> So if people decide to spend less on investment goods, doesn't that mean that they must be deciding to spend more on consumption goods—implying that an investment slump should always be accompanied by a corresponding consumption boom? And if so why should there be a rise in unemployment?
Does he have a good reason not to mention the elephant in the room here? (I'm thinking of monetary policy and trade partners such as China)
Under the gold standard, there is a feedback loop allowing the market to control inflation (that is, people can invest more or less in mining technologies/companies).
To some extent, this feedback loop also exists in a central banking system; it's far from being as efficient.
below 40% inflation per year, 'there is no evidence that inflation is costly'. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a 'slippery slope' there is no evidence that one increase in inflation causes further increases. Thus 'the focus on inflation ... has led to macroeconomic policies which may not be the most conducive for long-term economic growth.'
This is an advantage for Linux over Windows? Buying Windows and all the software needed and dealing with any technical issues will be far cheaper than developing the software again in every scenario. People use computers for work, not to use computers.
For most countries, that is plausible, but not for Cuba.
We're talking about Cuba here. Buying Microsoft software is simply not an option anytime in the next few years; it's illegal under US law for Microsoft to sell to them. Or are you talking about the $1 needed to burn a CD with an unlicensed copy of the Microsoft software on it?
In the case of proprietary software from other countries, from companies that are willing to risk US trade sanctions, Cuba still has to pay for the licenses from its very limited foreign exchange reserves, acquired from its very limited exports of about US$220 per capita per year.
Cuba has about 11 million people, 20% under 14, which means 160 000 of them graduate from high school every year. If its leadership thought software was a priority, they could train the top 3% of each graduating class in software development, roughly the same fraction as programmers in the US work force, about 5000 people. If they were at all successful in this, then starting in 2013 or so, Cuba would have at least a few hundred good hackers every year.
Let's say that one average software developer can replace US$150 000 per year of software consulting services or licensing costs from abroad. (Outside of Cuba, they're paid US$50 000 and billed out to clients at twice that, but aren't as efficient as somebody local who already has both the hacking skills and the domain knowledge.) Under those assumptions, each graduating class provides software that would have cost US$750 million per year to purchase from abroad, if purchasing it from abroad is even possible.
Cuba's total imports are about US$7 billion per year. So in 2022, the value produced by these programmers each year would exceed Cuba's entire current imports. And that's with only 50 000 programmers out of 11 million people. A more aggressive program would convert 3% of the entire population to software development, or 300 000 people.
So it's quite likely that, for Cuba, developing software internally would be far cheaper than trying to buy it abroad.
Of course, the value produced by programming is very hard to predict, as is the success of an educational initiative, as are international politics.
Like most of us, I discovered programming using proprietary software (namely MS-DOS and QBASIC), and if an intolerant idiot tried to prevent me from using those tools, he would have been hit by a (then) heavy keyboard.
(by the way, the case against using BASIC is certainly stronger than the case against using proprietary software.)
Yeah, I probably would have felt the same way. On the other hand, it's fortunate that five-year-olds don't generally decide major public policy issues; I can remember a lot of things I felt similarly passionate about at the time.
HN, wtf. Stallman is many things but would never, ever be "totalitarian/communist." Who is voting this troll up? Come on, this is supposed to be a hacker site.
He even talks about regime change in Cuba to open up.
Stallman declared he'd rather see computer clubs closed than using Windows. He wants to convert (I'm quoting the article) the "important resource" (read: people 'unspoiled' by Windows) to free software (just like Che Guevara who went to Africa to convert people unspoiled by capitalism to the ideal of communism).
So I rest my case: as far as software is concerned, he is a totalitarian.
I think Stallman's $1M grant from the MacArthur Foundation has given him a rather skewed idea about how economics works for most people even in the US, let alone the rest of the world.
>There's no such thing as "public" money; it always comes from private pockets and ends up in (different) private pockets.
That is just a play on words. Of course individuals are "private"; it's in their capacity as taxpayers (rather than volitional payers) that they collectively constitute the public. "Public" and "private" are terms from economics with established meanings.
>I can't see what's pejorative about taxpayer money. That's whom it comes from.
So, if (let's say) you raise a group of boys isolated from the rest of the world until they are 15 and then, all of a sudden, tell them: "oh, by the way, there's this thing called 'girls', have a look, you'll probably like it", you've created an artificial want?
It's true that before seeing the ad for a MegaBananaChoco cereal bar, I didn't want to eat one. Yet I've always wanted to eat nice things. That's what's so great about ads: they provide information about good stuff.
No, Galbraith would say, I think, (and I would agree with him) that sexual and social needs are innate and would express themselves even if information about possible means of expression is suppressed.
You might as well say "raise a group of boys without clothes" and then tell them "there's this thing called clothes that will keep you warm". It doesn't matter if you don't tell them: they'll still be cold.
On the other hand, no one has a need for a MegaBananaChoco bar in particular. If you never tell anyone about the bar, they're not going to suffer from not having it.
> On the other hand, no one has a need for a MegaBananaChoco bar in particular. If you never tell anyone about the bar, they're not going to suffer from not having it.
You're cheating. While it's fair to say that no one has a "need" for a specific bit of sugary goodness, it's not fair to say that no one needs better food and won't suffer from not having it.
Yes, the "need" for better food may be expressed, but that's rather uninteresting without a mechanism for determining how to satisfy that need. The "eat Reese's pieces" ad is actionable. "Eat good food" is both useless and uneconomic in that there's no point in someone paying to say it.
You're still missing the point tome is trying to make. Unless there is an innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of utility as it relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what he is ignorant of. Only through exposure, can a person form a desire and adequately articulate wanting something, as in "I want to buy Reese's."
> Unless there is an innate need for a particular thing, often on the basis of utility as it relates to survival or reproduction, a person cannot want what he is ignorant of.
That fails wrt "good food". There is no innate need for any specific food. Yet, there is a generic expressed need.
Heck - it even fails wrt clothing and warm. There are many ways to be warm. (When my cat gets cold, she doesn't put on pants.)
> You're still missing the point tome is trying to make.
I'm pointing out that the interesting version is wrong and the correct version is uninteresting.
Yes, one can't want a specific solution of which one is unaware, but that's not a very interesting result. One can easily want a solution to a generic problem ("cold", "food") and thus value information wrt specific solutions ("little black dress", "Reese's").
Milton Friedman once said "there is no Austrian economics - only good economics, and bad economics".
The question is not whether the theories of the austrian school are too dogmatic or not; the question is whether they are right or not.