Comments on: Ron Paul Round-up http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/05/16/ron-paul-round-up/ Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:16:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: William Gardella http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/05/16/ron-paul-round-up/#comment-51617 William Gardella Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:09:09 +0000 http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/05/16/ron-paul-round-up/#comment-51617 Unfortunately, Tanner spoils this by adding Paul is “kind of quirky. He has some issues that give him a fringe-y air.” According to the Cato-ites, it is “fringe-y” to talk about the real cause of inflation — expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. They frown on Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist who upheld a pure theory of market economics, and much prefer the supposedly more “pragmatic” Milton Friedman just because he’s more “mainstream.” This is utter nonsense. Gold standard currencies, Paul's response of choice to the expanding money supply are <b>deflationary</b>, leading to considerably worse outcomes for most people than a controlled rate of inflation. Incidentally, the value of gold experiences far more dramatic shocks than does the US dollar, especially now that gold has significant value in use (e.g. in electronics), something it did not have at the time when gold standards were prevalent in the world. Also, von Mises and the other Austrian school "heterodox" fellows are economic philosophers more than they are economists; their ideas are not backed by research, and more so, they are unprovable. The value of a scholar is not to be found in his ideological purity. Unfortunately, Tanner spoils this by adding Paul is “kind of quirky. He has some issues that give him a fringe-y air.” According to the Cato-ites, it is “fringe-y” to talk about the real cause of inflation — expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. They frown on Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist who upheld a pure theory of market economics, and much prefer the supposedly more “pragmatic” Milton Friedman just because he’s more “mainstream.”

This is utter nonsense. Gold standard currencies, Paul’s response of choice to the expanding money supply are deflationary, leading to considerably worse outcomes for most people than a controlled rate of inflation. Incidentally, the value of gold experiences far more dramatic shocks than does the US dollar, especially now that gold has significant value in use (e.g. in electronics), something it did not have at the time when gold standards were prevalent in the world.

Also, von Mises and the other Austrian school “heterodox” fellows are economic philosophers more than they are economists; their ideas are not backed by research, and more so, they are unprovable. The value of a scholar is not to be found in his ideological purity.

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