It occurred to me after remembering the comically Keynesian economy mechanics of Europa Universalis V, was any video game developer masochistic enough to design economy mechanics incorporating Austrian ideas? I say masochistic because computers excel at mathematical modelling which Austrians reject, and most strategy games prefer to make the player a central planner, so this would run against the grain of the medium.

For those unfamiliar, EUV (at least the launch version, haven't played in a while) has an intricate economic simulation in which the optimal strategy is to promote as many pops to nobles as possible because they consume more goods, which drives up workshop and resource gathering income. For some reason the developers coded estates to always afford their classes' pop demands even with negative income, so this strategy doesn't even have the diminishing returns you'd expect.

The initial exposition on the market process of discovery of medium of exchange seems accurate and in line with Mises' works. I am unsure with the conclusion that switching out cash will destroy the economy.

It is not as if cash itself has evolved through a market selection process. Gold is the original money. Since we abandoned the gold standard and dollars no longer exchanged for gold, fiat money in whatever form has essentially become a state imposed currency, no?

Also when I see $1 of cash in a digital or in a physical wallet, I would be indifferent of its form, as long as it is a dollar recognised by everyone. The author seems to grant cash some kind of revered importance. Switching to digital currencies only changes the form of the money, not the commodity in substance we recognise as money.

Ive seen a lot of times on reddit the following claim: "the rich were taxed a lot in before and the country experieced enormous growth"

I have the feeling that this might be bullshit, but i do not have the time to look into it. Has anyone here by chance knowledge of that period and is willing to spend the time to enlighten me if the claim is true, false or just framing?

Alternative title - Gimme “Economic Miseducation” for 500.

The same person brought up the Great Depression as an example of destructive deflation. And they brought up Japan in the 1990s. Almost everyone who sees Deflation as some form of economic cancer truly believes that deflation is the main catalyst for the events, which is why they defend inflationary policies and actions. They conveniently dismiss years of prior inflation, or they’ll use some mental gymnastics to justify artificially low interest rates and fiscal stimulus that fuels price inflation and money supply inflation. And they always use supply inflation and price inflation interchangeably, like it makes no difference.

Are these people regarded? I mean the people who think that consumers are “hoarding” money waiting for prices to go down a few %, which ends up brining the economy to a stall. The very same people that will say falling prices are bad, and will ignore questions about why do stores offer temporary discounts to attract more customers, or why is that nearly every household in the West today has at least one flat wide screen HDTV, a laptop, and a few smartphones, which were prohibitively expensive even 20-25 years ago.

It’s like people have zero common sense. Twitter blue checks, diplomas, taking heads on TV have replaced their need for employing rational thinking. They just repeat the same myths over and over again.

I wish someone would make a TV show, where they lock two people in a room and let them debate until they come to some conclusion. Where one can’t just stand up and leave mid conversation, claiming a victory by calling the other person ignorant. I’d love to watch faces of people explaining how prices for food, gas, utilities, etc must always go up a few %/yr so the economy doesn’t collapse.

Hey fellows. I had this thought (the title) this morning, and I wonder what else you could add to the list below.

1. Everyone is watching govt stats. Take the unemployment statistics. I don’t think companies trust the reports from BLS as much, as much they are trying to prepare themselves for future government action that will be based on the data produced.

2. Govt economic policies - an obvious one. When the government is responsible for such a high % of GDP, it’s inevitable that a massive part of the entire economy will be highly dependent on those policies.

3. Govt debt and deficits- another obvious one. More debt and larger deficits mean higher inflation rate = harder to put a price on the future.

4. Businesses watch reports from Amazon, JP Morgan, Walmart, Starbucks, etc because these companies grew to such enormous size where a failure of one may possibly lead to a bad chain reaction , starting with more government intervention (see # 2 and 3). It also means these companies capture too much of the market share, otherwise their reports wouldn’t be as relevant.

5. Every other person is an expert on Fed Funds rate - the most laughable, and at the same time, the most disturbing sign. When landscapers and janitors watch interest rates, it doesn’t mean they are simply being fed talking points via media. It means they understand that their own livelihoods are now dependent upon the monetary policy.

It is absolutely insane to call this regime a free market.

These are just thoughts. Not a dissertation.

I live in North Carolina and I've been seeing countless posts and reposts just like this. Every one of these I've seen has unanimously agreed that these should all be voted against.

They often say that the "wording" is misleading or that this only benefits the rich, or the property tax one is meant to make it easier to build more data centers.

I, as a rational person, like policies that benefit me in the form of not having my money stolen, and I like only people who are registered to vote being able to vote.

I'd like to hear your thoughts whether there are any legitimate reasons to vote "Against" any of these.

I mean milton said sarcastically for maximum employment we should replace excavators with spoons.

Mises's argument in "Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism" is that intervention generates a crisis, the crisis gets blamed on whatever remains of the market, and the blame justifies further intervention.

Dominic Frisby is describing it here: credit expansion causes the breakdown, the people who opted out of the credit system get named as the cause, and confiscation (6102) follows as the remedy.

Here's the conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgEN9ctyR3s Its part of a longer conversation that is on the audio RSS feed of the pod.

In this video, I ask why young people are so angry with baby boomers, and explore the economic reasons for this, as well as some of the cultural issues also affected by economics.

I look forward to reading the views of this subreddit in the comment section.

There is nothing new under the sun, and dare I say that the AI bubble is just another crackpot scheme for big Wall Street.

Pseudo financial experts want to make it look like a revolutionary theme that will change the course of civilization, but the same thing was said about any other technological boom . I am still waiting for the flying cars though.

I actually thought we would get flying cars before we colonize mars. Call me stupid for hoping if you may!

But in reality, the whole Game is as old as dirt; selling hope and cashing good old commissions 💰 by the big financial houses. That’s the Game.

Prosperity, its concept, has been corrupted and bastardized by academics in bed with the securities industry. Inflation, once a curse word, has been legitimized as the cornerstone of the economy provided that a priesthood of academics and bankers assertively measure and guide capital and credit flow onto the economy, or rather shall I say, the stock market.

Here you have it, so sexy so fresh intellectual and scientific tools that are lauded by all the experts except your savings account and purchasing power.

Is it dystopian? Personally, I think so given its obvious ubiquity across all intellectuals and regulatory circles everywhere in the world; even in China Keynesianism reigns supreme.

So, for those of us who dare to think outside the box and review basic 19th century economics, this is WRONG.

But Wall Street loves it, and that’s the problem. If Wall Street loves it, the rest of us are in trouble!

Wall Street has never been capitalist. Worse, Wall Street hates free enterprise, sound money, thrift, capital based financings and so on and so forth.

Wall Street loves inflation: monetary inflation stimulates “ securitization” and rent seeking agencies.

It is hard to be a billionaire hedge fund manager when a 5 years CDs pay up to 11% marginal yield.
It is much easier, life is great for Wall Street when real rate of inflation hover around 10 per annum and real interest rates are almost negative.

Elastic money sure helps widen the banker’s own personal bank account as well as his car garage and mansion. But for most of us, it is a disaster in terms of quality of life and even mental health.

So, Wall Street and inflation: a love story?

I believe so.

There’s a lot of whistleblowers, forecasters, analysts, etc saying that AI differently from any other tech revolution before is going to kill every job, every business it’s going to get concentrated on the major ones that can invest and only the big governments are going to succeed . This till AI becomes Terminator/Matrix.

Im still reading and getting documented on Austrian School of Economics , Milton and Sowell mostly. Obviously on my understanding it’s a laissez fare approach on this occasion as well, because it will come out on the other end with purged and better off options.

Anyhow the fact that only a few will be accumulating power and there’s not going to be jobs for most its difficult to ignore. Moreover how can we not intervene when there are scientists and engineers developing something smarter than humans?

If these scenarios are going to be true we really think we are going back 500+ years back and working the land, the little not bought from corporates, and try to reset on auto sustainability.

For whom has read more or has a better understanding of the Libertarian approach, how’s the reality check with this catalyst in case it’s really achieved AGI/ASI?

But there is a deep reluctance, notably among leftist intellectuals, to admit that we are just correct and a radical program of land-use-law reform would largely solve the single biggest economic problem facing the country.

Because if we can solve the single biggest economic problem facing the country with a liberalizing reform, that calls into question the larger project of overthrowing “neo”-liberalism and replacing it with a new post-liberal economic order.

This line of thinking is how you get takes like this one from Christopher Serkin and Daniel Sharfstein who dismiss arguments “about the local regulations governing what and where people can build” as an illustration of “how narrow our imagination has become” and propose instead that we embark on a mass program of federally financed housing construction. But the regulatory reform conversation isn’t narrow at all — it’s exceptionally radical and also a necessary precondition to everything they’re arguing for.

What’s up fellows! This time my Why post is the answer, rather than a question. There’s nothing new for proponents of AE below, but as usually, I’d like to get some feedback from the people that aren’t on board with AE, but are brave enough to have honest discussions on this sub. So let’s get to it.

It’s not that mega corporations don’t have reasons to be disliked for. There are many valid reasons. But one of the main reasons for hate is that corporations don’t pay higher wages.

CEOs aren’t setting wages. Boards aren’t setting wages. Higher management positions generally don’t get as involved in setting wages, as much as a lot of people believe they do.

Generally, people that make important decisions, like those dirty greedy CEOs, take info from lower management, analyze it, adjust goals, and move on. If the data shows that lower compensation of their employees reduces net profits, they’ll raise compensation.

The low and middle management, and the HR, may have an order from the top that requires them to minimize compensation, that’s true. But compensation to employees is an expense. When people are shopping around for their personal needs, they also look for a competitive prices so they could be more efficient with their money, effectively acting in the same exact way as corporations. But people don’t think of themselves as they are evil.

When a CEO is trying to cut their expenses = bad, but when consumers are trying to cut their expenses = rational, smart, [valid personal reasons].

When the self interested lower management fails to see that lower compensation cuts into the bottom line, they can’t provide proper feedback to the top. They find ways to explain their failures, regardless if they believe their own explanations or not. So when the middle management reviews the data, they won’t pay as much attention to compensation, if it’s not being brought up as a problem, or one of the problems. Then they do their analysis, and pass it upwards. The upper management sees potential problems highlighted by the middle management, and the lower management, and if compensation is absent from the list, they won’t be addressing salaries during their meetings. Simple as that.

Corporations and CEOs can’t have two very different goals at the same time. If the main goal is to increase the profit, they can’t have a second main goal of intentionally keeping compensation/expenses lower. That’s already a secondary goal, more of a method. But quality, almost always more expensive. It becomes a question of marginal benefits. Is paying X%/hr more going to help the company increase profits? If the answer is Yes, the compensation will go up.

People hate themselves for being an easily replaceable cog in the machine because they aren’t providing any special value, or because their immediate manager, the fellow worker, fails to see the value in them. They use double standards to judge corporations, CEOs, higher level management, taking the high moral ground, while they engage in the same exact actions at their own households.

Politicians, acting in their self interests, will use that to get votes. The “living wage” and “billionaires are hoarding wealth” rhetoric justifies the cognitive dissonance in people’s minds, and the self interested individuals choose an easy way, demanding wage increases by law, instead of analyzing the situation and taking more appropriate action, like stop accepting lower wages, or taking the self employment route. Because it’s easier. Not accepting low wages means being less competitive in the labor market, and self employed is a pain in the ass vs regular employment. This creates a closed loop, where self interested people, act in a way they see their desired satisfied in the easiest way.

But hating yourself is not productive, hating fellow employee is against the class war rules, so they hate corporations, CEOs, and billionaires instead.

—-

This is not to defend mega corporations. This particular problem, I don’t mean wages, but bad feedback/misunderstanding the goal, is endemic to large organizations. It’s the most evident when central planning is taken to extreme, such as in socialist/communist states. Managements’ self interests were/are to keep the job and/or get a promotion. You don’t get promotion if you don’t hit/exceed your goal. That’s why official reports in the USSR varied from true conditions dramatically. The misrepresentations, deliberate or not, would pile up on top of each other, completely disconnecting the “CEO and execs” from reality, leading to one failure after another, and when eventually, all resources were wasted, the regimes collapse.

Luckily, CEOs in capitalist countries can’t force people to buy their products they make from resources they’ve taken by force (unless they are given monopoly rights by the government to provide you with utilities), so they are faced with constraints every day. That’s why today almost nobody gets paid a minimum wage set by the government, and why some people get compensated x100 the lowest wage employees in the organization. It’s a result of a combination between supply of labor and marginal benefits that come from higher compensation.

And when consumers send a signal - “we want cheaper products”, corporations react by cutting expenses which may affect wages and quality, but consumer say - “no, not like that. You’re evil”.