Hello, Saïda, Shalom, Bonjour, Hallo...

Miscellaneous Newbies
1

Hello there! I suppose this is where I would put my introduction thread.

I am a seventeen year old soon-to-be senior in High School in south-west Ohio. For the past two years I flirted around with Libertarian-Socialism until I realized that Socialism in itself is inherently undemocratic in that you become a slave to your fellow workers.

I’ve read Ayn Rand, although I find that there are a lot of holes in her theory when it comes to her idea of rational selfishness. I do, however, appreciate her prophetic message against governments overstepping their bounds and restraining producers from being able to produce. I guess I would call myself a believer in Theodore Roosevelt Economics, because I believe that there is a point where businesses can become too economically powerful and restrain/buy up smaller businesses from being able to take root.

I do not believe that businesses should be taxed at the amount they are now, because I realize that in order to protect their profit margins they will simply up the price of their products, leaving the consumer to pay the taxes.

As far as other life stuff, I’m really into learning languages and listening to German music. I have experience in Hebrew, French, and at the moment I’m taking Arabic summer classes. Someday I also hope to add German to this list [more at that in a second].

Since I am going to be senior next year, it’s appropriate that I start looking for colleges. My grandparents and I are going to check out Hillsdale College in Michigan, which I hear is a really strong supporter for the Austrian School. I would like, if I go there, to double major in German and in Economics. I still have some time to pick a school and everything, but I can always plan ahead.

Thanks for making this great site, I was having a hard time finding one.

2

Hello Spiffy Chap, good to have you here. I think I was probably at about a similar stage at your age, though I think my recoil against socialism, as a result of reading a book on India’s economic history was much more, how should we say “dramatic.” I’m sure Hillsdale is an awesome college, but you might want to consider Grove City if you can afford it. I got a really good impression from going to a conference there.

Also I recently discovered this book on trade, and think it’s awesome:

http://mises.org/books/game.pdf

I’m curious as to what a beginner’s(not that I’m an expert!) take on it would be, so please have a bit of a read and tell me what you think if you have the time!

3

I’d be happy to read it! I’m in the process of reading some really heavy duty college economic textbook but I think I can take a break from it and read this. Time to fire up the old Kindle.

(…and grove city looks like a good school, and it’s actually about $8000 cheaper than Hillsdale a year)

4

They can only do that if they have govt laws on their side.

This video educated me.

5

After doing some reading (and discussing Theodore Roosevelt with my grandfather) I’d probably stray away from his view of economics. I’d still like to say that monopolies are a bad thing but at the same time Governments always seem to look for ways to fill their own coffers with monopoly money by dismantling them rather than caring about the people that monopolies would hurt.