Recently at Scott Sumner’s The Money Illusion a commenter going by the name “saifedean” has been spreading the gospel of Austrian economics by way of Mises & Rothbard. I thought the name sounded familiar but then forgot about it. Now he’s including a hyperlink in his handle, and sure enough it’s the same person that occasionally blogs at “The Saif House”. I remember a while back at Taki’s they featured a post (now removed) by Saifedean Ammous that had nothing to do with conservatism, alternative or otherwise. I found that odd, especially when some googling showed that AlterNet has had a contributor named Saifedean Ammous who is a phd candidate at Columbia for “sustainable development”. I guess that would make him the first Austrian environmentalist I’ve come across. Perhaps TokyoTom from the Mises blog infected him.
UPDATE: Saifedean Ammous has confirmed that he is indeed the same individual I referred to in these instances. I wish him luck in his exploration of Austrian economics and hope he doesn’t wind up a wretched defect to literature & metaphysics like the late (in blog terms) Matthew Mueller, who strayed too near those mad, bad and dangerous to know.
June 15, 2009 at 1:47 am
My discovery and investigation of AE is due to moldbug’s glowing praises. I recently became disenchanted when I discovered that mainline AE (rothbardians) thinks that loans are evil magic rather than being a legitimate form of contract. As you mentioned before, searching for maturity transformation on the mises forums turns up nothing but me referencing MM. Of course it would be silly to think that a term that MM basically invented would be common knowledge anywhere, so I’ve attempted to solicit opinions on the idea that FRB isn’t fraudulent on its own, but only when it tries to turn future money into present money with no acknowledgment of the risk inherent in doing this (assuming future prices). Prof. Selgin did respond to one of these threads, rebuking people for having no idea how the money multiplyer works and this is in line with my thought that it’s highly disingenuous to talk about the money creation process of FRB without even mentioning the reverse (deleveraging when the loans are paid back), which the AE’s do in Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve.
June 15, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Just recently an article at Mises used the term. It doesn’t seem to have been common among previous generations of Austrians though.
MM has noted that he holds a view unlike both the Rothbardians and free-bankers. That conflicts with his “aw shucks” claims that he doesn’t have anything new over Rothbard, Leoni, Burnham, Africa Addio, and de Jouvenel.
I also wish Selgin posted more at the Mises blog.
October 5, 2009 at 3:08 am
TGGP, I note that others can get infected with Austrian environmentalism at my LvMI blog, hosted here:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/default.aspx
October 5, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Are you actually an Austrian? I thought you might have just hung out there because you liked being contrarian. I haven’t spent as much time at the Mises comment sections after my banning, so I likely missed where you staked out your position.
October 5, 2009 at 11:20 pm
TGGP, since the level of stupidity on environmental issues at the Mises main pages has fallen (I hope that my pen played a part in the dampened enthusiasm), I`ve largely just been posting on my own LvMI blog – which is a round-about way of saying I hadn`t realized you were banned. My apologies for missing that. Whatever was the reason?
Of course I like being contrarian, but actually I do consider myself an Austrian, even if the admiration isn`t entirely mutual. (But maybe that`s just because I might have missed the “real” defintion of what “austrian” means.) I`m not an anarchist, but see the damage that the state does, and how enviro law/reg % state resource ownership are at the root of enduring (and escalating) political tussles.
Of course the real free market enviros are the guys at PERC and FREE.
Regards,
Tom
October 6, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I think I was banned for insulting a truther. I once gathered up links for all the ocassions on which I’ve been banned and posted them at attackthesystem but I can’t find that now.
October 7, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Insulting a truther?! I think I`m one of those ….
How many times did you manage to get banned?
I don`t recall you as being so over the top, and Jeff Tucker was always patient with me ….
October 7, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Insulting a truther?! I think I`m one of those
Then I might just have to insult you…stupid!
I found where I listed my bans:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/attackthesystem/message/5645
October 7, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I don`t know what was said, as it was removed, but I imagine Jeff Tucker would let you back in if you simply emailed him and expressed remorse for being intemperate. I hope you do so; you were a useful contributer. (I hadn`t realized it was soo long ago though!)
I`ve been banned myself from RedState, Freepers, Newsbusters and, most recently, Rob Bradley`s “MasterResource” free market-as-long-as-special-deals-for-coal-are-preserved blog.
October 8, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I’ve gone the apologize route with EconLog, but I just kept getting banned. I don’t bother anymore.
October 9, 2009 at 2:12 am
Your choice; tucker`s email is tucker at gmail