Comment just attached, by “Malcolm”, to my posting here a while back entitled Austrianism as Number Two:
Newsnight has just introduced its story on Ed Milliband’s decision today to back the government’s pay freeze by playing the Keynes v Hayek video from Econstories.tv
The narrator even described it as a “fabulous” video that is “easily the most entertaining explanation of the issues” – as closely as I can remember the wording, anyway.
I realise I’m commenting on a posting that’s six months old, but I’m hoping Brian, as the original author, gets automatically notified of comments. That the video is being used to give context to a now-current news item is certainly consonant with Brian’s original theory about Austrianism as the new #2 (with apologies to The Prisoner).
I did get automatically notified of this comment. Many thanks for the kind thought. However, I also clocked this Newsnight snippet myself, and added an off topic bit in a comment I also added to the earlier posting today about SOPA, which Newsnight is also reporting on, thanks to the Wikipedia black-out that Rob Fisher noted.
The more I ponder those Keynes v Hayek videos, the more of a stroke of total genius I believe them to be. They play especially well with the BBC, because the BBC is never happier than when explaining an issue in terms of competing arguments. Yes, the BBC is often “biased”, in the sense that you get a definite idea of which team they may prefer (which may not be yours), and which team they choose to give the last word to. But the “other” team often gets a more than fair crack of the whip.
As I made clear in that earlier posting of mine, the real sufferers from this kind of bias are the “other other” teams, so to speak, the ones who don’t even get a look in, the ones who are shown as being not even wrong, on account of not even existing.
To quote Rob Fisher in the posting immediately below, about Detlev Schlichter’s performance on the BBC’s “Start The Week” show yesterday morning:
All in all not a bad day for the spreading of Austrian ideas.
Which adds up to two consecutive not bad days for the spreading of Austrian ideas.
I suppose libertarians could wear a T-shirt with “Who the Hayek is Keynes?” on it. Anything to trim governments and advance sensible economics!
Duly stolen, Nuke:-)
Can anyone come up with a better slogan?
Alisa, did you send me an aircard for Xmas? I thought about sending you one, but remembered you’d forgotten last year. If you did I didn’t get it. Sorry!
Not as good as yours, Nuke, but in the same spirit:
“To Hayek with Keynesinanism.”
Ack. Please disregrad the stray extra “n”. (Preview is there for a reason, Brother J…..)
Good post Brian.
Ah, but didn’t Hayek live off the welfare state himself? In two countries, I might add. I call that benefit fraud.
I seem to recall the old man happily taking US taxpayer’s money (Koch sent him some pamphlets, enthusiastically encouraging him to use social welfare) even though he was a foreigner.
Mendicant: so?