Terms  |
Definitions |
| Zygote |
The last word in this and every other dictionary.
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| Zingales, Luigi |
"For somebody like me who believes strongly in the free market system, the most serious risk of the current situation is that the interest of a few financiers will undermine the fundamental workings of the capitalist system. The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists." See Fascism.
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| Zero Sum Game |
“College admissions, public jobs and government contracts are the ultimate ‘zero-sum’ game, and race and gender should not be the determining factors in picking winners and losers. It simply stretches credulity [for Barack Obama] to argue that an ‘opportunity’ given to one, on the basis of race, is not discrimination against another for the same reason,” says Ward Connerly, referring to the statement of Obama spokeswoman Candice Toliver.
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| Zero |
The probability of George Bush’s stooges – I mean economists – admitting that we are in a recession, at least while he is still in office. Next year, with the 20-20 vision that comes from having an election behind them, they might admit that the recession kinda-sorta started on his watch, though four-dollar gasoline will still be all the fault of Barack Obama.
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| Zarlenga, Stephen |
The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics was afraid to respond to his critique of Carl Menger, so I did it for them. See my Answer to Stephen Zarlenga.
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| Yergin, Daniel |
See Oil.
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| Yen |
The only currency that your local Toyota dealer will accept if the Japanese ever wake up to the fact that they’ve been sending us shiploads of cars and getting steadily depreciating pieces of paper in exchange. See Dollar.
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| X |
A type of graph that you won’t find anywhere in my 1999 book. In Section I of my Simplified Exposition, I write, “For this [supply and demand] to work at all, the equations must be independent, which means that each individual must be either a buyer or a seller. The economist’s decision to put people on one curve or the other cannot depend on the price that they would buy or sell because both equations are defined for all prices.”
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| Wright, Jeremiah |
“I am not denouncing the church and I’m not interested in people who want me to denounce the church,” says Barack Obama, after acting like a politician by resigning from, but not denouncing, the Trinity United Church of Christ, which he has been a member of for twenty years.
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| World Trade Center |
When the Israelis blow up an apartment building in the Gaza Strip with a GBU-24, does anybody say that they did that because it was a “symbol of freedom” for the Palestinians? No, obviously, they did it because the guy they wanted dead was home. Well, office buildings aren’t normally thought of as being symbolic either. (If the WTC was anything like the offices where I’ve worked, the only thing it was symbolic of was bad coffee.) If al Qaeda wanted to hit a “symbol of freedom,” they would have destroyed the Statue of Liberty. If they wanted mass casualties, they would have hit a sports stadium. I think our efforts at homeland security would be a lot more focused if we had a clear-eyed discussion of exactly why al Qaeda repeatedly (1993 and 2001) attacked that building, passing up softer targets and ones with more symbolic import or with more people inside them. Sun Tzu said, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious in a hundred battles.” He would roll over in his grave if he heard George Bush spewing platitudes like, “they hate us because of our freedom.” See Chatter.
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| Why Economists Have Little Minds |
In his book, Why Elephants Have Big Ears, Chris Lavers writes, “I wanted early drafts of this book to be reviewed by scientists, writers, and enthusiasts who did not know me personally. The subject matter ranges across several disciplines, some of them no longer my own, so I felt that the manuscript needed serious criticism. I rattled off E-mails to some eminent authorities requesting their help, and it says a lot about the nature of my profession that I did not receive a single refusal.” Yes, and it says a lot about the nature of economics that no refereed journal has ever assigned my Simplified Exposition to a referee and no economist has ever written back when I requested that they review my book. I should have mailed it to Carrot Top – I would have gotten more of a response. Having determined why elephants have big ears, perhaps Mr. Lavers could now explain to me why economists have such little minds.
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| Whore |
1) What Elliot Spitzer spent $4300 an hour on, 2) Any economist who receives a government research grant. See Debreu, Gerard.
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| White Knight |
The Koreans. "We're seeing the potential for maybe another white knight," says Ben Bernanke, referring to their offer to buy Lehman Bros. Next he’ll be telling us that the budget deficit is really not as bad as it appears – at least not as long as the Russians come through with their offer to buy back Alaska.
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| What would you say if I told you that... |
Never once in my life have I heard this expression that it was not followed by a bald-faced lie. If they are going to tell a lie, they should just spit it out, instead of openly speculating on what you would say if they told their lie. See Like you say,…
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| Weapons of Mass Destruction |
In the worst-case scenario, mechanized infantry getting slimed by a few 5” artillery shells while crossing a tabletop-flat desert being whipped by 40-mph winds. Given the Iraqi artilleryman’s less-than-stellar accuracy, I doubt if the invaders would have even noticed. (Not only was George Bush lying about their existence of such weapons, the term “mass destruction” seemed just a tad overblown.)
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| Wealth |
Not the same thing as income. Friedrich Hayek and then (slavishly) Roger Garrison labeled their graphs as being one and also the other. See Section II of my 2004 paper.
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| Waste |
Explains the severity and recalcitrance of recessions. In my 1999 book (quoted at length in Section VI of my 2004 paper), I write, “boom times are characterized by a transfer of capital from smaller companies to larger ones, and the big ones waste it. Also, while small businesses cannot get credit during a boom, home loans and car loans are easy to obtain, so a lot of capital is converted directly into consumer goods.” See Section X of my 2004 paper.
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| War Crimes |
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes… The commander in chief [George Bush] and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture,” says Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
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| War |
According to the Bush/McCain theory of economics, this is what is going to get us out of the “mild recession” that we might be in. Hopefully before the election! See Waste.
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| Voters |
Not complete idiots. Most of them understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch. See McSame.
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| Victory |
1) Something that will elude any political candidate who associates himself with the Mises Institute. Americans are hesitant to vote for a member of a cult – they’re just funny that way. 2) "The war is not over, it is decisively on it's way to being won... So what if I guy threw his shoe at me?" said Bush, only five years after he invaded. He's probably right - they've run out of IEDs and are throwing their shoes. It's only a matter of time now before they give up.
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| Value Scale |
The values (in money) that one assigns to phenomena. It is described by Axiom One of my theory. See my Simplified Exposition.
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| Vacuum |
A place where Federal Reserve meetings do not take place. Keen writes, “The market economy may have evolved, but it seems [to Murray Rothbard] the State was simply imposed from outside as an alien artefact upon our landscape.” In Section VIII of my 2004 paper, I write, ”Interest rates are a good example of what Keen means by an ‘alien artefact…’ Interest rate spikes occur when the central banker’s hand is forced. Hayekians need to concentrate more on how and when this happens rather than just declaring that it is inevitable.” See Reversion to the Mean.
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| V for Vendetta |
At great personal risk, V seized a TV station so that he could ask the people “to stand beside me, one year from last night, outside the gates of Parliament.” And, dutifully, they all showed up a year later carrying candles. Frankly, he could have achieved the same effect, though probably without the candles, if he had tacked up some posters advertising live oil wrestling. To defeat an army, it takes an army. Only in comic books can one man who is really handy with a sword (V, Zorro, the Flame, etc.) defeat an army. In real life, General Byrd would have given the order to fire on the candlelight procession because, if he did not, Adam Sutler would torture his children. Defeating oppression requires that the people bring guns, not candles, and that they have tactics that will work against a modern infantry army. See Sniper Flash Cards.
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| Utility, Total |
The value (in money) of the stock of a phenomenon that one possesses. See my Simplified Exposition.
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| US of KKK-A |
In the 1980’s, Hezbollah had “Beirut Syndrome” and it was easy to dismiss them because they were inept. Today, the KKK is even more inept than Hezbollah ever was and it is easy to dismiss them as well. However, Hezbollah got better, as evidenced by their performance in the 2006 war. It is possible, but not inevitable, that the KKK will also get better. (Learning how to shoot would help – see my Sniper Flash Cards.) If Barack Obama is elected president and does not immediately and decisively put a stop to affirmative action, the Democratic Party may eventually have to deal with the KKK running a state-within-a-state in the Deep South, similar to what Hezbollah is doing now in southern Lebanon. And a military solution may not be feasible if there are large numbers of inner-city Blacks living within Katyusha range of the KKK strongholds. See Bitterness.
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| Turner Diaries |
Unrealistic. They think they can win a race war outright?? There are comic books that display a better grasp of military planning. See US of KKK-A.
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| Tucker, Jeffrey |
Famous for promoting libertarianism by filing false police reports against anybody who criticizes Austrian Economics. And who’s the big Black guy? Bodyguard or boyfriend? Enquiring minds want to know! (Ron Paul works for this “man” and that makes him a liar every bit as much as Clinton with her sniper story or Obama pretending that he never heard his pastor say “God damn America.”) See Mises Institute.
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| Trinkets |
Has anyone walked through a mall recently and looked at all the stuff they’re selling? What a pile of crap! The American Indians sold us their land for glass beads and, centuries later, we’re selling the same land to the Chinese for plastic toys, foppish clothes and costume jewelry. (Teenage girls really do rule the world. We accrued debts that we can’t repay in order to satisfy their every whim.) See Trade Deficit.
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| Triangle, Hayekian |
It is backwards. As I write in Section III of my 2004 paper, “The perspective that we want is right now, at time zero, looking forward into the future. Thus, the DWCS is defined from zero to positive infinity.”
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| Trade Deficit |
Today, everybody wants to know what the several presidential candidates intend to do about our massive debt to China. Well, what can they do? Call out the Air Force to bomb the malls? You know, you did that to yourselves. If you don’t like owing money to the Chinese, then you shouldn’t have spent the last ten years prowling the malls and whipping out the old credit card every time something sparkly caught your girlfriend’s eye. See Trinkets.
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| Toliver, Candice |
“Senator Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of race, gender or economic status. That’s why he opposes [the Civil Rights Initiative], which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities.” (Note: Toliver is a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign.) See Zero Sum Game.
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| Tissue Paper |
What
Barack Obama’s resume is printed on. This is in contrast to John McCain’s resume, which is much thicker, not only because it shows more experience, but because it had to be printed on heavier paper to absorb the blood of 4000+ men and women who enlisted so they could hunt down Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and were sent to die in Iraq instead.
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| Timbuk3 |
“Moral Hazard’s got a banjo in the band?? And they’re playing our song??”
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| Thompson, Fred |
Unlike Mike Huckabee's supporters, who were unable to read even one paragraph without becoming utterly confused, Thompson’s supporters read large parts of my website and had intelligent conversations about economic theory on their forum. (The Republican nominee, John McCain, does not have an internet forum. “We’re using the latest technology to reach voters!” he brags, referring to having replaced the mimeograph machine at his campaign headquarters with one of those new-fangled photocopy machines.)
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| Ten Percent |
About how many votes libertarian candidates get no matter how much cash they raise in their money bombs. Hmm….. Maybe if they abandoned that half-baked economic theory that they’ve got and rallied around one solidly based on axioms, they might actually win an election. Imagine that!
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| Sympathy for the Devil |
Apparently there is none in Austrian circles. C’mon guys, have some courtesy. Have some sympathy, and some taste. Instead of sending me snotty e-mails calling me “stupid” or a “spic,” why don’t you wipe your noses and compose some nice, polite e-mails to Roger Garrison asking him when he’s going to rebut my Critique? (Or I’ll lay your souls to waste.)
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| Sycophant |
See Rothbard, Murray.
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| Supply and Demand |
I don’t believe in it. I believe in the Demand Distribution, which is a mapping between price and stock. Supply has no place at all in my theory. See my Simplified Exposition.
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| Subjective Theory of Value |
Something that I believe in. I don’t know about anybody else. See Hayek, Friedrich.
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