[...]... trend No group is more prone to this day-to-day blowin’ with the wind than the financial press This syndrome comes from lack of understanding of economics and hence being reduced to reacting blindly to rapidly Making Economic Sense 35 changing events Sometimes this basic confusion is reflected within the same article Thus, in the not-so-long ago days of double-digit inflation, the same article would... chunk of his income Making Economic Sense 27 The much- vaunted and much-denounced “tax cut” turns out, in oldfashioned semantics, to be no cut at all but rather a substantial increase In return for the dubious pleasure of this non-cut, the American public will have to suffer by paying through the nose for years to come in the form of “offsetting,” though unfortunately all-too-genuine, tax increases... Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense 4 Creative Economic Semantics If the federal government’s economists have been good for nothing else in recent years, they have made great strides in what might be called “creative economic semantics.” First they’re defined the seemingly simple term “budget cut.” In the old days, a “budget cut” was a reduction of next year’s budget below this year’s In that old- fashioned... on one salary.” 12 Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense Again, since there is no way to quantify subjective motivations, we can’t measure this factor, but I suspect that the great bulk of working women, i.e those in non- glamorous careers, are only working to keep the family income from falling steeply Given their druthers, I suspect they would happily return to the much- maligned “Ozzie and Harriet”... not have a crowding-out effect on private 14 Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense In recent years there has been an understandable worry over the low rate of saving and investment in the United States One worry is that the enormous federal deficits will divert savings to unproductive government spending and the reby crowd out productive investment, generating evergreater long-run problems in advancing... out” the data by taking twelve- month moving averages of monthly data—whether of prices, production, or employment In attempting to eliminate jagged “random elements” and separate them out from alleged underlying patterns, orthodox statisticians have been unwittingly getting rid of the very real-world data that need to be examined 30 Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense These are but a few of the... therefore accept some of both 18 Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense This doctrine is the fallback position for Keynesians Originally, the Keynesians promised us that by manipulating and fine-tuning deficits and government spend ing, they could and would bring us permanent prosperity and full employment without inflation Then, when inflation became chronic and ever-greater, they changed their tune to... in money 36 Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense terms rise, and interest rates will then bounce back to something like their original level Only a repeated injection of inflationary bank credit by the Fed will keep interest rates artificially low, and thereby keep the artificial and unsound economic boom going; and this is precisely the hallmark of the boom phase of the boom-bust business cycle... are inflationary But even if they are financed by the pub lic, they will still cause severe crowding-out effects, diverting much-needed savings from productive private investment to wasteful government projects And, furthermore, the greater the deficits the greater the permanent income tax Making Economic Sense 15 burden on the American people to pay for the mounting interest payments, a problem aggravated... Fed expands the money supply, interest rates rise (or fall) The financial press now knows enough economics to watch weekly money supply figures like hawks; but they inevitably interpret these figures in a chaotic fashion If the money supply rises, this is interpreted as 16 Murray N Rothbard: Making Economic Sense lowering interest rates and inflationary; it is also interpreted, often in the very same . response that made a powerful impact on the election. 10 Murray N. Rothbard: Making Economic Sense But even apart from the numerous non -economic motivations for political attitudes and actions by. Deadly Combination……………………………………… 83 4 Murray N. Rothbard: Making Economic Sense The Water Is Not Running………………………………………. 86 POLITICS AS ECONOMIC VIOLENCE Rethinking the ‘80s……………………………………………. Rockwell,Jr……………………………………… 7 MAKING ECONOMIC SENSE Is It the “Economy, Stupid?…………………………………… 9 Ten Great Economic Myths…………………………………… 12 Discussing the “ Issues”………………………………………… 22 Creative Economic Semantics…………………………………