The Devil’s Dictionary of Economics
Search For: (All Definitions Starting with the Letter: I)
Definition Total: (12)
Page: (1) of (1)
Terms  |
Definitions |
| I Don’t Know |
Words that I have never, not even once, heard an economist say when asked to predict the future price of oil, food, gas, stocks, bonds, houses or tea in China. As a matter of principle, I do not predict prices, recessions, depressions or anything else - see my paper, Did Mises and Hayek Predict the Great Depression? This is also a matter of practicality because, in most cases, I really don't have a clue. I derived, from axioms, a theory describing how price and stock are related to each other. I never said that I knew what the price of any particular item was going to be in the future. For that matter, without access to a newspaper, I wouldn't know what it was today. However, I did make one prediction: See Economic Forecasts.
|
| Ignatius, David |
“Take any big issue that matters to the public, from immigration to energy to health care to fiscal policy, and you see a failure of government.” And, on the subject of government failures, let’s look at the biggest issue of all: the Federal Reserve.
|
| Income |
Not the same thing as wealth. Friedrich Hayek and then (slavishly) Roger Garrison labeled their graphs as being one and also the other. See Section II of my 2004 paper.
|
| Inflation |
1) $4300 an hour for sex, 2) If the prices of the things you buy (like food and gasoline) are going up and the prices of the things you sell (like your house or your labor) are going down, you’re screwed. But, fortunately, the average of these two sets of numbers is zero, so inflation is “under control.” Who says the Federal Reserve isn’t on top of things? See Statistics, Meaningless.
|
| Inflation Distortion |
“Inflation is actually a very manageable four percent or so – including gas and food prices. One reason it isn’t higher is that many goods, like cars clothing, TVs, and other appliances are getting cheaper,” says Rick Newman. So, by balancing the lower prices of trinkets against the higher prices of necessities, inflation is “manageable.” I feel better already. See Statistics, Meaningless.
|
| Integrity |
“The only danger, to a mixed economy, is any not-to-be-compromised value, virtue, or idea. The only threat is any uncompromising person, group, or movement. The only enemy is integrity” – Ayn Rand. “There are no atheists in foxholes and no ideologues in financial crisis” – Ben Bernanke.
|
| Interest |
Consider a man who wants to take out a loan at interest. He must think he will have more money in the future than he does now. (More money holdings, not necessarily more wealth.) If he does, the value of individual monetary units will tend to decrease over time relative to other phenomena. Traditionally, this has been assumed to be exponential decay; value changes each day by a proportion of the previous day’s value. Other decay functions are discussed in Appendix A of my 1999 book. See my Simplified Exposition.
|
| Interest, Simple |
In Section IV of my 2004 paper, I write, “Garrison claims that ‘the slope of the line [hypotenuse of the Hayekian Triangle] is the (simple) rate of interest (profit) when the economy is in equilibrium.’ No, it is not. Compound interest is exponential and interest is always compounded – there is no such thing as ‘simple’ interest.”
|
| Investment Guru |
I’m not. If you want a fearmonger, contact Gary North. If you’re a goldbug and want confirmation of what you already believe, contact the Mises Institute. If you want good advice, ask your colleagues to recommend a broker that they trust. So don’t I have any advice for getting through this recession? Okay! Okay! Having been asked so many times, I’ll give you some advice: 1) Buy a radar detector. During recessions, you can count on finding a cop behind every billboard because your city government is going broke. 2) Install screws in your vehicle frame and sharpen the ends. Commodity price increases encourage thieves to drill gas tanks and cut off catalytic converters. Getting impaled by a three-inch screw tends to discourage them.
|
| Invisible Hand |
“Things going right tend to be much less visible to the average consumer than things going wrong,” says Rick Newman. Actually, things going right in the stock market got lots of attention in the news media – think back to 1999. Journalists aren’t smart enough to craft a storyline, they just follow the trends. If the news du jour is people getting rich in stocks, then that’s what journalists report on. If the news du jour is people going broke paying for food and gasoline, then that’s what journalists report on.
|
| Irony |
1) "The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects," say John McCain, while simultaneously trying to buy our votes with a free lunch that actually comes directly out of the funding for bridge repair. Does he think voters are complete idiots? 2) Hillary Clinton autographing boxing gloves to symbolize her belief that she is the only Democrat tough enough to stand up to John McCain while, at the same time, she endorses McCain's gas-tax holiday, which her rival has (rightly) denounced as "a classic Washington gimmick." Instead of autographing boxing gloves, it would have made more sense if she had been signing her name in syrup on waffles. 3) "We should privatize the sanctions against Iran by launching a worldwide divestment campaign," John McCain says to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, invoking the memory of the divestment campaign which helped bring down apartheid in South Africa. Of course, it is the Israelis who are responsible for the apartheid that the Palestinians live under. See Carter, Jimmy.
|
| It's a Wonderful Life |
One of my all-time favorite movies. For some reason, the events of 2008 have not inspired Hollywood to produce any movies about the owner of a building & loan association. I wonder why not? See Jingle Mail.
|
| |
|
 |
