I an glad he mentioned his father has a PhD in electrical engineering. I'm an engineer, and I'm tired of engineers that think too highly of themselves. Many seem to think an engineering degree means expertise and reasonbleness in engineering transfers to other subjects. Knowledge of electric circuits, mechanics, mathematics, programming, and more doesn't mean you are open to evidence that undermines firmly held beliefs. Heck, I even had to correct a PhD from UCLA concerning methods of energy transfer in a heat transfer course, and her research dealt with thermo and heat transfer.
as a professional engineer i agree, expertise/education on certain subject matter definitely does not exempt one from the possibility and likelihood of falling on the lower end of the IQ/congnitive ability/ideological-soundness bell curve, and i believe educated people think too highly of themselves simply because they were able to obtain a degree, i believe such is applicable to the nearsighted and narcissistic claim you hear from leftists nowadays that "more proportions of democrat voters are college educated than republicans"
Eclectic Perspectic especially with sociologists and psychologists who lean heavily left and very far left as well. They think they're so smart and their fields are politically relevant, so it means that the world could be perfect if all those dumb dolts went away. The problem with that is, the "dumb dolts" make up the entire society and they fail to realize getting rid of the ground under them won't allow them to appreciate life in their 4 story gated mansions.
Caplan's book seems to be an important contribution to one of those areas everyone overlooks. But it's pretty simple: If elections are incapable of leading to good leadership, then it's better to leave more areas to the market where no one can force stupid decisions on other people.
Interesting point he made about the prohibition on the sale of human organs [at 23:00]. As I understand it, this law has actually caused a large underground trade in human organs. When items, including human organs are sold illegally, it tends to make them far more expensive than if they were legal to sell. Beyond that, it underground trade encourages organized crime, and you end up with nightmarish cases of organs being stolen from healthy people for trade on the black market. This is quite similar to how the prohibition of drugs has caused a great deal of gang violence. Legal policies based on idealistic intentions can sometimes have undesirable consequences.
@@micahscanz From the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, cocaine enjoyed immense popularity, more than 1,000 products derived from cocaine were sold in all its forms, the original Coca Cola contained leaves or coca leaf extracts, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described in his novels Sherlock Holmes using cocaine recreationally, there was a drink called Vin Mariani, the drink made up of cocaine that Pope Leo XIII, Thomas Edison and Jules Verne adored, the problem is that over time the negative consequences of its consumption, curiously in Peru and Bolivia before the conquest only the nobles and priests could cultivate it and its use was prohibited without the knowledge and supervision of the medical priests.
This is one of the best lectures I've ever seen. So revealing and informative, it's cleared up a lot of things. I know I'll be showing this to some leftists I know.
lol, I had Mike Huemer as a professor in college. I rather hilariously remember him making the argument that it's probably not such a good use of our time to be studying philosophy. This was a course for majors
Interestingly, the video wasn't really about how much of [or how well] the population is informed. It was about whether the "Miracle of Aggregation" holds water.
The Great Recession, if he didn’t even understand how it happened. Goes to show how impressive it was, that the few that did figure it out, actually got it right.
A crucial objection to Caplan: Basically all political decisions contains an element of moral values; some to a large degree (e.g. abortion), some to a small degree (e.g. highways). The problem is that in morality there are no experts. There are no objective right and wrongs. A five year old is as "wrong" as a philosophy professor (or an economist). One should ask Caplan whether he thinks the public is ignorant on the morality of abortion (as well as on trade policies).
His answer at the end was fairly superficial. - There were folks predicting the collapse of 2007-2008. Peter Schiff and John Alison just to name two. And their vids are here on youtube. - The bananas thing: Just as an example, various banks were required to take TARP funds even though they didn't want them. Banks were required to make bad loans under the CRA. And so on. - Some financial groups did refuse to make the bad loans, John Alison's for example.
Peter Schiff has predicted 5000 of the last 1 economic downturns. Schiff is unique in his awfulness at making financial prognostications. He's far worse than random because if you think the economy will be great at any given point in time, you are likely to be right.
RE experts: People in a profession can share common assumptions that are untested. Anyone who does not share these assumptions may find that he has difficulty being admitted into the field. For example, if someone said that he believed money is immoral and we should all use barter, would he have a hard time getting hired as an economist?
He might, but he probably wouldn't actually. It would be more about how many papers he got published as a graduate student and in what level journals typically. Most economists wouldn't subscribe to such a belief though simply for the reason that unlike other people who obtain doctorate degrees, they all are confronted by rather simple arguments which dismantle a perspective like that in their first or second graduate courses.
@donfolstar I never intended to change a definition or anything. Banks compete in a nearly oligarchic, corproatistic fashion. They do not compete as if they were in any way, shape, or form absolutely dependent upon supply and demand. The FDIC gives them insurance, the FED controls how much money is supplied, and a plethora of other regulations controls just how transactions are dealt with. What was given in its repeal is not deregulation, but privilege, with no dependency on supply/demand.
Your objection is essentially the question of how strong and influential you want the government to be... Say, making abortion illegal is definitely a moral statement by the government, but for the government to "ignore" abortion is to leave it to the people, i.e. not make a moral assumption. I think part of the problem is we automatically assume if something isn't illegal then it is supported, when it could just be a question of how heavy-handed you want the government to be. IMO, anyway...
In those transitional periods where growth in technology causes people to lose their jobs the government should provide help getting people the education and training they need to take a new job.
My hearing is not great. I can understand some speakers well and others I can barely understand. This speaker talks very quickly and in somewhat of a Monotone. I was interested in the subject. Well enough to continue
private vs social cost can be seen with Californians leaving for Texas and likely still voting for the policies that made california what it is they left.
Repealing Glass-Stegal under Clinton and abandoning capitalization requirements for banks(GWB) were deregulation. Glass Stegal required investment banking to be separate from regular banking. Capitalization laws required the bank had a certain percent of capital is actually held by the bank for the amount of loans or other risk (derivatives) that it makes. These laws are the ones that helped us out of Great Depression and protected us in the past. We need them
@infinummjb to be fair, a counter to that statement is that many Austrians have been warning about recession for years. If you say "eventually there will be a recession" i think most economists would agree that we will just about always *eventually* have one, but few people can get the timing down. That's the mainstream critique of it - there are always reasons to believe there could be a recession, so timing becomes a very important issue, otherwise the knowledge is useless.
Blarghalt To the extent that democracy picks bad policy and demands that rights get circumvented to combat some hobgoblin, I do hold democracy in contempt.
Everyone should have contempt for democracy. It was specifically rejected by the founding fathers as mob rule, tyranny of the majority. That is why we we were given a Republic all those years ago. It is the continuous erosion of the Republic towards democracy causing the problems.
I wish it worked that way. If it did then it wouldn't matter what the candidate's views were as long as he looked good and spoke well. You should read his book.
To be fair, a Berlin wall would be to hold people in, rather than holding others out. Everything else is pretty spot on, or at least rationally stated, even if I disagree with some of the individual statements. A very good talk.
I'm a person who very much favors the free market, I can't help but wonder how much these surveys could have been skewed to one opinion, or the other. Not saying the surveys were skewed, just I have no proof telling me it isn't. Ask essentially the same question two different ways and you can end up with two separate results.
How strong the government should be is essentially a normative question (or at least instrumental to some antierior norm). Thus there are no objectively right answer to the question whether more or less questions should be "left to the people". In other words, anti-paternalism, "freedom", and the like cannot simply be a "default setting" of political morality (although anyone is free to support it on intuitive grounds).
Are you saying that other people don't pay a price by your own economic activity? If you buy a car, it doesn't affect me by making my commute a little slower, the air I breathe a little dirtier, and the gasoline I buy a little more expensive?
Ron Paul also predicted that "In time, an oil boycott will be imposed with oil prices soaring to historic highs," that Iraq would the largest war since WWII, that an international dollar crisis would "dramatically boost interest rates in the United States," and that "gold will be seen as an alternative to paper money as it returns to its historic role as money." His prediction would have been impressive if he hadn't predicted so many other things that have obviously not come to pass.
@Audiofalcon7 You are right. I am just incapable of understanding. Here I thought removing regulations was "deregulation". Come to find out Webster and I have that wrong. I would be drawn into a bigger debate about how "free markets" or unfettered capitalism has never, and will never by design, work, but that would be silly. Obviously you have strong opinions about stuff. Good for you.
Did you watch the video? He explained the ignorance-cancels-out argument and then spent most of the video refuting it. Though he didn't use the examples you presented, explaining instead that many people have biases based on certain prevalent misconceptions.
I can give some specific and rational reasons for why trade with China is bad: 1. There is disregard for environmental policy. Yes, they are concerned now that the air is no longer breathable and the waters are loaded with mercury, but there is still no policy for fixing the problem. It's not just their problem, either: A considerable portion of the pollution in the Los Angeles basin originated in China. 2. There is disregard for human rights. Abuse of the poor is common but hushed; profiting from the suffering of fellow humans should be ethically abhorrent. If people understood this, there would be less concern over spending 3. There is disregard for human life. Melamine in food supplies is just one example. It's not like the effects are unknown to them; the suppliers just don't give a crap. Based on the talk here, it seems to me (as an admittedly uninformed armchair economist) that political economists are less concerned about the major effects of policy and only concern themselves with the economics of a situation. This is fine, unless the policy that makes sense in the short term spells disaster in the long term. There are a lot of "common sense" arguments that stem from a vague understanding of the big picture. While the opinions formed from this standpoint might be in opposition to the opinions of an economist, that doesn't make the economist right. Things like ethics or environmental viability are important topics that must be considered alongside economic policy, otherwise we as a species have an expiring lease on this world.
The concept you are reaching for is that of a "negative externality". It's the reason we don't sell nukes to ISIS even though it might be a profitable trade. This topic is addressed w/in economics, but not in this 50 minute vid.
Eric Rasmussen How would our not trading with China change those factors? It seems as likely that an embargo would hurt as your unstated assumption that trade would exacerbate the problems.
Every country is only as wealthy as the value of the goods and services it produces. There is no way to justify the tax benefits US multinational companies get for taking manufacturing overseas. The reason he can state buying from foreign countries makes no difference to the wealth of the US is the fact that the US dollar has historically been manipulated to the US advantage. This is changing. Certain countries are already trading oil and other commodities which are not valued in US dollars.
@shadowgeyser Perhaps you should take a look at "The Ultimatum Game". It's an economics game where Person A is given $100 and they can offer x amount to Person B. If Person B rejects the offer then they both get nothing. If two robots were playing this game then they'd offer $1 because the logically rational thing for Person B is to accept however little. When this game is played Person A will tend to offer $50. But $49 is the cost to Person A of re-enforcing concept of a just society.
It's hard to foresee economic collapse? No, many Austrian economists have predicted the collapse. Not all of their predictions come true, because governments are really good and hiding the problem with endless money printing. But the people still pay the price, they live ever more difficult financial lives due to endless money printing.
Interesting right up until the last two minutes. "You didn't have to buy the bananas." Wasn't the government threatening banks who didn't want to buy those bananas? "Nobody could have predicted this." I heard the housing collapse and the fallout predicted many, many times starting as soon as the housing boom started, continuing right up until it happened.
Most people don't vote that way though because they have a bias. If they didn't have a bias then they would vote on looks, personal appeal, et cetera. One of my professors, D'Amico actually used Snooki as an example of one of those examples (she voted for McCain because he looked handsome). However, most people vote based on their own policy bias. If you read the first few pages of Caplan's book then you might have known that, "kid."
Ya it certainly is a fascinating question hey? I think he would say the line is a bit off because we naturally produce an extra kidney [is this the only organ that applies to?]. Then, if the exchange is not "forced", but voluntary, then doesn't it make sense to allow it? . Of course you could argue that maybe the person is "forced" by circumstances to sell it, but aren't we always forced by our circumstances in every decision/trade-off?
Most commercials don't always work they would need the most convincing commercials, also other media besides commercials can make a difference such as news, talk, entertainment, etc. programs on TV and radio.
The uninformed voters cancel out? It's like fliping a coin? Wrong. When people are uninformed, their vote won't go to a candidate in a random way. It will go to the one that is more handsome, that has charisma, that says pretty things but never does them, that does terrible things but makes them look good. This gives power to the one that knows how to decieve, instead of power to the one that has real proposals to help people.
"democracy is the best form of government except for all the others." -Winston Churchill. I feel like its easy to slam the average voter but whos to say that a whoever is choosen to lead the country will be any more rational or benevolent. Its better to decentralize power in the hands of many uniformed people than in the hands of one uniformed person. Just look at the success of democracies vs non-democracies, to me its clear that democracy works better than anything else.
This seams reasonable, until someone finds a populist message that resonates with the low information voter across traditional political divides. Steeped in fear and ignorance, the message does not appeal to the informed, but strikes a chord with the uninformed masses. This has happened before, and will likely happen again.
i like a lot of what caplan is saying, and it makes a lot of sense. but i don't know how he can say that nobody predicted the gfc when there are austrians like peter schiff and ron paul who predicted these things.
I thought of that as well, but... Did the Austrians really make specific, detailed predictions? When did Schiff first say that the GFC would happen? How precisely did he describe what would happen and when? Did he say anything about what his confidence margins were? How many similar predictions has Schiff made, and what kind of an accuracy rate does he have? Have the markets ever risen after he's predicted they would fall, and if so, how often has that happened? It's very important to demand specificity, precision, consistency and clear null-hypotheses, or else you end up privileging shotgun guessing and improper beliefs. For instance, Marx described that markets were inherently unstable, and tend to crash and eventually collapse altogether. If you don't demand specificity and consistency, then you would end up crediting his hypothesis every single time there's a downturn, and conveniently forgetting about it every time there's a rally. I don't actually follow Peter Schiff or Ron Paul that closely, and I didn't in the months leading up to the GFC, so I don't know what they were saying at the time. Although, I do remember hearing Schiff and Paul talking about downturns and instability and bear markets and irresponsible fiscal policy a lot in general, and very rarely involving specific predictions. And the only time I can recall hearing them talk about bull markets is after the fact, as though explaining them away, and predicting bear markets to come.
mises.org/library/housing-bubble-myth-or-reality In 2003 they were calling the housing bubble for what it was, which is the known form of unraveling the Marxist would just give a general answer...whereas if you follow high order goods industry like the Austrians claim they were more volatile and this was expected preceding the bust.
It is a problem but a smaller one. With private goods, you pay for your irrationality. When it comes to voting, the whole population pays. Its worth checking out David Friedman's "Rational Ignorance" video.
People should watch the Peter Schiff was right video, or "Ron Paul accurately predicts the US economic meltdown...". To say these people were not predicting exactly what was going to happen and why is very disingenuous.
What knowledge do a small group of possesses that would help them make the right decision? How do you know that knowledge isn't interpreted to cause equal votes for both sides?
That's oversimplifying what the people who "don't know what they are doing" do. It's not just you either are "fully informed" or "flipping a coin". Many people listen to only certain sources and ignore evidence that contradicts their own biases and these people are influenced by the public media and how that interacts with their emotions. Some people are gungho over just one issue and completely ignore everything else in politics.
Austrian economists has predicted the financial crisis without fail for the past century. It was only off in its predictions by decades. A clock right twice a day and all that jazz.
Watch the whole 50 minutes? The last portion of the lecture was about how they have found that the uninformed don't take a random position (exactly what you said - They go for the charismatic pretty sounding argument). That's why the video title says "MYTH" of the Rational Voter...As in the speaker's stance is that the argument that the rational voters will just cancel out the "coin-flippers" is...a myth.
Way to watch five minutes of the video and not realize the other 45 are spent refuting the first five. But by all means go ahead and make a comment based on five minutes of viewing. That's fair.
@donfolstar You're not understanding the underlying reason and purposeful ends. Simply stating "taking away regulations" does not cover the purpose and the meaningful ends by which the an advocate is trying to convey. If I simply stated "take away regulations", then you would not understand the underlying goal whatsoever. Hence, why debates generally don't use dictionaries right away. It would be a joke to think unfettered capitalism does not work, considering a state uses that order to exist.
If you vote for someone and he turns out to suck, you can then... wait a few years and... vote for an entirely different person! No liability for the original, just gone in the wind. The govt is too large to have this lack of accountability. Cut spending! Economic democracy now!
@Audiofalcon7 Could you try that again with more words and less vagary? I am curious how repealing an act is "hardly deregulation". Moreover, how removing an act which many experts have said "hey dudes, we are pretty sure that caused the 2008 crash" (paraphrased) and politicians on both sides of the isle have pushed for reenacting is not "at all" deregulation.
I have to ask this: Did anyone else when they were listening to the Wheat into Cars story, where said trucks with wheat went in, and cars came out, expect the ending to be "and when the journalist investigated, they found they were eating the wheat, and turning the trucks into cars"... or is that just me and my quirky humor...
"Experts" were trained to think that way. I can train a group of people to think a certain way and it would be hard to tell if they're experts or indoctrinated useful idiots. Not saying i dont trust experts but when "most experts agree" doesn't convince me of anything. Most experts have been wrong through out history and its much harder to convince them they're wrong than non experts because they have invested their life and career in a school of thought that was just wrong and stupid. Look at all these doctors trying to destroy the world over a cold. They cant admit they were wrong now, they just spent a year say spouting non sense and it would shatter their world view and ruin their careers.
I don't think that experts are always right even in the areas of there study. I had a college professor in 2006 that thought the housing prices would rise forever and that running an economy on debt was sustainable long term. Clearly he was wrong.
@shadowgeyser Surely you're joking? People act out of self-interest all the time. Actually, that's a core mechanism that drives business, economics and the world in general. Charity makes us feel good, and it should. But that's a far cry from voters being rational, and in fact lots of good intentions have bad consequences (for example, subsidizing certain industries and companies).
It's a given that voters aren't rational. Particularly when elections are so stage managed. They're not much different than public relations organizations. Of course, this means that consumers aren't rational either. They're manipulated by very similar public relations organizations. We call them "advertisers". So, if we think that a rational consumption is a goal to work towards, then shouldn't we outlaw advertising?
@infinummjb Amen. The Austrians economists are the only one's that actually know what they are talking about. Also for those who are interested in Austrian economics tomwoods.com/learn-austrian-economics For reading on the prediction of the bubble and its collapse mises.org/daily/3128
@MrCornbreadJackson I find the ignorance of saying Hitler references are childish is pathetic because he was a part of human history and a great example and discussion point for many subjects. As a libertarian I find his socialist party concept quite screwed up and a fantastic example on why a socialist society does not work.
@blessedfrog I encourage you to watch an episode debunking the "lower quality and lower nutrients and high in toxins" myth on Pen and Teller's show "Bullshit"
@Audiofalcon7 I think you mean misinterpreting your horrible wording. Either way, even by your own skewed definition removing Glass-Steagall was deregulation. By removing the barriers between commercial and investment banks there was "a higher amount of competition".
Economics trying to fit everything into "rationality" ignore human nature. Using a very broad definition of rationality, the one economics will cite when you point out that people aren't always rational you could say everyone is rational since any action is based on a weighing of costs and benefits in some way whether that person stopped to think of if they thought of everything or acted on impulse and emotion. But that expanded of a definition makes the word "rational" irrelevant.
Well there is no such a thing as free market . It is a state subsided economy. The public sector provides high tech /subsides /credit and it saves big corporations who fail . IT is like socialism for the super rich and capitalism for everyone else...
Very interesting lecture, and many good points. However he is ignoring that the majority of Americans are partisan and ideologues. There are many, many people here in this country that end up voting along party lines for that reason. And if the more educated are the ones that decide (because the others are flipping a coin), then let's consider this: "the educated" (those who truly decide electoral outcomes) very often disagree with one another.
And you think that we should allow for wealth to accumulate into the hands of a group of people who are “rational” even though the only way that they supposedly get their wealth is through “rational” transactions. Sounds like something isn’t adding up
"Capitalism is more efficient than socialism because, when everyone acts in their self interest, then the economy will get more efficient that socialism." Not always as sometimes self interest (not necessary a bad thing) become greed just like Wall Street & make it hard for those in bottom to help their own self interest. "but struggles to innovate" This is bogus as socialism can innovate, in particular Germany.
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I an glad he mentioned his father has a PhD in electrical engineering. I'm an engineer, and I'm tired of engineers that think too highly of themselves. Many seem to think an engineering degree means expertise and reasonbleness in engineering transfers to other subjects.
Knowledge of electric circuits, mechanics, mathematics, programming, and more doesn't mean you are open to evidence that undermines firmly held beliefs.
Heck, I even had to correct a PhD from UCLA concerning methods of energy transfer in a heat transfer course, and her research dealt with thermo and heat transfer.
as a professional engineer i agree, expertise/education on certain subject matter definitely does not exempt one from the possibility and likelihood of falling on the lower end of the IQ/congnitive ability/ideological-soundness bell curve, and i believe educated people think too highly of themselves simply because they were able to obtain a degree, i believe such is applicable to the nearsighted and narcissistic claim you hear from leftists nowadays that "more proportions of democrat voters are college educated than republicans"
Eclectic Perspectic especially with sociologists and psychologists who lean heavily left and very far left as well. They think they're so smart and their fields are politically relevant, so it means that the world could be perfect if all those dumb dolts went away. The problem with that is, the "dumb dolts" make up the entire society and they fail to realize getting rid of the ground under them won't allow them to appreciate life in their 4 story gated mansions.
I agree, i am a hobo with a 1st class honors math degree.
Caplan's book seems to be an important contribution to one of those areas everyone overlooks.
But it's pretty simple: If elections are incapable of leading to good leadership, then it's better to leave more areas to the market where no one can force stupid decisions on other people.
Interesting point he made about the prohibition on the sale of human organs [at 23:00]. As I understand it, this law has actually caused a large underground trade in human organs. When items, including human organs are sold illegally, it tends to make them far more expensive than if they were legal to sell. Beyond that, it underground trade encourages organized crime, and you end up with nightmarish cases of organs being stolen from healthy people for trade on the black market. This is quite similar to how the prohibition of drugs has caused a great deal of gang violence. Legal policies based on idealistic intentions can sometimes have undesirable consequences.
Americans forget that prior to the 20th century buying cocaine was as easy as a Sears’ catalogue
@@micahscanz From the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, cocaine enjoyed immense popularity, more than 1,000 products derived from cocaine were sold in all its forms, the original Coca Cola contained leaves or coca leaf extracts, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described in his novels Sherlock Holmes using cocaine recreationally, there was a drink called Vin Mariani, the drink made up of cocaine that Pope Leo XIII, Thomas Edison and Jules Verne adored, the problem is that over time the negative consequences of its consumption, curiously in Peru and Bolivia before the conquest only the nobles and priests could cultivate it and its use was prohibited without the knowledge and supervision of the medical priests.
I like how this guy just uses his dad as the prime example of an irrational person. lmao
THOSE ORANGES HAVE BEEN RUINING OUR COUNTRY! :D
Caplan is hilarious. If I had him in my college I think I'd go to his class for the giggles.
This is one of the best lectures I've ever seen. So revealing and informative, it's cleared up a lot of things. I know I'll be showing this to some leftists I know.
lol, I had Mike Huemer as a professor in college. I rather hilariously remember him making the argument that it's probably not such a good use of our time to be studying philosophy. This was a course for majors
He's not wrong
I would say just study empiricism at least. Rest is mostly useless garbage in most cases.
Interestingly, the video wasn't really about how much of [or how well] the population is informed. It was about whether the "Miracle of Aggregation" holds water.
The Great Recession, if he didn’t even understand how it happened. Goes to show how impressive it was, that the few that did figure it out, actually got it right.
A crucial objection to Caplan: Basically all political decisions contains an element of moral values; some to a large degree (e.g. abortion), some to a small degree (e.g. highways). The problem is that in morality there are no experts. There are no objective right and wrongs. A five year old is as "wrong" as a philosophy professor (or an economist). One should ask Caplan whether he thinks the public is ignorant on the morality of abortion (as well as on trade policies).
His answer at the end was fairly superficial.
- There were folks predicting the collapse of 2007-2008. Peter Schiff and John Alison just to name two. And their vids are here on youtube.
- The bananas thing: Just as an example, various banks were required to take TARP funds even though they didn't want them. Banks were required to make bad loans under the CRA. And so on.
- Some financial groups did refuse to make the bad loans, John Alison's for example.
Peter Schiff has predicted 5000 of the last 1 economic downturns. Schiff is unique in his awfulness at making financial prognostications. He's far worse than random because if you think the economy will be great at any given point in time, you are likely to be right.
Great video, I was happy to see I was on the correct side of all the biases. They do not suprise me at all.
RE experts: People in a profession can share common assumptions that are untested. Anyone who does not share these assumptions may find that he has difficulty being admitted into the field. For example, if someone said that he believed money is immoral and we should all use barter, would he have a hard time getting hired as an economist?
He might, but he probably wouldn't actually. It would be more about how many papers he got published as a graduate student and in what level journals typically.
Most economists wouldn't subscribe to such a belief though simply for the reason that unlike other people who obtain doctorate degrees, they all are confronted by rather simple arguments which dismantle a perspective like that in their first or second graduate courses.
LOL! I love how Bryan is so open about the sore spot he harbors regarding his father. It reminds me of my dad, only he's on the left.
@donfolstar I never intended to change a definition or anything. Banks compete in a nearly oligarchic, corproatistic fashion. They do not compete as if they were in any way, shape, or form absolutely dependent upon supply and demand. The FDIC gives them insurance, the FED controls how much money is supplied, and a plethora of other regulations controls just how transactions are dealt with. What was given in its repeal is not deregulation, but privilege, with no dependency on supply/demand.
Your objection is essentially the question of how strong and influential you want the government to be... Say, making abortion illegal is definitely a moral statement by the government, but for the government to "ignore" abortion is to leave it to the people, i.e. not make a moral assumption. I think part of the problem is we automatically assume if something isn't illegal then it is supported, when it could just be a question of how heavy-handed you want the government to be. IMO, anyway...
I love listening to this talk! It's informative, and so darn funny too!
Glad to hear it, Jennifer! Have you seen our other videos with Prof. Caplan? goo.gl/vxOi2i
goo.gl/q5k7ml
Though long, this is one of the most interesting videos I've taken the time to watch, on both LL and TH-cam. Great video, ordering the book next.
In those transitional periods where growth in technology causes people to lose their jobs the government should provide help getting people the education and training they need to take a new job.
Man, this guy has some Dad issues! Great talk though!
My hearing is not great. I can understand some speakers well and others I can barely understand. This speaker talks very quickly and in somewhat of a Monotone. I was interested in the subject. Well enough to continue
private vs social cost can be seen with Californians leaving for Texas and likely still voting for the policies that made california what it is they left.
Repealing Glass-Stegal under Clinton and abandoning capitalization requirements for banks(GWB) were deregulation. Glass Stegal required investment banking to be separate from regular banking. Capitalization laws required the bank had a certain percent of capital is actually held by the bank for the amount of loans or other risk (derivatives) that it makes. These laws are the ones that helped us out of Great Depression and protected us in the past. We need them
@infinummjb
to be fair, a counter to that statement is that many Austrians have been warning about recession for years. If you say "eventually there will be a recession" i think most economists would agree that we will just about always *eventually* have one, but few people can get the timing down. That's the mainstream critique of it - there are always reasons to believe there could be a recession, so timing becomes a very important issue, otherwise the knowledge is useless.
I love the subtle contempt for democracy you find in a lot of libertarian videos.
Blarghalt To the extent that democracy picks bad policy and demands that rights get circumvented to combat some hobgoblin, I do hold democracy in contempt.
Democracy has failed worldwide because sheeple are too stupid to know what's good for them.
Well of course, libertarians main value is liberty, not majoritarianism. No country has a pure direct democracy, why is that do you think??
Everyone should have contempt for democracy. It was specifically rejected by the founding fathers as mob rule, tyranny of the majority. That is why we we were given a Republic all those years ago. It is the continuous erosion of the Republic towards democracy causing the problems.
I reject the claim that its subtle.
I wish it worked that way. If it did then it wouldn't matter what the candidate's views were as long as he looked good and spoke well. You should read his book.
To be fair, a Berlin wall would be to hold people in, rather than holding others out.
Everything else is pretty spot on, or at least rationally stated, even if I disagree with some of the individual statements. A very good talk.
I'm a person who very much favors the free market, I can't help but wonder how much these surveys could have been skewed to one opinion, or the other. Not saying the surveys were skewed, just I have no proof telling me it isn't. Ask essentially the same question two different ways and you can end up with two separate results.
I see. Yeah- got really mad at his first expose. Now I see he then refutes it.
How strong the government should be is essentially a normative question (or at least instrumental to some antierior norm). Thus there are no objectively right answer to the question whether more or less questions should be "left to the people". In other words, anti-paternalism, "freedom", and the like cannot simply be a "default setting" of political morality (although anyone is free to support it on intuitive grounds).
Are you saying that other people don't pay a price by your own economic activity? If you buy a car, it doesn't affect me by making my commute a little slower, the air I breathe a little dirtier, and the gasoline I buy a little more expensive?
What's his dad's second idea (around 16:10)? I can't make it out.
Ron Paul also predicted that "In time, an oil boycott will be imposed with oil prices soaring to historic highs," that Iraq would the largest war since WWII, that an international dollar crisis would "dramatically boost interest rates in the United States," and that "gold will be seen as an alternative to paper money as it returns to its historic role as money." His prediction would have been impressive if he hadn't predicted so many other things that have obviously not come to pass.
@Audiofalcon7
You are right. I am just incapable of understanding.
Here I thought removing regulations was "deregulation". Come to find out Webster and I have that wrong.
I would be drawn into a bigger debate about how "free markets" or unfettered capitalism has never, and will never by design, work, but that would be silly.
Obviously you have strong opinions about stuff. Good for you.
Did you watch the video? He explained the ignorance-cancels-out argument and then spent most of the video refuting it. Though he didn't use the examples you presented, explaining instead that many people have biases based on certain prevalent misconceptions.
I can give some specific and rational reasons for why trade with China is bad:
1. There is disregard for environmental policy. Yes, they are concerned now that the air is no longer breathable and the waters are loaded with mercury, but there is still no policy for fixing the problem. It's not just their problem, either: A considerable portion of the pollution in the Los Angeles basin originated in China.
2. There is disregard for human rights. Abuse of the poor is common but hushed; profiting from the suffering of fellow humans should be ethically abhorrent. If people understood this, there would be less concern over spending
3. There is disregard for human life. Melamine in food supplies is just one example. It's not like the effects are unknown to them; the suppliers just don't give a crap.
Based on the talk here, it seems to me (as an admittedly uninformed armchair economist) that political economists are less concerned about the major effects of policy and only concern themselves with the economics of a situation. This is fine, unless the policy that makes sense in the short term spells disaster in the long term. There are a lot of "common sense" arguments that stem from a vague understanding of the big picture. While the opinions formed from this standpoint might be in opposition to the opinions of an economist, that doesn't make the economist right. Things like ethics or environmental viability are important topics that must be considered alongside economic policy, otherwise we as a species have an expiring lease on this world.
The concept you are reaching for is that of a "negative externality". It's the reason we don't sell nukes to ISIS even though it might be a profitable trade. This topic is addressed w/in economics, but not in this 50 minute vid.
Eric Rasmussen
How would our not trading with China change those factors? It seems as likely that an embargo would hurt as your unstated assumption that trade would exacerbate the problems.
it makes the assumption that there is a 50% chance of what uninformed vote for.
What if politicians cater to this lowest denominator to get the vote.
Every country is only as wealthy as the value of the goods and services it produces. There is no way to justify the tax benefits US multinational companies get for taking manufacturing overseas. The reason he can state buying from foreign countries makes no difference to the wealth of the US is the fact that the US dollar has historically been manipulated to the US advantage. This is changing. Certain countries are already trading oil and other commodities which are not valued in US dollars.
@shadowgeyser Perhaps you should take a look at "The Ultimatum Game". It's an economics game where Person A is given $100 and they can offer x amount to Person B. If Person B rejects the offer then they both get nothing. If two robots were playing this game then they'd offer $1 because the logically rational thing for Person B is to accept however little. When this game is played Person A will tend to offer $50. But $49 is the cost to Person A of re-enforcing concept of a just society.
That's the whole point of the video isn't it? Did you watch past the first part? (not trying to be rude or anything)
It's hard to foresee economic collapse?
No, many Austrian economists have predicted the collapse.
Not all of their predictions come true, because governments are really good and hiding the problem with endless money printing.
But the people still pay the price, they live ever more difficult financial lives due to endless money printing.
Interesting right up until the last two minutes.
"You didn't have to buy the bananas."
Wasn't the government threatening banks who didn't want to buy those bananas?
"Nobody could have predicted this."
I heard the housing collapse and the fallout predicted many, many times starting as soon as the housing boom started, continuing right up until it happened.
Most people don't vote that way though because they have a bias. If they didn't have a bias then they would vote on looks, personal appeal, et cetera. One of my professors, D'Amico actually used Snooki as an example of one of those examples (she voted for McCain because he looked handsome). However, most people vote based on their own policy bias. If you read the first few pages of Caplan's book then you might have known that, "kid."
Perfect until the last 2 minutes. Please see the YT video "Peter Schiff Was Right".
Caplan is so easy to listen to
Ya it certainly is a fascinating question hey? I think he would say the line is a bit off because we naturally produce an extra kidney [is this the only organ that applies to?]. Then, if the exchange is not "forced", but voluntary, then doesn't it make sense to allow it?
.
Of course you could argue that maybe the person is "forced" by circumstances to sell it, but aren't we always forced by our circumstances in every decision/trade-off?
Most commercials don't always work they would need the most convincing commercials, also other media besides commercials can make a difference such as news, talk, entertainment, etc. programs on TV and radio.
The uninformed voters cancel out? It's like fliping a coin? Wrong. When people are uninformed, their vote won't go to a candidate in a random way. It will go to the one that is more handsome, that has charisma, that says pretty things but never does them, that does terrible things but makes them look good. This gives power to the one that knows how to decieve, instead of power to the one that has real proposals to help people.
"democracy is the best form of government except for all the others." -Winston Churchill. I feel like its easy to slam the average voter but whos to say that a whoever is choosen to lead the country will be any more rational or benevolent. Its better to decentralize power in the hands of many uniformed people than in the hands of one uniformed person. Just look at the success of democracies vs non-democracies, to me its clear that democracy works better than anything else.
"democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried..." -Winston Churchill
This seams reasonable, until someone finds a populist message that resonates with the low information voter across traditional political divides. Steeped in fear and ignorance, the message does not appeal to the informed, but strikes a chord with the uninformed masses. This has happened before, and will likely happen again.
i like a lot of what caplan is saying, and it makes a lot of sense. but i don't know how he can say that nobody predicted the gfc when there are austrians like peter schiff and ron paul who predicted these things.
I thought of that as well, but...
Did the Austrians really make specific, detailed predictions?
When did Schiff first say that the GFC would happen? How precisely did he describe what would happen and when? Did he say anything about what his confidence margins were?
How many similar predictions has Schiff made, and what kind of an accuracy rate does he have? Have the markets ever risen after he's predicted they would fall, and if so, how often has that happened?
It's very important to demand specificity, precision, consistency and clear null-hypotheses, or else you end up privileging shotgun guessing and improper beliefs.
For instance, Marx described that markets were inherently unstable, and tend to crash and eventually collapse altogether. If you don't demand specificity and consistency, then you would end up crediting his hypothesis every single time there's a downturn, and conveniently forgetting about it every time there's a rally.
I don't actually follow Peter Schiff or Ron Paul that closely, and I didn't in the months leading up to the GFC, so I don't know what they were saying at the time. Although, I do remember hearing Schiff and Paul talking about downturns and instability and bear markets and irresponsible fiscal policy a lot in general, and very rarely involving specific predictions. And the only time I can recall hearing them talk about bull markets is after the fact, as though explaining them away, and predicting bear markets to come.
mises.org/library/housing-bubble-myth-or-reality In 2003 they were calling the housing bubble for what it was, which is the known form of unraveling the Marxist would just give a general answer...whereas if you follow high order goods industry like the Austrians claim they were more volatile and this was expected preceding the bust.
It is a problem but a smaller one. With private goods, you pay for your irrationality. When it comes to voting, the whole population pays. Its worth checking out David Friedman's "Rational Ignorance" video.
People should watch the Peter Schiff was right video, or "Ron Paul accurately predicts the US economic meltdown...". To say these people were not predicting exactly what was going to happen and why is very disingenuous.
What knowledge do a small group of possesses that would help them make the right decision? How do you know that knowledge isn't interpreted to cause equal votes for both sides?
That's oversimplifying what the people who "don't know what they are doing" do. It's not just you either are "fully informed" or "flipping a coin". Many people listen to only certain sources and ignore evidence that contradicts their own biases and these people are influenced by the public media and how that interacts with their emotions. Some people are gungho over just one issue and completely ignore everything else in politics.
Surprisingly good audio for a 10 year old video
Austrian economists has predicted the financial crisis without fail for the past century.
It was only off in its predictions by decades.
A clock right twice a day and all that jazz.
One of the best books of all time.
Watch the whole 50 minutes? The last portion of the lecture was about how they have found that the uninformed don't take a random position (exactly what you said - They go for the charismatic pretty sounding argument). That's why the video title says "MYTH" of the Rational Voter...As in the speaker's stance is that the argument that the rational voters will just cancel out the "coin-flippers" is...a myth.
@Panzer
Where did I say anything about destroying jobs?
Can't mix metals to make pure gold but they do mix metals and other materials to make steel.
Near the end: "It is not true to say there has been deregulation... over the last ten/fifteen years"
Glass-Steagall
Way to watch five minutes of the video and not realize the other 45 are spent refuting the first five. But by all means go ahead and make a comment based on five minutes of viewing. That's fair.
This is excellent!
@donfolstar You're not understanding the underlying reason and purposeful ends. Simply stating "taking away regulations" does not cover the purpose and the meaningful ends by which the an advocate is trying to convey. If I simply stated "take away regulations", then you would not understand the underlying goal whatsoever. Hence, why debates generally don't use dictionaries right away.
It would be a joke to think unfettered capitalism does not work, considering a state uses that order to exist.
If you vote for someone and he turns out to suck, you can then... wait a few years and... vote for an entirely different person! No liability for the original, just gone in the wind. The govt is too large to have this lack of accountability. Cut spending! Economic democracy now!
@Audiofalcon7
Could you try that again with more words and less vagary? I am curious how repealing an act is "hardly deregulation". Moreover, how removing an act which many experts have said "hey dudes, we are pretty sure that caused the 2008 crash" (paraphrased) and politicians on both sides of the isle have pushed for reenacting is not "at all" deregulation.
This ends strangely.
I have to ask this: Did anyone else when they were listening to the Wheat into Cars story, where said trucks with wheat went in, and cars came out, expect the ending to be "and when the journalist investigated, they found they were eating the wheat, and turning the trucks into cars"... or is that just me and my quirky humor...
"Experts" were trained to think that way. I can train a group of people to think a certain way and it would be hard to tell if they're experts or indoctrinated useful idiots. Not saying i dont trust experts but when "most experts agree" doesn't convince me of anything. Most experts have been wrong through out history and its much harder to convince them they're wrong than non experts because they have invested their life and career in a school of thought that was just wrong and stupid. Look at all these doctors trying to destroy the world over a cold. They cant admit they were wrong now, they just spent a year say spouting non sense and it would shatter their world view and ruin their careers.
I don't think that experts are always right even in the areas of there study. I had a college professor in 2006 that thought the housing prices would rise forever and that running an economy on debt was sustainable long term. Clearly he was wrong.
The argument wasn't that all experts are right that's why the study consists of experts. It is about the likelihood of being correct in comparison.
"capital by anything other than the free market is poor allocation of capital." In what way?
Great Lecture. Thanx.
Ron Paul predicted this in 2002. No lie. I have a money-bomb video for him that shows him on the senate floor doing so
@shadowgeyser Surely you're joking? People act out of self-interest all the time. Actually, that's a core mechanism that drives business, economics and the world in general. Charity makes us feel good, and it should. But that's a far cry from voters being rational, and in fact lots of good intentions have bad consequences (for example, subsidizing certain industries and companies).
No, the family does not own the daughter.
The daughter owns herself.
There’s a difference between uninformed and ill informed. A significant difference in campaign funds can change a “fair coin” into a biased one
It's a given that voters aren't rational. Particularly when elections are so stage managed. They're not much different than public relations organizations.
Of course, this means that consumers aren't rational either. They're manipulated by very similar public relations organizations. We call them "advertisers".
So, if we think that a rational consumption is a goal to work towards, then shouldn't we outlaw advertising?
@infinummjb Amen. The Austrians economists are the only one's that actually know what they are talking about.
Also for those who are interested in Austrian economics tomwoods.com/learn-austrian-economics
For reading on the prediction of the bubble and its collapse mises.org/daily/3128
The line must be drawn at selling people and people's body parts.
One could consider pension and health spending as welfare too since all of those also redistribute wealth
@MrCornbreadJackson I find the ignorance of saying Hitler references are childish is pathetic because he was a part of human history and a great example and discussion point for many subjects. As a libertarian I find his socialist party concept quite screwed up and a fantastic example on why a socialist society does not work.
Can you give me a single example of a free market?
@blessedfrog
I encourage you to watch an episode debunking the "lower quality and lower nutrients and high in toxins" myth on Pen and Teller's show "Bullshit"
lucky for us that we live in a republic. look it up!!!
Same shit dumbass
physicists might not have to deal with helium balloon people, but biologists have to put up with crocoduck people
What about when 60% of people only pay attention to just their favorite side's media and what they have to say to them?
You gotta watch the whole video, man
@Audiofalcon7
I think you mean misinterpreting your horrible wording.
Either way, even by your own skewed definition removing Glass-Steagall was deregulation. By removing the barriers between commercial and investment banks there was "a higher amount of competition".
@Buffalo122333 I knew a guy who died in 2002 who predicted the Housing collapse.
No deregulation? What about repeal of Glass Steagall? Much of this talk was very misleading for several reasons
Economics trying to fit everything into "rationality" ignore human nature. Using a very broad definition of rationality, the one economics will cite when you point out that people aren't always rational you could say everyone is rational since any action is based on a weighing of costs and benefits in some way whether that person stopped to think of if they thought of everything or acted on impulse and emotion. But that expanded of a definition makes the word "rational" irrelevant.
Well there is no such a thing as free market . It is a state subsided economy. The public sector provides high tech /subsides /credit and it saves big corporations who fail . IT is like socialism for the super rich and capitalism for everyone else...
However, voters do vote in a very confirmation bias style and with candidates that promise things.
Very interesting lecture, and many good points. However he is ignoring that the majority of Americans are partisan and ideologues. There are many, many people here in this country that end up voting along party lines for that reason. And if the more educated are the ones that decide (because the others are flipping a coin), then let's consider this: "the educated" (those who truly decide electoral outcomes) very often disagree with one another.
@fatherdeath1973
Nowhere in your post is there any indication that you actually watched this.
It's not a return to aristocracy, which libertarians are basically advocating.
the myth of the reasonable title.
@donfolstar That's hardly deregulation. At all.
And you think that we should allow for wealth to accumulate into the hands of a group of people who are “rational” even though the only way that they supposedly get their wealth is through “rational” transactions. Sounds like something isn’t adding up
"Capitalism is more efficient than socialism because, when everyone acts in their self interest, then the economy will get more efficient that socialism." Not always as sometimes self interest (not necessary a bad thing) become greed just like Wall Street & make it hard for those in bottom to help their own self interest. "but struggles to innovate" This is bogus as socialism can innovate, in particular Germany.