/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18339560]

>handholds your brain though the valley of darkness

[Anonymous No.18339757]

Weak arguments, flawed conclusions

[Anonymous No.18339800]

>>18339757
What would you recommend instead?

[Anonymous No.18339851]

>>18339757
name 3 arguments he makes

[Anonymous No.18340041]

>>18339851
Still waiting

[Anonymous No.18340055]

>>18339560
Based Austrians

[Anonymous No.18340064]

>>18339851
its been like 3 years since ive read it but i can remeber the argument about price ceilings & rent control, minimum wage and automation

[Anonymous No.18340074]

>>18340064
>price ceilings
>rent control
>minimum wage
All dogshit policies.

[Anonymous No.18340082]

>>18340074
are you a jew by any chance?

[Anonymous No.18340097]

>>18339560
This was probably outdated the moment it was published
>nowadays we use the triple suplex parabolic model of leveraging to superfluate the tangential debt to GDPxi ratio

[Anonymous No.18340123]

>>18340082
I am not Jewish no, you don't need to be Jewish to understand why those policies are detrimental to society.

[Anonymous No.18340151]

>>18340064
>>18340097
>price ceilings
they create black markets and shortages to this day. politicians are still using it to buy votes by picking winners at the expence of picking losers
>rent control
50 years later, rent control is still making drug-riddled crime infested cities
>minimum wage
hot modern topic. still trails the average wage. would still cause unemployment if raised too much
>automation
Yang's talk of UBI is really popular, and yet even back in his days Hazlitt called it an unfounded fear. and we've automated 1000 different things since the 60's

[Anonymous No.18340158]

>>18339560
Quite a shit book. So midwit I read it all in one day and spottted a couple contradictions and flaws that were extremely evident. The dude was a pseud (even) without a college degree.
It was a gift of my libertarian boomer uncle.

[Anonymous No.18340181]

>>18339851
Not that guy but the idea all prices are fully flexible is kind of a necessary assumption. I don't get how exactly conservatives want to square how a market is "supposed to" function along with the idea behind a contractual society which creates all kinds of price rigidities as a desired feature of the free agents involved e.g. people won't accept their wages nominally fluctuating daily and that's not the structure of how things ever play out.

[Anonymous No.18340254]

>>18340158
>judges people of the 50's by whether they had a college degree or not
ok please enlighten us professor, what are the contradictions and flaws?

>>18340181
nice bait faggot

[Anonymous No.18340383]

>>18340254
It's not bait. The central idea is prices can freely be moved up and down quickly and in the "right" direction/magnitude. An alternative idea is if workers see falling wages or investors see their returns going down nominally they'll act "irrationally" but you could actually decrease real wages through inflation and people wouldn't be as perspective of what's really going on e.g. assume the money supply is fixed (the ideal lolbert case) and real wages are for whatever reason to high right now, the assumption for everything to play out "right" is employers can quickly decrease wages across the board and this won't in any way effect productivity.

[Anonymous No.18340402]

>>18340064
>waaaaaaaaa basic economics disagree with my idealistic view of how the world should work

[Anonymous No.18340443]

>>18340064
Do people seriously not understand why price ceilings and rent control are shit?

[Anonymous No.18340476]

>>18340443
No, because commies actually like shortages.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18340486]

>>18340254

[Anonymous No.18340542]

Why are commies so stupid? Capitalism works because consumers buy products from businesses that take that money to invest in their businesses to make their companies more productive to increase the supply in goods. The increase in goods decrease the price. You have an incentive to provide better services because you are paid by consumers who buy them! Logic is simple. Inflation happens because interest rates are too low, and that increases the amount of money in circulation, and because of government intervention in the marketplace by price floors and minimum wage which artificially lower the equilibrium price. If you put the price too low, supply doesn't reflect demand so you have shortages. If you put the price too high, businesses don't make money for their intention investments and go broke. Not a hard job, retards. The planned economies in the USSR had constant inflation, shortages, because they price controls on every fcking thing while constantly printing money. Doesn't work, retards.

[Anonymous No.18340573]

>>18340383
>you could actually decrease real wages through inflation and people wouldn't be as perspective
bond yields have been driven to the ground, people are spending their money on anything and everything including bitcoin and stocks, people are legit taking their mortgage payments and putting it into the stock market instead of using it for their mortgage. another example was the inflation in the cost of gas in 2007; people bought smaller cars and just drove less. people adjust to inflation every time

>assume real wages are for whatever reason to high right now,
>employers can quickly decrease wages across the board and this won't in any way effect productivity.
you're putting the cart before the horse. We have seen through history an immense increase in productivity thanks to our capital goods. Case in point, america was 90% farmers. The reason why now only 5% of america needs to be farmers is because of capital goods increasing our productivity. in other words, a mexican who doesn't speak english (who 40 years ago couldn't sew 20 socks) can now press a button and produce 20,000 socks. Hence, as you stated in your assumption, the employer doesn't need to pay high wages for somebody to do that, and americans can move on to better jobs while the mexicans take the more menial one (we had full employment last year, so don't bitch about "they took our jerbs")
you're missing one of Henry Hazlitt's many points though, if his employees are indeed productive enough, then the employer won't cut their wages. it is in his self interest to maintain their wage, if indeed the employee is producing that much. why would he sabotage his production?

[Anonymous No.18340580]

>>18340542
>Capitalism works because consumers buy products from businesses that take that money to invest in their businesses to make their companies more productive to increase the supply in goods.
Are you saying corporate investment has more to do with consumer demand than capital markets? That's against the claims of the like of Hazlitt.

[Anonymous No.18340583]

>>18340542
My theory is that communism itself is one great big cope against human nature. It's the idea that the state can be used to wipe out the basic sins and desires of humanity and control everything so it is ideal. As if communism is going to stop people from being greedy and pursuing positions of power, then going on to use that power to do bad things

[Anonymous No.18340669]

>>18340580
Do you want to explain how capital markets are inferior to central planners? The capital markets answer to the market; central planners answer the party. Tell, who has a better interest in making a better investment; a government bureaucrat protected by the military, or a business only beholden to their consumers and investors? Who's more likely to face the consequence of their bad decisions? It doesn't take a rocket science to figure this out.

[Anonymous No.18340741]

>>18340573
Sure investment causes productivity increases but note nominal wages have inflated over the years, would the same rate of investment be possible with constant wages? The rate of growth throughout the 19th century was actually really low (although unhistorically high obviously at the time) compared to the 20th.

>if his employees are indeed productive enough, then the employer won't cut their wages
I explicitly said a situation where that's not a possibility because of a fixed money supply and deflation. If all prices could remain stable that'd be great for some vested interest. You can set a price to low or to high and to fix that you need to change the price. A key assumption of conservatives is nominal wages can be moved down quickly when necessary without effecting productivity.

>>18340669
I never said anything about central planners. The question is if capitalism is driven by consumers or savers. You said capitalism works because people buy stuff, Hazlitt says savers make the products people buy possible. Are corporations dependent upon savers or consumers? You could say saving is made possible by corporations and other entities and savers are dependent upon consumers not vise versa.

[Anonymous No.18340779]

>>18339560

Any intro economics book that talks about the fed? Started reading this but quickly got the impression that I already knew its contents by listening to libertarians

[El Arcón No.18340790]

On Certain Aspects of American Economics Relevant to 2021
http://762com.com/d0cs/papers/On_Certain_Aspects_of_American_Economics_Relevant_to_2021__v3-20210521.pdf
>We discuss contemporary socioeconomic issues in a frame of rhetoric beyond the Overton window. We analyze certain policies such as the minimum wage and federal tax structures. We describe a new set of wage and tax policies called normal policies and argue for their superiority over the comparable policy agenda framed by the Overton window. Coronavirus (COVID), racism, fascism, and nationalism are considered. While war followed by total reformation is certainly the best (only) solution to the present overarching societal malaise, for the purposes of scholarship we approach much of the material herein from a good faith vantage point assuming that the entrenched powers might ever permit any changes for the better to occur.

On Certain Aspects of American Economics Relevant to 2016
https://vixra.org/abs/1605.0166
>This paper seeks to shine a light on some glaring economic problems of contemporary society. Too often economic issues are framed in the context of moral wedges that divide people. Here we select issues for discussion that likely can be solved and do not strictly require the resolution of any difficult moral quandaries. We show that certain popular debates are not so interesting because sufficient evidence exists to identify the relevant premises as true and false. We suggest an economic program based in part on hypothetical new energy resources that should guide the United States and the Earth's other national states towards a more equitable valley in the space of all economic configurations. This paper is intended to be persuasive and not purely expository.

[Anonymous No.18340804]

Probably the sanest of the free-market sorts. "All policies have tradeoffs" is a much sounder argument than "laissez-faire is the absolute best for everyone everywhere all the time".
But here's a question: what's the point of studying economics? Metaphysics and ethics show the way to live better and possibly transcend one's mortal coil. But if you're not a legislator or lobbyist, what good is Hazlitt to you?

[Anonymous No.18341013]

>>18340779
you don't, give it another try, seriously this is a topical book that will surprise you

[Anonymous No.18341079]

>>18340741
ok I think i'm starting to understand what you're saying. Yes, in the real world, if they are overpaying their employees, store-owners can quickly lower it, specifically by laying people off (or cutting their benefits [which I had happen in covid]), but I get it, like you said, laying people off reduces that store's productivity. and that's ok. yes, the reason why bernanke fears deflation is because the velocity of money slows and employment fall. but if you'll remember from the book: if the business model makes the business fail, then it is by definition a misallocation of resources. that employee would be better suited to work in another business that will make it worth his time.

But you have to remember that wages are nothing more than a price and are subject to supply and demand like everything else. Why (in your senario) would that man's wages be overvalued? because either there was low demand (he was making a product nobody wanted) or there was high supply (his next door neighbor was willing to do his job for cheaper). so it's fine that he's moving on to another job.

another thing to consider is the benefits of deflation. if we were all our needs were met by robots (who would feed and clothe us) we would have mass unemployment, but the price of food and clothes would be so cheap because it would be so abundant, we wouldn't have need for employment. case in point amazon and electronics have been so productive and made our quality of life so much better that they brought massive deflation (the fed had to adjust their projections)

[Anonymous No.18341139]

>>18340790
>racism, fascism, and nationalism
dropped

>>18340804
>"All policies have tradeoffs"
>being afraid of being wrong
but anyways, economics is way more important than ethics. The only reason why you can hypothesize about ethics and metaphysics with a full stomach from your macbook is because your parents had you in a country that respected the free market.

[Anonymous No.18341190]

>>18340254
I will only by a note i wrote down, but there is a lot more:
Chapter 6 section 2 contradicts the entire chapter 22. In chapter 6 he says it's ok to use machines to replace workers becasue that would create more investment or consumption with the money won by the capitalist, and fails to see the posibility of just saving up money and fucking up his rethoric. BUT in chaper 22 he says saving money is good, doing some mental gymnastics and redifining "saving" as "investing via deposist in fractionary reserve banks". This is bullshit.
He doesnt realize that in this process, capitalist get more and more power and need the workers less, to a poitn they can force them to do anything in order to get a share of their money to survive.
He also fails to mention the elephant in the room wich is deflation, caused by actualy saving money, generating lack of investment (this might, however, revert the deflation because removing investions to get money would cause shortage of goods and then raise the prices,ONLY in the cases they dont have commenrce with other nations available).
---------
The book is not wrong in general, thoguh, but it's midwit tier and say nothing that isnt completely obvious to non brainlets and non females.

[Anonymous No.18341292]

>>18341139

>Implying you can separate the two

Why econ graduates don't understand philosophy, including the philosophy of science. Why they are boosters for the global neoliberal economic system which fattens some while leaving most in poverty. They know esoteric mathematical models that have nothing of the real world. Economists couldn't even predict 2008, but oh well. At least they grossly underestimated climate change leaving humanity fucked.

[Anonymous No.18341300]

>>18341190
>ok to use machines
>and fails to see the posibility of just saving up money and fucking up his rethoric
the greatest progress in humanity is the fact that thanks to technology (tractors, fertalizers, gmo's) only 5% of people have to be farmers and not 95% as we were 200 years ago. we now have industrial machines so efficient, that can produce so much, we are now exploring goods that address other more superfluous needs. In other words, people in Somalia don't have the money to spend on a youtube microphone because they have to spend it on food, because somalia doesn't have the infrastructure to even create their own car engines.

>in chaper 22 he says saving money is good
you misunderstand, he's saying it's neither good nor bad. you have to realize theres something called the Federal Funds Rate, which is set by the federal reserve which dictates the interest rate at which banks can lend money to each other. the fed has artificially set interest rates at near 0 for many decades. 0 interest rates discourages people from saving money. however you need "savers" because those are the only people who can afford "capital goods." capital goods (like car engine factories) are needed for production. in other words, sometimes interest rates need to be high, sometimes low. but either way, it shouldn't be meddled with by the govenrment.

>capitalist get more and more power and need the workers less
that's funny, we reached full employment last year

> to a poitn they can force them to do anything
nope, words speak louder than words, if a worker say's he's being exploited by his job, but still willingly drives to it, and doesn't get another job, then evidently he's getting something from it. for example walmart: I've seen extremely old cashiers, albino greeters, midgets, and mexicans that don't know english working at walmart. you oprobably think they're being exploited by walmart, but you have to remember: google didn't employ them, their local dmv, their local library, microsoft, nobody offered them a job. then walmart comes and offers them a job, and you complain about walmart.

>deflation
so cheap clothing and cheap food are bad? I thought you wanted cheap things for the poor. a concrete example: amazon had such competitive prices, that the federal reserve had to adjust their inflation projections. and amazon has obviously improved our lives. electronics have gone trhough massive deflation and have brought the internet and computers to the masses.

[Anonymous No.18341319]

Rent control is one of the least partisan issues in economics. Literally any serious economist, on both the left and the right, agree it's a shit idea that doesn't work. Still don't understand why people support it.

[Anonymous No.18341346]

>>18341292
>which fattens some while leaving most in poverty
poverty is the default state of man. you're complaining the sky is blue.
but free market capitalism has fed more children than any of your ethics has. objectively. pic related.

>Economists couldn't even predict 2008
a few did

>At least they grossly underestimated climate change leaving humanity fucked.
lol, good thing you studied philosophy and humanities, so you could rise above the rest and not end up believing what literally all the media and politicians are force feeding the masses

[Anonymous No.18341416]

>>18341139
>The only reason why you can hypothesize about ethics and metaphysics with a full stomach
>ethics and metaphysics
>full stomach

[Anonymous No.18341472]

>>18341346
>a few did
Not that guy, but it isn't hard to predict.

The specifics or the timing of it, that would be interesting to predict. But real estate has become, and still is, increasingly a seller's market: it's a money game. Too much so. It's unstable and it's corrupt to game houses this much.

[Anonymous No.18341480]

>>18341416
wait a minute buddah was a prince, or at the very least an aristocrat aka today's spoiled pseud

[Anonymous No.18341573]

>>18339560
Retroactively refuted by Marx(pbuh)