On Tuesday, I spoke at the IEA’s The State of the Economy conference, participating in a panel discussion on Fiscal Policy and Government Expenditure with Edmund Conway, Sir John Bourn, Graeme Leach and Danny Alexander MP.
In discussions about when to begin cuts, I flatly rejected Keynesianism, explaining that capital-based macroeconomics gives a quite different set of tools for thinking about the economy. This generated interest from students and professional economists present so I have updated our primer, adding The Causes of the Economic Crisis and Garrison’s macroeconomics slides.
I also recommend these articles as a quick-start to rethinking money, banking and economics:
Tomorrow, Toby and I are off to the US for a conference. While I am not looking forward to the early start and the particularly long flight, I am looking forward to meeting Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute and Congressman Ron Paul.
I am also looking forward to meeting lots of other enthusiasts for the Austrian School of Economics and exchanging views and opinions with them.
Indeed, it is concerning these aspects of the trip, that I am reminded of what Churchill once said: “If you love your job, you will never work again!”
I am delighted to report that I have agreed to participate in a panel discussion at the Institute of Economic Affairs’ “State of the Economy” conference on 23 February 2010.
The subject will be “Fiscal Policy and Government Expenditure”, chaired by Ed Conway, Economics Editor, The Telegraph. Also on the panel are Sir John Bourn, Former Comptroller and Auditor General, National Audit Office, Graeme Leach, Chief Economist and Director of Policy, Institute of Directors and Danny Alexander, Chair of the Manifesto Group and MP for Inverness, Liberal Democrats.
I will be appearing on this panel as Conservative PPC for Wycombe.
Cobden Centre Chairman Toby Baxendale began the day with “An Entrepreneur’s Tale: The Meltdown of 2008″, a well-received lecture setting out our measure of the Sterling money supply and his astounding experience of banks’ behaviour during the height of the crisis.
Walter Block set about “Defending the Undefendable: Gold and 100% Banking”: his book is here(PDF).
Thomas J. DiLorenzo gave “The Real Reason for Central Banking: Government for the Privileged Few”.
Joseph T. Salerno explained “The Effects of Inflation on Morality and Society” with reference to previous hyperinflations and the developing plans of the Obama administration.
Jesús Huerta de Soto, author of the seminal work “Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles“, described “400 Years of Dynamic Efficiency” through unhampered human cooperation, presenting entrepreneurship as the creative search to help other people.
Two additional major figures in the movement for honest money have agreed to join our team as Senior Fellows: we will be making an announcement shortly.
One of the great discoveries of the 20th century concerns the origins of economic science in the late middle ages in Spain and Italy. Long before Adam Smith wrote, many scholastics from the 14th through the 17th centuries were writing systematic economic theory.
We heard this morning how the Salamancan friars were liberals, believers in freedom, who advocated:
Free markets and free enterprise
Low taxes and a small state
Free movement of people and products
The rule of law and the equality of all before the law
Individual liberty
Separation of the powers of the state
Democracy within limits set to protect minorities and individual rights
Justice: the defence of life, liberty and property
The Salamancans promoted subjective value and argued that an abundance of money makes it worthless. As early as 1544, they argued from legal principle for 100% reserves on demand deposits with depositors paying for safekeeping services.
In other lectures, we learned:
How recent Nobel Laureate Oliver E. Williamson has opened the way to a capital theory in neoclassical economics which could converge on Austrian-School theory through his “asset specificity”.
How timely is Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, a systematic treatise which, despite its limitations, could still refute today’s flawed policies.
Some lessons from a career in modern banking: how bank failures occur and what history has to teach us.
What Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke could learn from Juan de Mariana’s 17th century treatise De Monetae Mutatione: stop inflating the money supply.
Toby speaks tomorrow, presenting “An Entrepreneur’s Tale: The Meltdown of 2008”.
On Tuesday, I spoke at the IEA’s The State of the Economy conference, participating in a panel discussion on Fiscal Policy and Government Expenditure with Edmund Conway, Sir John Bourn, Graeme Leach and Danny Alexander MP.
