 Mises Mises I had a great privilege of studying under him. He was a magnificent person both in his Mental achievements and his personality and I want to talk about both today the Mises started off on a great grand old days of world pre-war war one Vienna the last great civilized Whatever That's been seen I think and one of the great things about him by the way personally was he was full of anecdotes of the old days And what happens who said what to who was just charming the He had a he grew up and he started with in the University of Vienna and the seminar the great bomb of Eric one of the masters of Austrian school of economics and he was one of the shining stars in the seminar and Became quite radical in it because he came to the conclusion that you can apply Subjective value theory and margin utility theory not just the so-called micro sphere Terrible word by a great resource stuck with it Not just the micro sphere of individual actions in the market and prices and production which of course is very important But also to the sphere of money, which I won't have for a long time. It's totally separated It was really in 19th century English economics of British economics that we started this big separation between the micro sphere over there and the macro over there the macro you deal with money and Gloucestershire product and all that stuff and Of course the standard economics. There's no connection between micro and macro you take a micro course and you learn about how more or less how good the market is you know a lot of exceptions and It's applying to man clears the price system and so forth so on it works pretty well Generally conceded works pretty the market works pretty well and in the micro area and you get a get a point where Example and within the Communist Party Not in the United States, but places where they're really doing things like you know Hungary or something It's the economists in the Communist Party a much better much more free market oriented than everybody else. That's sort of shift any rate But the macro sphere supposed to be just Talked about totally separately when you get to the macro sphere They talk about the velocity of circulation of things like that most natural product growth rates Seemingly with no connection with what was going on and they know and the micro course for the individual and Interrelations between individuals were dealt with so Mises is the first one at least since early 18th century, Camelon in France to Do integrate to be able to believe that they can be integrated and started doing it And so his first great work theory of money and credit came out 1912 Takes the subject of value theory the margin utility theory and applies it to the sphere of money and you know general price level of general prices It was not accepted by even by his fellow Austrians. They thought it was going too far. You can't do it to radical separate sector the And so which he started doing despite example first by example and secondly by his own private seminar interestingly enough I'll get back to this a little later too Mises never in his whole life had a paid university position I've certainly qualified for it say the least I'll get back to his American experience a little later on but Even in Vienna. He lost out. There's only one professor. I think in Vienna One paid professor. He lost out on this to somebody who was a more orthodox type who did not integrate it with the money's money supply the theory of money and So he had his private seminar he worked for the Chamber of Commerce Which in the in Vienna and did a lot of a lot of a lot of work which has been lost of policy studies and things like that advice to the Austrian government he was the one by the way apparently to stop the Austrian inflation for becoming really run away It was in the early 1920s. It was a very severe inflation something like Argentina and have never got to the hyper runaway stage But Mises almost single-handed Proveal on the government to stop it so he was always an activist as well as a as a theoretician and He but he had his private seminar and in Europe in those days, maybe still You can be at a university unpaid and have a private seminar And it was considered quite prestigious. It was not like not like here You sort of have an alternative university or something you'd rent a room in the university It was a prestigious post except it was unpaid. So of course, which is important and And it was then that private seminar of people flocked also all from all over Europe Coney England to study under it because the reputation became enormous reputation became enormous So first thing that was integrate subject of value theory and Austrian economics in general into the money sphere And then by the end of his book. He really starts applying it to business cycles. He was the first great business cycle theorist because The phenomenon of business cycles has been Discovered for a long time to analyze and so forth. Nobody could nobody could quite figure it out because if the market tends to an equilibrium tends to a Situation of full employment and everything clears and so forth. So how come there's always business cycle How comes booms several years of booms always succeeded by several years of bust and So they're all there all sorts of wild theories for example Stanley Jevons was Quite good economists in his own right had a sunspot theory. You believe it Sun changes or whatever this causes the problems in the wheat crop This somehow causes the business cycle a lot of nutty theories came came up because they couldn't figure out anything else so So Mises first of all realize that it can't be a market phenomenon because the market everything is Attending toward toward the clarity and people learn from their experience and so on And he began to realize it's really the intervention by the central bank and the money sphere that causes generates business cycles And he works out the outlines of it this theory of money and credit From then on he starts developing that during the 1920s. He develops a whole elaborate more elaborate theory About how business cycles are caused by government intervention of the banking system Generating inflation through this through the central bank and thereby causing malinvestment Causing unsound investments, which the recession has to liquidate the result is that The recession even though of course pain in the neck becomes an inevitable and necessary Conclusion to a boom those once you start the boom process the inflationary boom which causes unsound investments They have to be liquidated so the recession process becomes the adjustment process It's the method by which the market reasserts itself free market reasserts itself So that you wind up after the recovery with an efficient system Benefiting the consumers in the best possible way As a result the way to stop a business cycle both the recession and the booms is to stop the central bank from generating inflation Expanding credit a way to do that. Of course, it will abolish the central bank. I mean the easiest way to do it simplest way to say how politically easy Short of abolishing central bank you put you chain it down forbid it from doing anything that sort of thing So early in the game then these is really Reconstitutedly approach of the money supply becomes a key factor both an inflation and a business cycle. It's almost single-handed the Unfortunately the In the scholarly world and this is still true by the way, nobody reads a foreign language Okay, we all pass together this PhD even now you have to pass the language test I think two languages at least one that's true. We all pass it and it's all fake Nobody knows a damn thing It's the sort of thing where first of all they allow you to have a dictionary okay, and so if you if you study German let's say for a couple of months you can you can sort of parcel it out and You can flunk it I know somebody who flunked this French test about three times before they finally passed it and Obviously you forget it the next day once you pass this thing. Oh, that's over with So as a result nobody in the especially in England the United States were all English show vests Nobody reads a foreign language. This meant that Mises book not having been translated Until until mid 30s. In other words, it took Almost 25 years for somebody to translate this theory of money credit in English Nobody nobody read Mises and nobody then it's never got absorbed into the English-speaking world it got absorbed in the continent and the Austria particularly and Actually So and it was translated really too late by the time was translated Keynes comes along whole thing It's swept aside. I'll get to that in a minute, but so this this problem of translation Keypoint in the transmission of ideas As a matter of fact one interesting thing was aside about the great Keynes Keynes reviewed the book for the economic journal Which was the great prestigious journal in England economic journal England still is The Keynes review the theory money credit says well, it's an interesting book But hasn't hasn't got anything new to say so an interesting textbook on money Turns out later on Keynes admitted thinking so as biographer admitted it the Keynes didn't know German This book was first he reviewed the German book Or put it this way he knew enough German to understand something which you already knew but he couldn't understand He didn't know it enough to understand a new idea. Okay, so here this Sob said nothing new in this So anyway, this as a result Misesianism so to speak didn't get didn't penetrate to the English-speaking world until it was really too late Finally what happened was that Well first of all Mises one of the few people in the 1920s to forecast the Great Depression says it's not a the orthodox position Then was well, it's a new era as the Republican administration called it here in the 20s We have a new era because we have a Fed now This was the orthodox line and you can mainstream line We have a Federal Reserve system and they could they can correct everything they can pump money in if they see prices are falling They pump money in the system as they see prices going out. They take money out They can fine-tune the economy so they can iron out the business cycle and it was the pre-freedmenites by the way He was saying this Irving Fisher sort of the the pre-freedmenite It was the big guru economists in 1920s. He's sort of equivalent to Samuelson or Galbraith now, I guess and And his position was this is greatly enough iron out the whole business cycle because we have a Fed and So when they when the stock market crash came in the 1929 oppression came these first of all the Fisher wrote a book in 1930 Saying everything is great. Everything's in great shape. There is no depression. There's no crash it's just a slight blip in the in the new era and Because the theory was if price if you look at the wholesale price level and it's not going up in visas No inflation first visas. It's said just the opposite. You don't look at the wholesale price level You look at money supply and credit because prices should be falling in a free-market capitalism prices tend to fall as example computers and Penicillin and TV sets have fallen dramatically So what usually happens under free market capitalism is prices tend to fall and prices are not falling there's something wrong In other words the Fed or the several banks pumping in too much money This will create a business cycle and of course you turn out to be right So he was predicting this sort of phenomenon as a result His views became very popular in Europe after the Great Depression after 2029 it then happened that his major student Hayek Went went to London School of Economics Lionel Robbins was a big shot along the school studying under Mises Indiana Absorbed a lot of Misesi's thought and brought Hayek over And Hayek then brings the message of Austrian business cycle theory Misesi and business out there in England At one point he had converted all the top young economists in England. All the guys were now later became big shot Keynesians and So it looked very much as if Misesi in theory would then penetrate to the United States and take over English profession What then happened was the Keynesian Revolution which comes out and swept the board like that was like a revelation from high All these people converted back to Keynesianism knew better They were following the zeitgeist I know they had their finger in the wind So When Keynes took over it's not that the Keynesians refuted the previous people You know when you're reading the textbook about how science develops you read it Well, everybody patiently tests their hypotheses and they then they confirm them refute them and new hypotheses come in This is all baloney almost never happened especially in the social sciences and what happens is it's like a fashion comes in a wave a new wave of the future comes in and Suddenly everybody dropped Austrian theory and and shifted the Keynesianism and There are various explanations for this one as intellectuals were looking for a Big state big growth and statism and this is the way to do it and two of course the governments love the idea that deficits are great Governments always love it right now whichever parties in power loves deficits. Okay, the only people against that was that those were out of power so So the government the government took the Keynesianism like a duck takes the water This is great. We finally have any economists who's a favorite that are big big spending the public works deficit spending Because before Keynes most economists regardless of whether a right wing left wing or whatever were against the deficits And so suddenly this guy comes along as a very distinguished economist said no no This is the way for the future deficits are great So any rate so this this kills me zesty and theory in England so about by the late 30s it's all forgotten sort of swept on the rug and And of course with the rise of nazi is on the war. It's it's it's more or less going at least temporarily in Europe Anyway, while this was going on while Mises is developing a Integrating microeconomics with money and developing a business cycle theory He was also doing something else. I mean doing many other things at the same time socialism is coming in After World War one as a result of World War one socialism began to sweep Europe and Mises came out the famous article 20 Showing the real problem socialism is not the usual problem who will sweep the streets and who can take the garbage out Which is yeah, which is a problem. The real problem is socialism can't calculate. They wouldn't know what the hell to do Central planning board wouldn't know what to produce where and where Set up a steel plan should it be a noblest your beer scone omsco, whatever There's no rational guideline to plan therefore the whole thing was you know, just would just be a total failure And Mises started a great debate and a socialist Socialist thought about whether or not governments or central socialism can calculate The They sort of accept it now I mean after many years when I was going to college at graduate school the theory was Mises has been refuted because Oscar Longa the great Polish Marxist Have shown that if you had perfect conditions or whatever the government could act as if they were the market and sort of you tell your managers be the market be market and then they go out and Mises for show that that wouldn't work either and practice of course it hasn't worked and Was one interesting phenomenon where one thing Mises said is that the only reason why socialism works at all right now Is because there's a world market out there where they can refer to the prices doesn't work very This you know works very badly, but at least as a world market. I can say okay the price of steel is such and such or cement or whatever and Noted English economists visited Poland in the 50s He asked the Polish economists. That's the time when several planning was headed stride And the Polish Communist economists admitted that they refer to the world market That's how they can do anything and so he so this economist. I will look If socialism takes over the whole world, which you're presumably a favor of what we what would you do then? But there is no market left. They said well after cross that bridge when we come to it Got great answer anyway so Mises showed in early 1920s that socialism socialism can't calculate and that's what converted Hayek by the way Hayek had been a socialist before that read the book and that was and he's converted the free market and And then he showed interventionism doesn't work either because interventionism for example is a cumulative effect Price controls don't work taxes crippled savings and investments separate each each intervention causes Sets the conditions up for another intervention to try to cure that and that doesn't cure that It creates conditions for more intervention except for except until you wind up with socialism, which doesn't work either so what we had then was a as a result of all this a carefully built constructed case for Why the market works and why government doesn't work In the meantime, he also had a methodological fight Mises was essentially the one who Invent well invented the concept of praxeology. Actually the Austrians have been doing that before but He pointed out what the method is It's using making deductions from self-evident axioms or axiom which people would read to as soon as they understand it And he had a big methodological battle with other people with positivism and cetera, etc And finally he developed the after setting the agenda for methodology for how economics should be constructed He finally did it with human action. In other words, he just okay Here's yeah, first. He says here's you how you can do it and then he finally does it Where human action presents the whole doctrine whole thing how how the market works in intricate detail and why government screws things up So this is a fantastic achievement. It's just unbelievable achievement I think I think I don't sling on our words like the greatest like some people do I think Mises is certainly one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. I think no question about it the Okay, while he was doing all this while I was doing this fantastic scholarly and theoretical achievement He's also battling in the activist front and political activists. I already mentioned how he was a Sending advice to the Austrian government. It helps stop the inflation and He also constantly battle for laissez-faire pure laissez-faire system Of course during the 30s in particular. This was getting more and more out of fashion say the least But nothing ever stopped them. It was just amazing. I mean fiery and transigent uncompromising And the more the climate became socialistic and status the more you battle openly and frankly for laissez-faire I remember when I was getting interested in economics and 1940s and friends of mine later The same thing same thing happened to them We try to find some one economist who said it openly was a favorite laissez-faire and we couldn't find it They were all sorts of conservative economists then and he would say yes Yes, the government shouldn't do this shouldn't do that is always a chapter either the last of the first chapter Or he says of course, I'm not in favor of laissez-faire. That's reactionary garbage Government has to plan the blah blah blah blah. I say let me say I'm nuts Can't we find one economist who says openly is a favorite laissez-faire and of course me this was it and still you know almost still is it The only one who says frankly is a favorite laissez-faire all the way no compromise and just that spells it out and battles for it Mrs. Mises is a remarkable woman woman on her own right. We just had a dinner tribute dinner for her and She she gave her speech, you know She's frail and ill-health you get a rousing talk and she said that Mises was it was the act was an activist of the mind And she stressed the fact that she attacked she attacked Austrians who want to divorce themselves from the real world and to only talk about pure theory never talk about political questions She said that's not what my husband's views are husbands. You know as an activist and and Additional that is Especially in his earlier work when he dealt with questions of imperialism, for example Mises was a flaming anti-imperialist and I recommend his writings as liberalism and nation-state and Market on that he got the one point where he said each individual has well first He said every group has a right to see seed from a state apparatus. They don't like they want to get out They should have the right to get out and Europe of course is a big question should the Serbs rule the Croats, for example When you're up there hundreds of nationalities ethnic groups each of them hate each other's guts and usually with good reason So Many of them want to get out Form their own country, it's not really he said yes They should be allowed to do it and one discussion. He said well each Every town should have a right every village have the right to see seed if they want to He almost got to the point of anarchism when he said each individual should have the right to see seed and he stopped So of course that'd be impractical and that was the end end of the discussion But it was a fascinating discussion of that. He was a bitterly attacked imperialism I'll read this to you or one quote from them because This stuff is sort of Quote for Mises no chapter in history is steep further in blood on the history of colonialism Flourishing lands were laid waste whole people's destroyed and exterminated all this can in no way be extenuated or justified The Dominion of Europe of Europeans in Africa and important parts of Asia is absolute It stands in the sharpest contrast of all the principles of liberalism and democracy and it can be no doubt We must strive for its abolition. This is written about 1919 1920s the And Mises is a person I'll say he's a transigent uncompromising etc He was sweet and charming and person was very interesting because well those of us who were gonna meet Mises either You know studying in a seminar or any other circumstance. We usually quaking in our boots Here's this guy's lashing out all the enemies all the bad guys and we figure this guy's a fiery monster You know great great on the great side, but you know Lashing out constantly he was a sweetie pie He He was always trying to encourage Charming and Curtis always trying to encourage students to do research Throwing out research projects even students were obviously clunks who never do any research He was always trying to encourage them in doing this one great statement, which I've written about But I think there was mentioning here in order to put people there ease in the seminar I mean these people didn't know anything most of us didn't know anything And here's this great man about tremendous amount of knowledge in every addition He said look he wanted to stimulate questions or comments He said look don't be afraid to say anything because whatever you say regardless of how idiotic it is Some eminent economists has already said it Marvelous I love it And if what he was right, I mean not only this is a funny And He's always trying to encourage us to you know to speak up and then say where we Our position was on things etc He's also full of I say great anecdotes There's one charming light. I remember this those of you philosophically inclined me particularly appreciate He was walking along the streets of Vienna. Of course in Vienna. Everybody walks all the time It's a great city to walk and even I walk in Vienna. I usually don't walk usually take a cab two blocks And better in New Yorker anyway and He's working with Max Schaler was a distinguished philosopher from Germany and he said they were attacking logical positivism Which is coming in there as the big new thing and the Which then of course took over the philosophic profession ruled it with an iron half about 30 years it's only the its iron grip is only now beginning to fade and And Schaler finally comes from Berlin finally said well look what big blue What is there on the climate of Vienna? What is there on this place the climate place that breeds all these damn logical positivists? Mises gave it. I think a typical reply for me. They said shrugs are showed so well Look max in Vienna. There are now two million people Of the two million about 12 logical positivists it can't be the climate So this is a typical Misesian wit and Another great story. I'll tell you about Mises another great anecdote He was after World War one. There was a communist regime in Hungary for a couple for about six months It's very bloody months the Bella Kun regime and he was Mises was representing Austria in a trade treaty with communist Hungary and Carl Polanyi the famous left-wing Sociologists they should call him and was the was the representative from Hungary and So Mises I hear Polanyi used to walk around walk around Vienna and talk about trade is something both of them realized Of course the Bella Kun regime with a fold in a few months And the whole idea of Polanyi was to prolong negotiations. We could stay in Vienna and you know didn't get the hell out So they had a fine time just so you know just bs-ing in general until the regime dissolved and Polanyi was safe so such as the history of diplomacy Anyway when Mises got to he was driven. He was course driven out of Austria. He was His library was burned by the Nazis. He And when when Hitler began to take over Western Europe, he fled through through the Spanish route to the United States he came here without a penny and At that time during and after World War two Every every communist Marxist semi-Marxist Londonist and whatever a refugee was immediately awarded with great academic posts food professor at Harvard, you know step in so-and-so because and Mises couldn't find an academic post He never found a paid academic post in his life in the United States in particular and Finally had us they had a settle for Consortium of Businessman and well started with Leonard Reed of Foundation for Economic Education A consortium of businessmen paid for salary at NYU. So he was always a visiting professor. He visited there for about 20 years and Never got it paid by NYU and only that but NYU was very nasty about about him because the Dean kept telling people don't take this guy's courses He's you know reactionary crazy whatever and so here. He was totally scorned by the establishment say the least And those days you have to realize the intellectual climate in the United States. This is during and after World War two I was on a column. I was a Columbia graduate school then there was a hordes of people in graduate schools enormous everybody's on the GI Bill and They're all a fire of the new world are coming some and the big argument on campus was should you be a communist party member or not? that was the big moral problem say and Those who are not coming as party members were left-wing socialists So the other debate on campus and in that climate Mises was totally ignored. You know, it's almost obliterated and His name never came up except to say and a graduate school for example Well, Mises thought the socialism can't calculate we've now proven it can that was sort of that's it It's all he did and it sort of takes care of that fortunately, I met Mises through fee and and they told me a fee when Mises is starting a seminar and and NYU and And his book is coming out a new book. So I saw what's in the book. I said everything. That's the human human action of course, they were right and And then he started the thing is even though he here he was he was totally obviously depressed about the world situation and Scorned by everybody ignored a separate separate always very cheerful never bitter. I'm just just amazing something just magnificent and And and so I took it took the whole thing in good spirits Even though it's in his note and his autobiography, which is called notes and recollections Written in 1940 at the spare while I was fleeing Europe you only said He never thought he thought he'd be on an advocating Reforms or whatever he didn't he didn't realize he's gonna be an historian of the client of civilization so by he was I say always very cheery and Never upset. I'm just they're just the magnificent Magnificent. There's a great role model as well as everything else personal role model for everybody When he died Ralph Rico his former student Mentioned me that the great the great quote from Shelley's From Shelley's ad naus the elegy of the death of Keats. I just want to read this read you this one Stanza And I think applies to Mises beautifully and he's gathered to the kings of thought who wage contention with their times decay And of the past or all the cannot pass away So I think and I think it's a wonderful tribute and I think it applies to Mises just one more thing one more statement about me so he's universally beloved in the in the we can call the free market movement loosely and His very name resonates with affection One interesting one interesting example of us is some years ago I was at a dinner party for friends about eight or ten people there's a whole spectrum of what could be called a right wing I guess in those days libertarians rationalist right wing Catholics separate sector and The one guy decided they are the host I guess I want we have to we should toast somebody before we start dinner and Somebody suggested Burke and rationalist rationalist and us to that somebody said pain and the Traditional set fully on pain. We couldn't think of anybody to toast And it was a great danger of dinner getting cold No food and you probably can guess I'm pretty serious about the food question So finally somebody said to love me while Mises they said course And you know this enthusiasm and we toasted Mises. I'll give you that toast right now. Thank you Questions comments. I think we have a few minutes for that company No, I mean, that's the ends here Yeah, is there any relationship between Bonn Mises and I ran There was It's it's kind of intricate They knew each other and of course ran recommended Rees's books And well, she always said a human act don't read the first half of human action because it falls awfully on sound And So they knew each other didn't they didn't get along too well And you might expect Too strong-minded personalities at work But it has over this in relationship. I would say that's the best way to describe it And there was I think they respected each other in their various fears. I mean he liked Atlas shrug as a novel so it's Good way to spread the message, etc. And so I think that's I think that's bad it Yeah I was pretty it was pretty rugged They didn't like each other too much at all as a matter of fact another great story the founding of the Montpelerin Society which was The it's now a huge swollen society of everybody to the right of Galbraith, I would say It started out with about a dozen people of free market economists basically and scholars and These isn't free mirror at the founding in Hayek and rep gain people like that with the founding Convent of conference about Montpelerin Society. It was core Montpelerin Society It was held up at the mountaintop in Montpelerin in Switzerland. And anyway Probably one great story. I've heard different about four or five different versions of what actually happened. There's something else but Measles was a gas of the social philosophy being spread there because I mean freedom for example the favorite of a negative income tax and those days of progressive income tax the boot and Many of the other people there were also And finally one point. I think it was on a tax question. I think was the idea progressive income tax Measles got that sore and flung his pencil down the table and say you're all much a socialist and walked out and Freeman likes to tell us stories and attack on Measles and showing what an extreme doctrinaire dormitus. He was I Blotted my own copy book with Friedman many years ago and he told this story At an Austrian economics conference by the way, he was invited to be the keynote speaker for some reason which I could never fathom Friedman and since he's very very much very strongly opposed to it. Anyway, he told the story about about a terrible dogmatic Measles was and when he said you're almost a socialist I applauded of course, Freeman then denounced me from the pulpit Sort of personally hated that sort of stuff. Oh, I should have been very swarm since then So they did not like get along very well at all. That's I think the off shot Yeah, no, no, I'm never mentioned Yeah, there's a little bit No, there's a little bit now. I mean Samuelson of course textbook is not no one of the best selling It's still probably the most famous one Mentions Hayek, I think he might mention it Measles even personally mentions the mentions on the socialist calculation debate Because now they're beginning to realize maybe socialism really can't calculate after the flops Faperu's of Eastern Europe, etc And also, I think hi of Samuelson mentions Hayek and capital theory So it's it's not quite that bleak is a little bit popping up here and there as a matter of fact Current textbooks now mention libertarianism by the way There's now it's great because there's usually a section called radical economics That's the new shtick and There's a most of it of course on Marxism and left-wing Marxism right-wing Marxism is great there's always usually a paragraph or two in libertarian I mean the opposite pole and Bronfenbrenner by the way his latest textbook who's very smart I mean, so he's not a no sense of free market person, but he has a pretty good chapter section on libertarianism and Distinguish between that and objectivism and so forth. I mean, it's pretty good for somebody from a from an outlander It's pretty damn good. So I mean it's beginning to pop in now It's not not in great shape and some of the textbooks Baird and and Gley he have intermediate price theory or macro and micro textbooks. They're now sort of semi-Austrian So they slip it in a little bit You can't have an Austrian textbook because I wouldn't know no college would use it So they do as they slip it in they slip in like at the end of the usual baloney They say the other hand hi-ex points out this really doesn't work. It's up So it's beginning to sneak in and somebody somebody said once Once an idea gets incorporated textbook is there forever you can ever blast it out So it's not yeah, you're you're mostly right, but there's hope I think I mean last few years I think it's a slight shift the beginning to think now whether we're Respectable we're another group. Also, they use us as a token against the Marxist so that every I You know you get a point where an apartment really is a favorite academic freedom, which is quite rare by the way, despite all the noise We'll have one Marxist and one Austrian or one free market person So the show they really you know sort of balanced The old ladies only have one Marxist that was the balance. So yeah, it's good things are things are improving Academic front. Yeah Would it be preferable to Go to a college where they teach Austrian economics so you can learn what's right or maybe Would it be preferable to go to a standard school? So in effect you're learning what everybody else thinks? Yeah, that's a tough question really is because it's usually a question Do you want the prestige that goes along with a Harvard or Yale or whatever degree? You already want to get the true stuff even from a non prestigious school and their arguments either way You know it really depends on one's temperament. I think I Mean I I think it's I frankly think it's better to go to prestigious school and suffer through all the stuff And know what the other guys are saying then go to school which has no no no reputation But I mean if it's done both way one of the problems with a going to Harvard or Yale except was they was the kids We're gonna get brainwashed in the wrong direction. We're gonna lose part of the contract speak But that's I I know I would I would pick the prestigious school myself because One of the main reasons you go to college is to get the prestige. I mean, you know learning is only a minor a minor element So I mean I everybody has to answer that for themselves really I think that's the point Actually, the college situation is not that bad. We now have a lot of colleges which have at least one Austrian Let's say the problem is really graduate school with a but the establishment really locks in because that's where you train future Economists and that's much more difficult to crack the graduate school question We do we're beginning to crack that now too. They're now places in graduate school. You can actually learn Austrian economics But it's a tough road a whole Yeah Well, I think that'd be fluctuation that wouldn't be any cycles and was it wouldn't be the traditional boom bust malinvestment Unemployment also stuff cycle. I don't I think that's the government. They'd be fluctuation I mean, for example, there'd be a seven-year look Let's say let's say I have a country which is plagued every seven years by locusts Okay, and every seven years everybody gears up because they know that you know the locusts has come in 1988 And so you have fluctuations Otherwise the locusts fighting industry would start gearing up a year or two before that After locusts come they sort of disappear and that's a cycle and there's no problem with it because everybody adjusts ahead of time So there'd be fluctuation. They'd be fluctuation individual industries, obviously I mean the firms that they which there is all the time firms which still make adding machines when I was growing up got graduate school For example, they used calculating most called capital in machines big funky, you know, 500 pound things Which bang away and get a multiplication about three minutes. Okay The people those firms have stuck to that and this didn't shift the Calculators or whatever computers have gone out of business. In other words, it'd be fluctuation within the market Obviously as new things come up old things become obsolescent, but there wouldn't be any real cycle It wouldn't be massive unemployment any large scale things like that massive bankruptcies Spreading throughout the system Yeah, how would you explain to the misinformed how abolishing the Federal Reserve would be in their best interest in how the money And credit system would work Well, it's difficult explain how money credit system would work. That's It's easier explain how it's why it's why it's Rex the system. I mean, you know, I don't think that's that difficult You point out the Federal Reserve prints money and they're the legalized money counterfeiters They're legalized counterfeiters. If I print money, I go to jail for a long time by the way I mean, then nobody worries about like my upbringing I'd the private playgrounds of the youth that came from broken home and all that stuff applies to Counterfeiters. Counterfeiters they crack down on, they zero in, they find them, they catch them, they suck them away for 30 years Those counterfeiters do something serious. They're interfering in the government's monopoly of counterfeiting So I think that's not, I think it's fairly easy to point out It's difficult to explain exactly how the Fed does it. That's a very technical thing But it's just to say well they counterfeit and that's what they do, you know And that causes inflation and distortions of production and the reason why there's a chronic inflation because now the Fed can counterfeit Well, in the old days they couldn't, you know, so I think that's pretty simple There's also an interesting backlog of anti-fed sentiment in the United States Not, you know, there's a whole subculture of people hate the Fed usually for pretty good reasons So that's, you know, so that starts off with a good climate of opinion Yeah, anybody else? Yeah, I can't see, okay, over there, corner Well, that's a very complex question. Before the Fed we had a quasi-centralized system and had a national banking system So the only really approximation of freedom of banking was before the Civil War Between 1833 or whatever the exact date when the Bank of the United States was finally smashed until the Civil War And there were problems with that, it wasn't really, really free A lot of regulations and stuff First of all, I think banks can easily survive 100% reserve Now they have the money market funds and things like that I mean, these are great new instruments, certificate of deposits, CDs, and money market funds Where banks can, you know, you lend the bank money for a certain specific length of time, say six months or whatever And you know it and they know it and there's no fraudulent aspect involved That's great, you don't need any reserves at all for that All you have to know is that six months you should get the money ready, you know Because the thing falls due And the fraction was, I personally, I consider this is a big argument within the Austrian camp Still raging I personally think fraction reserve banking is fraud All those of my colleagues think it isn't I think in the free market it would really, it would really either disappear or be of minor importance Because the hard money banks could always call upon the other, the crummy banks for redemption Okay, here's, we're collecting your bills, pay up This will put them out of business pretty fast In the pre-Civil War period there were such, there were people called money brokers Who would collect the notes, say, of the Bank of Oshkosh and printing money like mad Promising to pay in gold or silver, of course they didn't have anything And the money brokers would collect all the stuff in the east, let's say Shlep over to Oshkosh and present the, you know, $550,000 bills If they weren't shot by the local Jean-Marie, which is often happened In the pay of the banks, the banks would go under And now of course it's much easier to do that, you know, electronic transfers, etc Some kind of horse riding three days to get to the bank So nowadays it's much easier to bust them And my own solution to the problem is a 100% reserve person as well If you don't have, if you just have free banking, there'd be anti-bank vigilante leagues Which would make sure you're propagandizing the TV, at least that bank is bankpub Go get your money out fast, this would be enough to kill it Well, we could go on a little morning happily, but then we would have to go on The whole afternoon to get our other business done So I'm going to say thank you, Marie Thank you, Johnny