From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: The Enduring Rand (was: Re: Theory?)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 10:57:15 GMT

In article <By0qsM.6D2@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
}In article <1992Nov20.092150.28574@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}
}>}  A prerequisite for "doing what's best in the long run" is being 
}>}  able to predict what long-term effects your actions will have.
}>}  I challenge you to prove that you can make such predictions
}>}  accurately.
}>
}>Peter once again commits the error of implying that quantity exhausts the
}>options here.  Qualitative prediction is all we can correctly get from
}>economic theory.
}
}  OK, show us some "qualitative" predictions for the near term that we
}  can use to verify your claim.

I've already done that.  Double-digit price inflation within 5 years, tops.
Depression.  Does this mean you'll shut the hell up for the next 5 years?  No,
because you're only interested in being argumentative, not in learning anything
from your opponents.  There's a whole book that's been written on predicting
the future of the economy during the '90s: "The Great Reckoning".

}>When it comes to qualitative predictions, economic theory works.  The Great
}>Depression was predicted by Ludwig von Mises, who also used his mastery of
}>economic theory to end the inflation in Austria when he lived there.
}                                                                
}
}  Any Keynesianism predicted the exconomic expansion in Europe in 
}  the postwar period.   So what?  The fact that one person made one
}  accurate prediction is meaningless.   Every single day millions
}  of investors make preditions about the future course of securities
}  markets and the next day many of them turn out to be right.  
}  Including ones made by tossing darts at a dart board -- the
}  infamous Wall Street Journal "Dart Board Index" which frequently
}  beats teams of major securities analysts.
                                          
Now prediction is meaningless?  How did it go from being so significant in
your scheme of things to this?  Just precisely how meaningless is it?  Where
can I buy a meaning-ometer?

}>Thus I refute Peter Nelson, yet again.
} 
}  Your "refutation" consists of claiming that verifiable (measurable)
}  economic predictions are impossible so you aren't obligated to make
}  them -- a bit like a child "passing" a test by refusing to take it.

Wrong.  My claim is that quantitative prediction doesn't exhaust the class of
verifiable predictions.  I'll give you another example: when von Mises was
asked how to stop the Austrian inflation, he told his questioners that he'd
give his answer outside the building where the fiat currency was being
printed late at night when all else was still.  They convened there and began
barraging him noisily with questions.  He silenced them and told them to
listen to the presses.  Then he told them that if they stopped that sound,
they'd stop the price inflation.  They did, and it worked.

Another example: in "Blood in the Streets" Davidson and Rees-Mogg predicted
the collapse of the Soviet Union.  This was published in 1987, if memory
serves me correctly.  They explained their reasons within.  It collapsed.
Their theory "worked".  If you are consistent, you'll now tell me that this
prediction was meaningless, without telling me how to get a meaning-ometer
with which to measure this.  Of course, I don't expect consistency from you
by now, but merely sophistical hypocrisy.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory