Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Moonie Times has an article about McCain losing support among conservatives.
John McCain's conservative base is showing increasing disappointment with his performance.The Arizona senator, never the favorite of the political right, is further losing the confidence of economic and social conservatives, according to numerous interviews with conservative leaders.
"He is losing us conservatives, and Sarah Palin is not enough to keep conservatives on board," conservative fundraiser Richard Norman said.
They particularly don't like his support of the bailout bill and especially his new (err, not so new) proposal to bailout lenders homeowners.
Mr. McCain's latest misfire was in surrendering his maverick image and whatever standing he was building with conservatives by supporting the Washington-Wall Street establishment's $700 billion bailout package. Mr. McCain then compounded his problem by offering without explanation an additional plan to spend $300 billion to bail out people who had taken mortgage they couldn't afford."The $300 billion mortgage plan did not help McCain," said Patrick Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, which supports candidates who favor tax cuts and spending restraint. "Given the unpopularity of the last bailout, and its failure to stop the slide of the stock markets, this probably sounds like a lot of money that won't necessarily help."
"In addition, the McCain campaign did not lay the groundwork for this plan adequately," Mr. Toomey said. "It should have been announced only after the appropriate white papers were distributed and experts and surrogate speakers were prepped to sell it."
I spent Wednesday listening to McCain's economic advisers try to explain this "new" plan, how it differed from the Dodd/Frank Hope for Homeowners Act passed in July, and why it will work. It was quite obvious that they had thrown this proposal out there without much forethought at all. There are still almost no details available on the plan and two emails I sent to a McCain spokesman - one who had explicitly told me to contact him directly with any questions for the campaign and he would try to get them answered - were ignored. They clearly tried to throw a hail mary pass here with a bold new proposal that was neither bold nor new. But it's backfired on them with the conservative base.
Politics
Comments
One item has been made glaringly clear in this election season. You can be a successful Senator while possessing atrocious executive skills.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 15, 2008 9:57 AM
I would have thought she would be one of the main reasons why conservative support is being lost. I guess I was wrong!
Posted by: llDayo | October 15, 2008 10:14 AM
Conservatives love the hell out of her, which has me wondering if, contrary to all of the books by conservative pundits, conservatism might not be a mental disorder. If you actually consider her a viable candidate to become the President of the United States? You might need to check into a looney bin.
Posted by: dogmeatib | October 15, 2008 10:21 AM
It appears to me that Palin is the only thing the right wing likes.
Remember Rod Parsley, that megachurch preacher (who happens to live a few miles away from me)? He endorsed McCain. Then, when some of the things Parsley had said came out, McCain rejected the endorsement, and Parsley then withdrew that endorsement.
I can report that there is a McCain-Palin yard sign in front of Parsley's house (well, estate, really). After the earlier flap, adding Palin seems to me to be the only real change that would draw him back.
Posted by: Ahcuah | October 15, 2008 10:26 AM
Oh, in case you'd like to see Parsley's estate, here's the
Google satellite view.
You can see the long driveway near the bottom leading from the road on the left. The house at the bottom is Parsley's, and the one north of it is his parents'. Oh, and the big blob is a pond, with an island and bridge.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Posted by: Ahcuah | October 15, 2008 10:37 AM
Sarah Palin may yet be seen by history as the best thing that ever happened to right wing politics in America. Post their likely defeat in November half the GOP will gather behind her and the other half will look for an actual competent, small-government-minded, possibly even secular representative to reinvent themselves as no longer being the party of fanatics.
This sundering will hopefully lead to a set of strong leaders who can actually debate the Democrats on the issues (what a change that would be).
Posted by: David Durant | October 15, 2008 10:49 AM
After watching Gore and Kerry's floundering campaigns its a nice change of pace seeing the republican campaign completely fall apart.
@David Durant
I agree with you in principle - it would be nice to have two (or more) respectable decent Presidential candidates that believe in something that can actually debate an issue instead of giggling and rolling eyes.
(will forever associate "maverick" with old and creepy for the rest of my life)
Posted by: yoshi | October 15, 2008 10:58 AM
Palin initially appeals to two ideological factions of the Republican party -- social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. I don't believe there is anything Palin could do -- short of shacking up with Ellen DeGeneres -- to lose support amongst the social conservatives, and I fully expect them to back her for a run at the Republican nomination in 2012. Ironically, McCain's overprotectiveness in keeping her from the media may leave her relatively unscathed in the eyes of her base.
But the fiscal ideologues, once they examined her mayoral and gubernatorial records in detail probably realized pretty quickly that Palin wasn't really that serious about fiscal conservatism and small government and began to sour on her.
They kept quiet for a while, since even with her flaws, they would much prefer McCain/Palin over Obama/Biden, but now that it looks almost certain the Democrats will win, the Club for Growth and other conservative groups are starting to play the blame game in an effort to be the ones to control the Republican agenda after the election defeat.
Posted by: tacitus | October 15, 2008 11:35 AM
Ed said:
"It was quite obvious that they had thrown this proposal out there without much forethought at all."
I wonder whether it is not so much a matter of not taking the time to put together a cogent proposal, but rather a lack of anybody with the policy smarts on the McCain campaign.
It seems to me his team is like the Bush White House - all politics, no policy. Most of his team is former lobbyists - PR guys. Who is his go-to guy for economics - Phil Gramm?
Not only is he the last guy anyone should take advice from on the credit issue - does he really have the brains to come up anything new?
Posted by: Gingerbaker | October 15, 2008 11:47 AM
Now be nice. He also has Carly Fiorina, Arthur Laffer, and Kevin "Dow 36000" Hasset. I have no idea what happened to Douglass Holtz-Eakin to get him to lie down with the dogs, but he will surely rise up with fleas.
Posted by: Troulesome Frog | October 15, 2008 12:11 PM
It's interesting what a real small government conservative like Barry Goldwater would think of the last eight years of borrow and spend.
Posted by: SLC | October 15, 2008 12:16 PM
SLC,
I'm pretty sure his head would explode.
AuH2O, RIP
Posted by: heddle | October 15, 2008 12:19 PM
Hah, AuH20, that's a good one.
I'm too young to remember anything about Goldwater, but wasn't he mostly libertarian? If I'm not mistaken he was against the religious right wing of republicans since they started taking over. Of course these days, there isn't any other wing to the republican party.
Posted by: Coriolis | October 15, 2008 2:19 PM
No surprise that McCain is losing. He's a lousy candidate. What is a surprise is that Obama is not spanking him in the polls, particularly in light of the fact that the stars are aligned for a Dem victory this year. That says a few things about Obama.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 2:32 PM
Is 14% a spanking? Will it say a few things about Obama if he ends up near 400 electoral votes?
Posted by: Odie | October 15, 2008 2:36 PM
Odie, I noticed you picked the highest spread. A better picture is given by looking at all the polls, not just the one you cherry-picked:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 2:59 PM
Re mroberts
If Senator Obama was a white anglo-saxon fellow named Mark Warner, I suspect that he would beheaded for an overwhelming landslide victory.
Posted by: SLC | October 15, 2008 2:59 PM
mroberts said:
"That says a few things about Obama."
That McCain is close, and that an enormous loser like George W. Bush can get elected says a lot more about the power of the right-wing media/pulpit machine than about any Democratic candidate.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | October 15, 2008 3:01 PM
If Senator Obama was a white anglo-saxon fellow named Mark Warner, I suspect that he would beheaded for an overwhelming landslide victory.
Can somebody please translate this into something coherent? I have no clue what SLC is talking about.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 3:02 PM
mroberts,
I realize I picked the highest spread. It's also recent. I understand that it is likely an outlier, but my general feel is that the spread is moving in that direction unless Obama trips himself up tonight. My question is whether you'd consider 14% nationally or 400 electoral votes a strong enough show of support to stop saying that a better candidate would have won by more?
I don't think McCain is a "lousy" candidate, I actually felt like he had the best chance of winning the general election (by far) among the Republican candidates. He has run a lousy campaign.
Posted by: Odie | October 15, 2008 3:12 PM
What is a surprise is that Obama is not spanking him in the polls, particularly in light of the fact that the stars are aligned for a Dem victory this year. That says a few things about Obama.
That's only a surprise to people who take white conservative Christian privilege for granted and refuse to acknowledge that it exists. An angry white politician can call himself a "populist," but an angry black politician gets pegged as a "militant." And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 15, 2008 3:13 PM
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | October 15, 2008 3:22 PM
mroberts:
I'm not sure what the various polls say about Obama. What your comments say about leaves little doubt about your homophobia, asinine monetary policy and, I think, a soupcon of racism.
Posted by: democommie | October 15, 2008 3:24 PM
Mr. Roberts, the fact that Obama is not spanking McCain can say something about Obama, or it can say something about the electorate, or a little of both. For every Bill Ayres, whose connection to Obama is through a legal enterprise designed to help poor people there is McCain's connection to Charles Keating was highlighted by criminal banking schemes and, on McCain's part, lobbying to help him in this activity. However, I defy you to show me the equal coverage of McCain's wrongdoing contrasted with Obama's legal dealings with Ayres. For every Jeremiah Wright there's a Parsley or Hagee, for every ACORN story there's a voter roll purge. What does this say about Obama that it does not say louder about the voters?
More to the point, I find it hilarious that people like Bill Kristol, a staunch defender of every single McCain tactic now is angry at...well, every single McCain tactic now that it looks like they didn't work. The abandonment of McCain by the Right is due mostly to the fact that no one wants to be associated with a loser.
Posted by: B80vin | October 15, 2008 3:37 PM
Interesting, the local Republicans are running ads against a House of Rep candidate, saying it was a terrible thing that she supported the bailout bill.
Posted by: khan | October 15, 2008 4:05 PM
Posted by: tincture | October 15, 2008 4:25 PM
I'm not sure what the various polls say about Obama. What your comments say about leaves little doubt about your homophobia, asinine monetary policy and, I think, a soupcon of racism.
Is that an educated opinion democommie? As usual, you offer little to the discussion other than lame insults and name calling. I would love for you to come up with at least 5 great reasons why my "monetary policy" is "asinine". Since you know so little about monetary policy to begin with, I can only scratch my head as to why you so vehemently oppose what I say about it. Could it be that you don't like it simply because you don't like my conservative views? Sure seems that way - and that is a pretty stupid and shallow reason to oppose something. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong on that.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 4:46 PM
mroberts stated:
Actually, you hold the tinfoil hat theory on monetary policy mrroberts, not democommie. Therefore, if one subscribes to the basic convention of legitimate scientific methodology and academic scholarship, you have the obligation to falsify Keynesianism and Monetarism and if successful make a positive case for the gold standard. This is my third request you do so with no response to date. I would also appreciate your divulging your background in economics mroberts, if any.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 15, 2008 4:57 PM
Since you know so little about monetary policy to begin with, I can only scratch my head as to why you so vehemently oppose what I say about it.
I can't speak for democommie's knowledge of monetary policy, but I can say this: my mother was a successful career economist who worked for FIVE different US Government agencies that I know of (Census, Fed, CBO, House and Senate Budget Committees), and is now comfortably retired; and she's just as adamantly opposed to the gold standard as demo and I are. Furthermore, NONE of the other information available to me on economics shows the idea of gold-based currency in a good light. When Jack Kemp was bloviating about gold, back in the '80s, my mum would make two points: a) the two largest sources of gold at that time were Apartheid South Africa and the USSR, who would then have inordinate control over the value of our money; and b) "if the gold standard is so wonderful, why do we go off it every time we go to war?" (And to point B I would add: "if the gold standard is so wonderful, why would any country go off it AT ALL?") You, mroberts, have failed to address either of these points, so you're not in a position to belittle anyone else's intelligence.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 15, 2008 4:58 PM
a) the two largest sources of gold at that time were Apartheid South Africa and the USSR, who would then have inordinate control over the value of our money; and b) "if the gold standard is so wonderful, why do we go off it every time we go to war?" (And to point B I would add: "if the gold standard is so wonderful, why would any country go off it AT ALL?") You, mroberts, have failed to address either of these points, so you're not in a position to belittle anyone else's intelligence.
Bee, first of all, I am not belittling anybody's intelligence. Perfectly intelligent people are ignorant on plenty of things. I for one am ignorant on plenty of topics, like astrophysics or chemistry. Because of that, I choose not to argue about those things, because I cannot stand on a position based on knowledge. I am not saying that democommie is unintelligent, just ridiculous for saying that I am wrong when he/she has no knowledge to know if I am right or wrong. To condemn somebody's position when you yourself have no knowledge to do so is just plain stupid. Sorry.
As for the two points that you raised from your mother - I am sure is an intelligent person, but the two questions alone tell me she doesn't understand why the Austrians support the gold standard. The fact that South Africa is a big gold exporter would not give them control over our money supply. South Africa has little relevance to a gold standard in America because it would have little impact on it. There is not nearly enough gold coming out of those mines and being put into the world economy to have an impact on the value of gold if it were currency. If you are worried about centralized control of the economy, maybe you should worry more about the power of international banks to create money from thin air. They have FAR more power over your life than South Africa ever could under a gold standard. The second question is an excellent one. The reason governments go off the gold standard when they have to go to war is because they don't have the money to pay for the war, so they print it. The result is inflation and prices go up for everybody. Going off the gold standard does not point to faults in the gold standard, but the fact that the warmaking government does not have the money to pay for war and must use inflation to pay for it.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 5:49 PM
As for the two points that you raised from your mother - I am sure is an intelligent person, but the two questions alone tell me she doesn't understand why the Austrians support the gold standard.
IIRC, the last time I went to Austria (2005), they were using Euros, which is NOT a gold-based currency.
And of course my mother didn't deal with Austrian monetary policy -- she was working for the US Government, and thinking entirely in terms of US economic interests. Why should she have given a shit about Austria, whose situation and interests are completely different from ours?
More responses to your idiocy later, when I have more time...
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 15, 2008 6:00 PM
IIRC, the last time I went to Austria (2005), they were using Euros, which is NOT a gold-based currency.
Bee, you are an idiot, end of story. You call my post idiocy and you post that. For your information, expert, I am NOT talking about AUSTRIA THE COUNTRY, but the Austrian SCHOOL of economic thought. If you had enough of a brain to do your homework first, you wouldn't embarrass yourself so much. Then you have the nerve to get on your high horse, look down on me, and call me an idiot.
And of course my mother didn't deal with Austrian monetary policy -- she was working for the US Government, and thinking entirely in terms of US economic interests. Why should she have given a shit about Austria, whose situation and interests are completely different from ours?
More stupidity.
More responses to your idiocy later, when I have more time...
Seriously you have no shame do you? You embarrass yourself with ignorant blathering, say something completely stupid and ignorant, than have the nerve to call me an idiot. I'm done with you Bee, I have no more patience. Even I can only tolerate so much stupidity from one person.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 6:08 PM
"That says a few things about Obama."
Yeah, it says he's black in a country with a lot of racists. What do you think is going on with those against Obama who, when interviewed, stumble around trying to find words to explain why they "just don't trust him"? It's because their instinct is to say "because he's a nigger", but they either know they can't say that any more, or they are't honest with themselves. It's either that or dismissing them as too stupid to coherently express themselves - sort of like the VP candidate with whom they so identify.
The people the Republicans are losing are people like me - nonreligious libertarians who value economic sanity and science and have been voting for Republicans as the lesser of two evils. We can't stand it any more. Palin was the last straw. If you are going to nominate an ignorant loon like that, I'll take my chances with the intelligent guy who's only substantive negative is lack of experience. There have been inexperienced successes before.
The best long term result for America that could come of all this is a viable libertarianish/fiscally conservative/scientific third party rising up from the ashes of what was the Republican Party, to challenge both the Democrats and the Palinists. I call the latter group that because this one really has become about intellectual integrity. If you can't see, nay admit and condemn (because we know most of you see it), the near-treasonous sham the Palin campaign is, no one else wants you. Go jerk off to your Ann Coulter posters and leave figuring out how to get by in the real world to the rest of us.
Posted by: Science Avenger | October 15, 2008 6:14 PM
If you can't see, nay admit and condemn (because we know most of you see it), the near-treasonous sham the Palin campaign is, no one else wants you. Go jerk off to your Ann Coulter posters and leave figuring out how to get by in the real world to the rest of us.
Science Avenger, dude relax, what's with all the anger? Whats the old adage? Don't ASSume? It makes and ASS out of . . yeah. First of all, you stupidly assume that because I don't like Obama I automatically support McCain. I DON'T. I was never planning to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket. There are some things I like about Palin on some levels, but I think she is in way over her head on the national scene. I NEVER liked McCain. Believe it or not, I actually agree with the following statement:
The best long term result for America that could come of all this is a viable libertarianish/fiscally conservative/scientific third party rising up from the ashes of what was the Republican Party, to challenge both the Democrats and the Palinists.
I don't think Palin is quite the devil you make her out to be, but I agree wholeheartedly with your desire for a third party. I personally am a Ron Paul supporter.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 6:23 PM
Are some folks here confusing monetary theory with the gold standard? They're not the same thing at all. The first is not only respectable, but dethroned Keynsianism because it better explained what happens in the economy. The second is for nut job Ron Paul supporters.
As disgusted as I am to have Bob Barr as the Libertarian Party candidate, at least we got rid of Ron Paul. Noticeably, Ron Paul pretends he didn't know about all the racists writing their vomitous spew under his masthead, and his acolyte mroberts pretends not to notice that Obama's race might have something to do with why he doesn't have a larger lead in the polls.
I'm not sure either Paul or mroberts is an out and out racist, but at a minimum neither is good at recognizing racism when it's present. And I have nothing but derogatory words for people like that.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 15, 2008 6:45 PM
I'm not sure either Paul or mroberts is an out and out racist, but at a minimum neither is good at recognizing racism when it's present. And I have nothing but derogatory words for people like that.
Hanley, I think it is absolutely inappropriate that you imply I am a racist in that sentence. I don't know what the issue was with Paul and those freaks, but every leader has nutcases that admire them. Obama has his share of nutcase Communists that admire him. Anyway it goes, you don't know me personally, and I am absolutely offended that you would imply that I am something that I am not. If you can't restrain yourself from being a complete jackass and just have a civil conversation, then I have no interest in talking with you further.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 6:53 PM
Communists admiring Obama? Call him far left, socialist, commie, w/e. IRL, he's right of center.
Posted by: tincture | October 15, 2008 7:15 PM
Anyway, m, if you look closely, I said that I'm not sure you're an out and out racist. That means I don't know you well enough to say you're a racist. But your prior comments about why Obama isn't beating McCain more thoroughly strongly suggest what I did say-that you aren't good at recognizing racism when it's present.
But you're playing word games when you say some alleged communists supporting Obama is equal to Paul's racist supporters. First, you give no evidence of actual communists supporting Obama, so as far as I know, you just made it up. Second, Paul had racists writing racist diatrives for his newsletter for a number of years without putting a stop to it. If you can provide me evidence that Obama has been letting communists write communist diatribes in his newsletters for years, then I'll back down and agree you're right.
You may find it easy to write the words "civil conversation," but unfortunately you're not capable of engaging in an "honest" conversation. You defend Paul having a cadre of openly racist supporters by saying "Obama's got some whackjobs supporting him, too!" It's a dishonest claim because you can't prove there's any equality between the two cases. It's a dishonest claim because you're suggesting that Obama's alleged badness makes Paul's badness justifiable. And it's a dishonest claim because you think some forlorn American communist, sweating over his mimeographed copy of the Worker's World Weekly, is remotely as dangerous as an American racist.
Most cordially,
Yr Srvt,
James
Posted by: James Hanley | October 15, 2008 7:59 PM
Second, Paul had racists writing racist diatrives for his newsletter for a number of years without putting a stop to it. If you can provide me evidence that Obama has been letting communists write communist diatribes in his newsletters for years, then I'll back down and agree you're right.
Hanley, where did i defend the newsletter racism? I DIDN'T. All I said was i don't know what to make of it at this point. It doesn't match up with the rest of what I know about Paul, so i haven't come to any conclusion about it.
You defend Paul having a cadre of openly racist supporters by saying "Obama's got some whackjobs supporting him, too!"
I never defended a damned thing. Sorry if your reading skills are lacking. I don't know what to make of that incident? Got it? Read it again if you have to.
AS for your kettles/pot thing - whatever. You have no business insinuating that I am a racist. Be gracious and apologize and it will be appreciated. I always do my best to be reasonable and courteous with you all and have a civil discussion, but for some reason, many on this blog are not capable of doing so themselves.
Posted by: mroberts | October 15, 2008 8:08 PM
tincture,
So fucking true. I can't speak for American communists, but all the European communists I know, and other far-left wingers from both Europe and the USA, have been very unanimous in shaking their heads in disbelief at anyone claiming that Obama is far-left at all, never mind an actual socialist or communist.
Sure, almost all of them prefer him over McCain (see: lesser of two evils), but you'll have to look hard to find anyone who'll agree with him on most economic issues.
And mroberts, there's a huge difference between having nutcases that admire you, and actually hiring those nutcases, or putting your name on crazy, racist stuff they've written. Just like there's a (smaller, granted) difference between having had professional dealings with a former, unrepentant terrorist (Obama-Ayers), and publicly proclaiming your admiration of a former, unrepentant terrorist (McCain-Liddy).
Posted by: Kaerion | October 15, 2008 8:25 PM
Sorry, m, it ain't gonna happen. You tried to compare some apparently mythical communists supporting Obama to the proven fact of Paul keeping racists in his group of newsletter writers. Then you try to pretend you didn't really mean anything by it. Kaerion makes the point very well--"there's a huge difference between having nutcases that admire you, and actually hiring those nutcases, or putting your name on crazy racist stuff they've written." Amen.
You really don't know what to make of a guy who so complacently supports racists? I'll tell you what I make of it: Paul can't support racists, let them write racist stuff with his name at the top of the page, and then credibly claim he doesn't harbor any racist tendencies. If anyone tried putting racist stuff out under my name they'd find me at their door with a baseball bat.
And yet you are outraged! shocked! that someone might think that you, too, are perhaps a little soft on racism? You're kidding, right?
Posted by: James Hanley | October 15, 2008 9:01 PM
mroberts:
Have you read any of the links people put up for you the last time you wanted to discuss monetary policy and central banking? Deflation, price stability, etc?
Posted by: Troublesome Frog | October 15, 2008 10:00 PM
Troublesome Frog:
Well, he did ask me to do that; I suppose I could get out the scissors and the glue pot and traipse around the internets tubes looking for five MORE reasons. But why on earth would I, a scholar on a par with Ridgemont High's Jeff Spicoli, waste my time. If they were in the bible (OT) he might believe them--otherwise, meh!
I mean there are some very, very bright people who put up some cogent arguments that he's totally ignored. Business school material I ain't, but I know better than to argue with the deranged.
Maybe after he explains how gold is not consumed so the supply remains constant.
James Hanley"
mroberts says he's not racist. You're a reasonable, and intelligent man, you should just take him at his word. I, otoh, say; if it walks like a homophobic duck and quacks like a racist duck, then it's probably a homophobic, racist duck.
Posted by: democommie | October 15, 2008 11:43 PM
Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah...
The fact that South Africa is a big gold exporter would not give them control over our money supply.
If we had a gold-based currency, then the biggest gold suppliers would have had the ability to devalue our currency by increasing the supply of gold; or to choke our growth by diminishing the supply of gold necessary to increase the money supply to grow with the economy. And yes, both of these things have happened to gold-based currencies in the past: inflation due to influx of (plundered) gold from the New World; and restricted growth due to insufficient gold supply, which in turn forced nations to wean themselves off of gold-based money.
If you are worried about centralized control of the economy, maybe you should worry more about the power of international banks to create money from thin air.
I am indeed worried about this issue; which is why I support REASONABLE REGULATION of the financial sector -- something which you, the current ruling party, and their faux-libertarian ideological bum-boys seem to oppose.
For your information, expert, I am NOT talking about AUSTRIA THE COUNTRY, but the Austrian SCHOOL of economic thought...
My mum's specialty was monetary policy, and interest rates in particular. She got a PhD in economics (I tried to read her thesis, but couldn't understand it). And I NEVER heard her even mention any "Austrian school." (And no, she wasn't an "America-first" jingoist.) So perhaps you can tell us why the Austrians themselves didn't support or implement their own coutrymen's ideas.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 15, 2008 11:56 PM
Which makes every gathering of conservatives very, very uncomfortable. They don't like to associate with each other much at all. They don't like each other much.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | October 16, 2008 3:08 AM
Raging Bee,
The Austrian school is the loosely coordinated group represented by such notables as Ludwig von Mises, Eugene von Bohm Bawerk, and Friedrich Hayek. Their set of ideas originated in Austria, but that doesn't automatically mean they had much political influence there. After all, Smith had little political influence in England until well after he was dead. Unless you're quite young, it's very possible your mother didn't learn much about them in her graduate education. They are, in some schools, as anathema as Marx (although hardly along the same lines), and in some have only begun being taught in the last couple decades, but almost always as a sort of side-bar to the "real" curriculum.
Most economists consider the Austrians' work on money to be a bit flaky. Some good ideas at the basis, but then extended farther than those base ideas can solidly take it. More influential has been their influence on thinking about the dynamics of the economy--they argue for less of the neo-classical focus on equilibrium, arguing that there never is an equilibrium, but that the the market is a process, rather than an end-state. Also influential has been Hayek's argument that you can't just create a brand new, fully functional, institution overnight, or at least not one that will remain as you designed it. His classic description of institutions is that they are the product of human action, but not human design.
Because they are generally dubious about government, they attract a lot of whack jobs. But that doesn't mean they are all whack jobs themselves. Robert Russell (Cafe Hayek), and Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution) for example, are both quite Austrian influenced, although I don't know if they'd call themselves specifically in the Austrian school (probably too eclectic to say they're in a particular school), and they're both quite thoughtful and insightful. For anyone who's interested in the economics of cultural and artistic trade, Tyler Cowen's books can't be beat, and are great reads.
No gold standard stuff in them, though. Nada, zip, zero.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 16, 2008 7:21 AM
Hanley: Thanks for the clarification. IF what you write is a reliable guide, it looks to me like their best ideas...
More influential has been their influence on thinking about the dynamics of the economy--they argue for less of the neo-classical focus on equilibrium, arguing that there never is an equilibrium, but that the the market is a process, rather than an end-state. Also influential has been Hayek's argument that you can't just create a brand new, fully functional, institution overnight, or at least not one that will remain as you designed it. His classic description of institutions is that they are the product of human action, but not human design.
...are merely restatements of much older insights; news perhaps to technocratic liberals and politicians trying to make business cycles go away; but not to people with a grain of common sense. (Then again, I'm a Pagan, and we're all about cycles of life, death and rebirth; so such ideas may be less new to me than to others.)
And no, my mum's graduate education wasn't all that recent: she got her PhD in 1983. And given what you've written, this "school" wouldn't have offered enough substance to be worth a grad-student's time, other than some nice simple ideas from which to start a discussion.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 16, 2008 3:15 PM
Science Avenger, dude relax, what's with all the anger?
Gee, a major party nominated a completely unqualified, unintelligent, creationist loon for the second highest office in the land, tried to hide this from the public and the media as much as possible to sneak her in, and plenty of Americans quite capable of recognizing this for what it is refuse to do so and instead are playing a big game of "let's pretend", with our nation at stake, as if this were a fucking football game where you root for your side no matter what. Now why on earth would anyone get angry about that?
Whats the old adage? Don't ASSume? It makes and ASS out of . . yeah. First of all, you stupidly assume that because I don't like Obama I automatically support McCain. I DON'T.
Making an ass out of yourself assuming - you mean like assuming I was talking to you personally, and only to you? I was making no comment or assumption about you personally, I couldn't care less. I am asking all thinking Americans to hold everyone responsible for this sham of a candidate and to break out of this La La Land some live in where anything is OK as long as the person doing it has an R next to their name. If you're already on the side of reason and light, welcome to the fold. If not, take a step back and look at the near treason John McCain committed for what it is, and ask yourself if that is really what putting country first looks like.
Posted by: Science Avenger | October 16, 2008 6:03 PM
Raging Bee,
Me? Reliable? Sure, completely. Why don't you let me hold onto your wallet for you?
As I understand the Austrians, they did see themselves as retrieving a lost tradition in economics, focusing on understanding what money means, and how economies actually function, whereas the economic mainstream had become too focused on marginal analysis and hypothetical market equilibria. So in a sense they're just old-fashioned, and, yes, did to some extent want a common-sense focus on what people are actually doing, as opposed to an overly academic approach. And when you do dig into the details they really do offer enough to be worth a grad student's time--at least it was worth my time when I was a grad student. ;)
Posted by: James Hanley | October 16, 2008 6:40 PM
Doh! I forgot one of the more important aspects of the Austrian school. They contributed some of the most devestating critiques in the socialist calculation debate, thoroughly undermining the argument that a centrally planned economy could produce as efficiently as a market economy.
One of Hayek's best (and most readable) articles on this topic is "The Use of Knowledge in Society." From today's perspective it may seem simply common sense, but when written he was engaged in an intellectual battle against not just Marxist economists but American economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith, who were arguing that market economies, due to competition, created greater amounts of waste than planned economies.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 16, 2008 7:26 PM
I'll have to toss in my $0.02 on the Austrians. A lot of people call them cranks. I definitely won't go that far. The school has produced good thinkers and good insight. It's definitely not mainstream, partially because it appears that it's well past its prime for providing new insights and models into yet unsolved problems. You can only go so far when you limit yourself to only things that are "self evident" and can be derived from first principles.
The main problem I have with the Austrian school is that it attracts nuts like flies to shit. The majority of the people on the Internet who advocate it generally have no more education in economics than what they read off of the Mises Institute's web site (*cough* mroberts), and they eat that stuff up because it strokes their existing political philosophies. In fact, a problem with economics in general is that anybody can take the basics and use them to construct a perfectly valid framework that completely and irrefutably validates their public policy positions--as long as they don't delve into empirical results or more advanced models (see the nonsense about the Laffer curve that political hacks are repeating even today).
Aside from the fact that it's the natural haven for extreme corporate anarchist kooks and goldbugs, I'm a bit annoyed at the Austrian school's ability to take credit for "predicting" just about everything that goes wrong in the economy (usually predictions made by the aforementioned kooks), usually in the form of, "The Austrian school says that anything government does hurts the economy. The economy is in bad shape now, so it's the government's fault. You nutty neo-Keynesians and neoclassicals should have talked to us!" They totally ignore the facts that (1) I don't know of any school of economic thought that would have prevented one from seeing this disaster as a very likely outcome and, (2) they don't appear to have any viable explanations themselves as to why these problems occur--just that they do because of some nebulous misallocation problem.
I'm all for letting anybody have their say provided they've thought about the data, but I don't see acknowledging the bust portion of the business cycle as axiomatic as a particularly clever insight, given that just about every macroeconomist out there spends every waking moment trying to better explain why the business cycle happens the way it does.
Posted by: Troublesome Frog | October 17, 2008 11:49 AM
T-Frog
As a proponent of Austrian school economic thinking, I say this: You are exactly right.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 17, 2008 4:11 PM
mroberts wrote:
I don't know what the issue was with Paul and those freaks....
You might want to look into the history of the phrase "states rights" that Ron Paul likes to bandy about: specifically, its usage in defending slavery and segregation. George Wallace would be a good place to start, since his name's been in the news lately in connection to the uglier side of McCain/Palin rallies.
Posted by: Martian Buddy | October 17, 2008 6:58 PM