Ep. 118 David R. Henderson Critiques Stimulus Bill and Organizes Protest of CA Lockdown
Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:
- The YouTube version of this interview.
- David R. Henderson’s Hoover article on the “anti-stimulus” bill.
- David’s past appearance on the Bob Murphy Show.
- David’s Soho Forum debate (against Justin Wolfers) on the lockdown.
- A news article on the protest David helped organize.
- Sample issues of the Lara-Murphy Report.
- Help support the Bob Murphy Show.
The audio production for this episode was provided by Podsworth Media.
About the author, Robert
Christian and economist, Chief Economist at infineo, and Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute.
Does this crisis not have many similarities with the Great Depression? For example the general measures have been kinda similar: forcing a reduced production, pressuring firms not to lay off employees, that sort of thing. The cause is different (price deflation vs a pandemic), but measures are similar, and consequences probably will be. Here in Chile Piñera, the President, has asked businesses to not lay off people at the expense of profits and dividends and that made me remember that in the US during the GD Hoover or FDR did a very similar thing.
Hi Bob,
Do you have a link regarding Andrew Cuomo complaining about the Covid death predictions?
Here.
Dear Bob,
thank you for this episode. As always, I have more questions for the coming ones. Would you consider an idea to take one of the economic theorems and prove it in the completely nerdy way starting from the economic axioms by using the Austrian method? E.g. the minimum wage theorem. In other words, to make an episode as if you were proving the Pythagorean theorem in math.
Marko did you listen to this episode?
I re-listened to that episode, and I am not sure I got what I wanted, but it contributed to something equally valuable in my thinking. I am evolving towards the claim that Austrian theorems are not formal enough. They are kind of sloppy. During the episode with Steve, you offered an excellent example of this non sufficiency, when you said that if the minimum wage law set the wage that was already below the market clearing value, employment would not change, because the totality of population was already getting more (1 penny wage example). I can extend your remark by observing other production factors, like the marketing, the rent of the building etc. What if one or all of them were below the market clearing value? Again the employment would not shrink, because the cost difference between the law wage and market cleared wage of other factors would simply spill over the other production factors that were below. So, by saying, all other things being equal is simply not enough for a priori reasoning. There existed other free variables that absorbed the wage imposition therefore invalidated the original claim. Therefore, other caveats need to be added into this Austrian law. This does not increase the value of empiricism against the rationalism, but it showed the rationalist claims need to be more accurate.
I do not know if this would be the perfect way, but I think, it would be at least better to formulate the minimum wage law like this: the minimum wage law would decreases the employment if and only if its value is above the current market clearing level, the costs of other production factors are at least at the market clearing level and all other things being equal. This bring us to Steve’s observation that a priori thinking is true but not that informative. And in this way, I made the law even more stringent and therefore even less informative about the real world. But it was a logical necessity. In order to make it more true, I had to make it more stringent.
The equivalent of what I did would be as if someone in the past claimed the original Pythagorean theorem was about any triangle, and then, later, someone realized it was only about the right triangles.
All this has practical consequences in the debates between the Austrians and others. Without the extra shield I added, the minimum wage law was more attackable.
Hi Bob! Great episode, as always! And congrats on your new baby! I don’t hold it against you at all that you’re producing less content. Raising a child is a more important, and I already have 834,716,027 other podcasts’ episodes still to catch up on! >_< LOL
Speaking of the lockdowns (re: your conversation with David), I want to share this song with you that one of my friends wrote, performed, recorded, and posted on YouTube that I noticed has a lot of libertarian sentiments regarding the lockdowns and its cascade of negative effects for all. The song is called "The Coronavirus Rag" (obviously it's a ragtime piano song) and the lyrics are hilarious, silly, and sadly true (similar to the music of Dominic Frisby).
I know you will get a kick out of it, considering your love and appreciation for comedy, music, and wit. 😉 Also, it would be amazing if you plugged it in one of your future episodes, as I know that your audience would greatly appreciate hearing this piece! It's definitely a great comic relief to the dire situation we're all in. I hope you & your family are holding up okay!
https://youtu.be/rJ89qzqDlOA
At the outbreak of COVID me and my husband were naieve enough to believe the narrative of the MSM and the government. As far as I am concerned, if you buy this nonsense that govt is locking down for our benefit, you must also believe in the easter bunny. A brilliant initiative I joined https://AntiLockDown.org will alert you about future protests that you can support them in your area. really brilliant content, you should definately take a look!