about expectations and he says that Bernanke is saying “If inflation goes wild, it is your fault for not trusting the Fed”. Persecution complex, just like before. Something is seriously wrong with the way Jeff Tucker sees the world.

The next one is J. Grayson Lilburne who writes a long post disputing a year and a half old anonymous Youtube video criticizing the Austrian school. Lilburne makes some good points - the video was a little sloppy on some claims. The thrust of the video, though, is fine and similar to points I’ve made on here. But the point is it’s an anonymous Youtube video that’s pretty old as Youtube videos come. How defensive do you have to be to see that and think “I need to go and write a response to this thing!”? If I wrote an extended critique of every poorly reasoned video disputation of Keynesianism it would (1.) be all I write about on here, and (2.) probably crash the Mises.org server from all the searching I’d be doing on their video library.

Paranoia and hypersensitivity is not a healthy quality to have in a community of scholars. There are days I wish the Mises Institute would just convert into a publishing house and leave it at that. And I’ve thought of saying this out loud for a while but have withheld - I really think Jonathan Finegold Catalan’s considerable talents are wasted on the Mises Institute. I understand it’s a great venue to get started at. God knows breaking into publishing is tough for young scholars. But I think Jonathan would be better off getting out of the Mises echo chamber. Or at least submit things to the QJAE if you submit there.

Speaking of publishing in Austrian venues, I got the official word last weekend that my article on the 1920-21 depression was accepted for publication in the Review of Austrian Economics (it had been in an R&R holding pattern for a while). They’re typesetting and all that right now - very exciting stuff.

I would second the high praise of Jonathan Catalan.

[StrangeLoop]

If a blogger is insulting the LvMI and its members, you don’t believe that is newsworthy?

The irony is how much you just demonstrated Kuehn’s point.

[chloe732]

StrangeLoop,

I read the article. It is not “great” as the blogger (with a masters degree in public policy, no self interest there right?) states. It is obviously biased against Hayek and Bastiat. It makes a parody of their ideas. The 2nd sentence of the blog post is off base and is just as biased and misleading as the New York Times article.

I could take apart the NYT article sentence by sentence but what a waste of time. You obviously have an axe to grind against the LvMI. Go ahead and grind. Nobody cares.

The article and blog post are pathetic. Come on, can’t you do better than this?

NOTICE TO FORUM MEMBERS: The bait is dangling in front of you…

[yuberries]

Haters gonna hate
Don’t feed the troll
etc.

[filc]

@StrangeLoop

If a blogger is insulting the LvMI and its members, you don’t believe that is newsworthy?

Its not newsworthy. If we posted every blogger up here who insulted LvMI we’d have nothing else to talk about.

[StrangeLoop]

@filc

Its not newsworthy. If we posted every blogger up here who insulted LvMI we’d have nothing else to talk about.

I don’t see it happening frequently.

[StrangeLoop]

@Chloe732

You obviously have an axe to grind against the LvMI. Go ahead and grind. Nobody cares.

How do you figure?

Because they publish good books (some of them jewels that haven’t been published in decades)?

Because they host one of the largest libararies of free media (e.g., lectures, digitized books, journal articles)?

Because they unerringly advocate free-market policies despite the statist quo?

Let’s be frank here: I do tend to believe dogmatists–of any stripe–are overly sensitive and “paranoid.” But all I’ve done here was share the words of a popular blogger. And, of course, the messenger does not automatically believe the message.

[filc]

@filc

Its not newsworthy. If we posted every blogger up here who insulted LvMI we’d have nothing else to talk about.

@StrangeLoop

I don’t see it happening frequently.

Frequency doesn’t change the fact that it’s not newsworthy. =p

Oh my someone is against free markets! I’m so shocked! Get it? We live in this world, why should we find this stuff surprising?

[StrangeLoop]

To state that “if we posted every blogger up here who insulted LvMI we’d have nothing else to talk about” implies that it happens frequently–you know, kind of like “if I had a nickel for every time a blogger insulted the LvMI.”

Either way, if a thread is boring, then don’t respond and move on. That’s what I do (especially in “General,” where I find the most trivial contributions).

[DanielMuffinburg]

Lilburne criticized an old Youtubez video? Oh noes!

[Lilburne]

@Daniel Muffinburg

Lilburne criticized an old Youtubez video? Oh noes!

Indeed I don’t see how doing so makes me paranoid. It just happened to catch my attention a long time ago, I wrote up a shorter response to it here in the forum back then, and I thought I’d flesh it out a bit and post it on the blog. What’s the big deal?

[jtucker]

I really don’t get this guy. A major feature of central banks is that they never take responsibility for inflation. they claim to be the inflation fighters. Ben here demonstrates the point, pushing all responsibility over to the public. This is hardly a new tendency. This guy acts like he was born yesterday.

[Esuric]

There’s not a single ounce of substance in this garbage. This guy tries to refute Grayson without actually refuting him, and chooses to mock Jeffery Tucker rather than actually dealing with his argument.

Lilburne makes some good points - the video was a little sloppy on some claims. The thrust of the video, though, is fine and similar to points I’ve made on here.

Fantastic. It’s fine because he says its fine.

This is the type of crap that Austrians and libertarians have to deal with on a regular basis. Individuals, for whatever reason, think that marginalizing an ideology somehow refutes it. But to refute an ideology you need to show that its arguments are fallacious/deduced from incorrect premises.

Neoclassical, why even post this crap? What’s the purpose of this?

[mookrit]

It’s true, the folks at the LvMI see the world differently. In general, I’ve found they take a more realist approach to politics and understand how power elites pull strings behind the scenes. Naturally, such an understanding leads to undisguised hostility and anger towards the State and its agents. The author labels this “paranoia” because he doesn’t understand what motivates this suspicious attitude. However this is merely a marketing problem, and a matter of tone not substance.

The video Lilburne criticized has over 20,000 views, which is a lot given the dry subject matter. So it’s entirely appropriate to put forward a rebuttal. It’d be different if the video had 100 views. In that case, I’d have advised him to focus on bigger fish.

I think it’s better to invest time criticizing the published work of people like Paul Krugman, John Quiggin etc. but each to his own. Not everyone is the same, the world would be a boring place if it were. We need to reach the people on ALL levels, scholarly and non-scholarly.

[Conza]

"This is the type of crap that Austrians and libertarians have to deal with on a regular basis.

Individuals, for whatever reason, think that marginalizing an ideology somehow refutes it. But to refute an ideology you need to show that its arguments are fallacious/deduced from incorrect premises."

. But hey, at least we have it better than Socrates or Giordano Bruno.

[MEMBER ISSUES IN THE ISSUES FORUM ONLY]

[StrangeLoop]

Let’s be up front and honest here: if I am able to freely access and use a web forum from LvMI and if the forum is populated by its fans (which includes me), why would I “troll”? If you read my contributions, I actually think I share some intelligent viewpoints and always try to debate nicely (with one exception to liberty student).

I find any mention of LvMI interesting–whether from an admirer or a naysayer. I like seeing links, praise, or hostility. I just like seeing LvMI thrown into the mix. Maybe I’m the only one, but if so, just let the thread die. There’s no need to run in here, call me a “troll,” tell me I’m insulting LvMI, and just generally act… what’s the word… paranoid?

Are Kuehn’s criticisms solid? No way. But so what? Frankly, the response here does more to support Kuehn’s point than not.

Regular readers of Kuehn’s blog could easily turn the tables: he gets paranoid every time someone ridicules Keynesianism.

But, honestly, if Keith Olbermann or someone ranted about LvMI one night, I’d share that YouTube clip, too. I still find any mention interesting.

P.S. Furthermore, drawing attention to a well-known blogger’s anti-LvMI post allows all of you to respond to that post’s comments.