The Importance of Capital Theory

"The Importance of Capital Theory" by Bob Murphy:

The elementary flaw in Krugman's objection is that he is ignoring the time structure of production. When workers get laid off in the industries that produce investment goods, they can't simply switch over to cranking out TVs and steak dinners. This is because the production of TVs and steak dinners relies on capital goods that must have already been produced. In our sushi economy, the unemployed islanders couldn't jump into sushi rolling, because there weren't yet enough fish being produced. And they couldn't jump into fish production, because there weren't enough boats and nets to make their efforts worthwhile. And finally, they couldn't jump into boat and net production, because there were already enough islanders working in that area to restore the fleet and collection of nets back to their long-run sustainable level.

People in grad school would sometimes ask me why I bothered with an "obsolete" school of thought. I didn't bother citing subjectivism, monetary theory, or even entrepreneurship, though those are all areas where the Austrian school is superior to the neoclassical mainstream. Nope, I would always say, "Their capital theory and business-cycle theory are the best I have found." Our current economic crisis — and the fact that Nobel laureates don't even understand what is happening — shows that I chose wisely.

Ron Paul on the G20 Meeting

Bob Murphy: Ron Paul on the G20 Meeting: Bretton Woods II or III?

Ron Paul is probably the best person in the world to comment on this stuff, because he understands the economics better than 95% of professional economists, and he of course understands politicians better than 100% of professional economists.

Here, Ron Paul on Neil Cavuto.

Consumers Don’t Cause Recessions

"Consumers Don't Cause Recessions" by Bob Murphy:

.... the circular-flow diagram above is a very misleading model of the economy. It leads us to think that output of finished consumer goods can immediately rise and fall with "spending." This framework would hold if there were no capital goods, meaning that all consumer goods and services were produced immediately, as workers took gifts of nature and produced the finished item on the spot.

Once we grasp the stunning complexity of the true "economic problem"—how all of this interlocking human activity is coordinated so that production flows smoothly and predictably—we see the absurdity of Keynesian pump-priming remedies....

In his discussion of the "paradox of thrift," Paul Krugman proves that he is not an economist—or at least, not a very good one. His policy recommendations are based on a Keynesian model bereft of time and the capital structure of production.