Authors Forum: Meltdown | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

[europa]

@whistlersmother1

what.....? was that a sentence

[twk373]

@zombiefitnezz

LOL! You zombie sheeple are hilarious.

[ronpaulspanish]

Tom´s Great!

[hohihoigf]

I'd like to congratulate myself on all the thumbs down -- given the fact that most people are morons, it suggests I may actually be right with what I've been saying. LOL Cheers

[UEAdmiral]

Oh, no... I clicked a one-star rating by mistake, while trying to click play. Phooey. =(

[BittersweetManor]

Nice video. It didn't have to be a 'formal speech' to be interesting. Very knowledgeable person.

[787Bisurdaddy]

I like Woods quite a bit. He's eloquent, intelligent, and funny. He also talks about a lot of important things that he actually understands (so many people who talk about these things don't actually even know what they're talking about). I will have to buy some of his books. I really enjoyed the interview with him posted a little while back.

[YALatIU]

Tough crowd! Those one-liners were way funnier than they made them seem.

[DRNevans]

Um, well, given that he has 15 minutes to talk about three books, and given that he's obviously not speaking to an audience that needs Austrian business cycle theory explained to it, he decided to share a few anecdotes instead, figuring he's got enough articles and media clips all over the Internet that give the details about his work. If he didn't satisfy you, well, that wasn't his intent at this particular gathering. "There is no better book to read on the crisis than this one." --Ron Paul

[mushroomagicman]

I don't NEED to read a book on 'the economic crisis'.It's engineered - part of the Agenda. America is crashing to it's myopic, self-interested knees due to selfish economic (war) policies which are orchestrated by the UK. Now the middle-classes are losing their gross profits they don't like it. But the concern is not for the Africans, or Indians, Iraquis or Chinese. You voted for Obama, and would have prefered Ron Paul, because You wanna be RICH. The people watching these vids piss on the poor.

[hohihoigf]

Interesting POV. Hadn't thought of it that way.

[mushroomagicman]

There's no real info here - it's just a glorified book-ad.............

[LibertyWins2012]

Um, well, it IS an authors forum, in which the authors are asked to talk about their experiences with their books, so....

[hohihoigf]

Read what mushroom said for god's sake. They said "there is no real info." They did NOT say: this is inappropriate for an author's forum. The point is that, even if it is appropriate for an author's forum, it's not USEFUL for the audience in that it doesn't contain new or particularly distinguished information (like Peter Schiff's lecture did, for example). Please learn to understand distinctions before you comment.

[mushroomagicman]

Thanx hohihoigf, that's EXACTLY my point. Yesterday I enjoyed over an hour of stuff from Schiff and I don't even remember him flogging a book. Ironically nothing Tom Woods said made me want to read any of his 3 books.

The 'Thumbs down' ratings simply shown intollerance - so will retaliate!!!!!!

[LibertyWins2012]

If you look through YouTube you will find a ton of informative videos by Woods. Sorry this single 15 minutes disappointed you. And you're saying you have absolutely no interest in reading a bestselling book on the economic crisis with a foreword by Ron Paul? You're a riot.

[hohihoigf]

Just because it's 'bestselling' doesn't mean it's valuable. Look at all the 'popular' Keynesian crap people throw at us. If I want to read Ron Paul, I can just read Paul's own work. I'll read Woods, as long as he actually has something interesting to say. This lecture isn't that. I'm sure he's written other stuff that may be good (although, frankly, I listen to Schiff and Paul and they have me pretty much educated -- c'est la vie.)

[hohihoigf]

Mushroom, we're on the same page. Just because we're Austrians doesn't mean we can't tell it like it is among our own, no?

[mushroomagicman]

This site is not open to debate. ANYONE who is not in the club is thumbed-down and no doubt banned!!!!!

"Condemnation, without investigation, is the height of ignorance". Albert Einstein.

This whole spat began because I had the GALL to criticize a man about whom I know nothing. Why do I not know his opinions? Because in 18 minutes of listening to him waffle, he TOLD ME NOTHING!!!!!!!

[hohihoigf]

Mushroom, I gotta agree again. I started listening and all I know is that 1) it was a bestseller; 2) it was the FIRST book out on a topic -- congratulations! and 3) people were saying how clear it was (so great for the ordinary dope). If that isn't self-congratulation I don't know what is.

[LibertyWins2012]

Do you know what the ASC is? The room is filled with people who, unlike you, would be happy to know that an Austrian book on the crisis is a bestseller. Most of them already owned a copy, I bet, and so didn't need the executive summary (which Woods gives in his actual public lectures). Each author is asked to describe his experiences with his book, not just give a summary. THAT'S WHAT THE AUTHORS FORUM IS ABOUT. Gee, so he's happy his book has done well. What a terrible person he must be!

[hohihoigf]

This amounts to nothing but a "other people liked it so if you don't that makes you stupid" argument. First, I don't know HOW you know what every single person in that room was thinking (maybe some of them were EGAD bored??) But putting aside that empirical question, even if you took a poll and every last one of them liked it, that doesn't automatically invalidate my opinion. Again, see "We are all Keynesians now."

[LibertyWins2012]

And heck, you can have this mushroom guy, who thinks the whole crisis was orchestrated by the conspiracy, as if they're competent enough to do that, and as if a crisis of this magnitude could then be controlled by anyone. No one who understood a thing about economics could believe such nonsense.

[hohihoigf]

Moreover, don't put words in my and mushroom's mouths. Where do we say we are looking for "executive summaries"? Stop with the straw man mischaracterizations.

Most times when people talk about a book they elaborate, make interesting substantive points, etc. Blah blah blah it was the first this and the first that -- I don't care!!

[stealthswimmer]

He probably didn't feel the need to elaborate on the points in his book since he's done so in other videos on this youtube channel(and also on the news like on some Fox news show and on on segment on Fox with Glen Beck...not that I'm a fan of Fox but it was alright) and to what is essentially the same audience.

You're kinda assuming what his other vids will be like, lol. His other vids on the channel are very informative.

[LibertyWins2012]

That's funny -- from watching what was not intended to be a "lecture" in the first place (he has plenty of those you can watch), I learned that he blames the Fed for the crisis, that more and more people are reaching this conclusion, that the case for presidential war powers is absurdly weak, that the case for the draft is likewise weak, that the arguments for other American wars were eerily similar to the ones for the Iraq War, etc. That's "waffling"? That "told you nothing"?

[hohihoigf]

"The case for the draft is weak?" I'm not bothering to watch the rest of this video (not on your life) but I'm betting he didn't delve into an analysis of WHY. So either you're really naive and just took what he claimed (that it's weak) at face value, OR you inscribed onto his otherwise bland and monochromatic thoughts your own knowledge and wisdom -- in which case you are confusing your own sublime intelligence with that alleged to belong to the speaker.

[LibertyWins2012]

You're not listening, so there's no point in talking. EVERY OTHER VIDEO BY WOODS on YouTube would satisfy you. This one is to a particular audience, with a particular purpose. That audience is familiar with Woods and his book. That's why he signed so many that day. And yes, it IS interesting that an Austrian got the first book out on the crisis. Why on earth WOULDN'T that be interesting?

Watch his speech at the Rally for the Republic and you'll see why Ron Paul likes him so much.

[hohihoigf]

The question is whether it's MORE interesting than the other stuff I could be learning from instead (opportunity cost of course!). That, and frankly, from the sound of him, I don't like him so far. Everyone on the other side is "crummy" or "the bad guys." Even if said in jest, I don't particularly respect that kind of "elevated" discourse. Schiff gave a lecture among friends too --and he remained on point, insightful and *cough* above a second-grade vocabulary throughout. I'm sticking with him.

[LibertyWins2012]

For the 100th time, Schiff is delivering a formal, named lecture; Woods is giving casual remarks at a pre-conference event. If you want to dismiss him forever on the basis of that, I'm sure he won't be up at night over it, but it's worth noting the reception he gets at Ron Paul's CPAC event: absolute mayhem. Everyone familiar with his work and speaking loves him. Yes, yes, I know, they're all wrong, but maybe they're right.

[europa]

wow your weird Tom woods is a historian and Schiff is an investor you should listen to both to get a real good understanding amongst others.

Mises, hayek, rothbard....etc

[TheLadiesChoice7]

You sound like you're in desperate need of a good hug.

[jvittetoe]

The very end there , hes says something I can't make out..."thats why norman thomas is a ....." what? idiot?

[Elasaltaculos]

"that's why norman thomas isn't in here"

[whoo689]

Austrian Economics is THE Holy Grail in the economic world. You got your institutionalists, Old Keynesians, New Keynesians, participatory economists, and Chicago School folks. But Austrian Economics goes back to basics and gets the facts right every time. Hell, Wesley Mitchell didn't even publish his Business Cycles book until 1913, same year the Fed was created? Coincidence? You be the judge. But why would it take economists from the beginning of the IR to 1913 to write a book about this?

[whoo689]

If the current boom-bust cycle is SOO natural, wouldn't Adam Smith have had some idea of it? Or at least his successors maybe a few decades later, at the most? It really makes you think. Economists just assume the boom-bust cycle has gone on since time immemorial, but we know better.

I mean, is it just a coincidence that inflation has skyrocketed since the Fed's creation, whereas before then it went up and down naturally, and in some years it was actually 0 percent?? Come on!

[joeymackaroni]

I really getting into Woods' book!!!

This guy is funny

[jokertim777]

I'll take Tom Woods for the win please.