Talk:Austrian business cycle theory/Archives/2008/October

The Great Depression

Despite the fact that they disagree on the reasons, monetarists agree with austrians on what (who) caused the Great Depression:

Ben Bernanke: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021108/default.htm

They agree WHO to blame, but certainly not for WHAT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.205.47.215 (talk) 22:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Bernanke was talking about a sin of omission not of commission. The Fed failed to rescue the banks as the crisis started, causing the crisis to snowball into the great depression. Both Friedman and Bernanke believe that if the Fed had done its job, and bailed out the banks as the crisis started, the great depression would not have occurred. LK (talk) 15:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Badly expressed or beating a straw man

I'm fairly agnostic about “the” Austrian School theory of business cycles (to which, certainly, not all members of the Austrian School subscribe), but I want to note that this

The Austrian school's theory claims that business cycles are caused by central banks' manipulation of the money supply. However, researchers have found that economies have experienced less severe boom-bust cycles after World War II, since central banks have started using monetary policy to stabilize economies.[1]

is at least badly expressed, and may just be beating a straw man. As this passage now stands, it speaks merely to the objective of post-war manipulation. Rather obviously, not all manipulations are created equal, and different manipulations should be expected to have different effects when applied to otherwise identical economies. Also rather obviously, otherwise identical manipulations should be expected to have different effects when applied to otherwise different economies. So we want some appropriate standard against which we can say that post-war manipulation has been greater than or equal to that of pre-war manipulation. In the absence of such, the “However” is entirely misplaced, that which follows it simply without force. —SlamDiego_←T 16:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Sraffa, Kaldor & Hayek

It's rather surprising that this article makes no mention of Sraffa and Kaldor, who convinced most of the profession (and Hayek) that Hayek's version of the Austrian Business cycle was completely wrong in 1932. James Haughton (talk) 22:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)