Terms  |
Definitions |
| MacEachern, Doug |
“The [Tucson, AZ] school district itself defends the program’s academic value with this statement: ‘Research regarding Raza Studies students have found they outscored their peers in reading, writing and math as measured by the state’s academic accountability exam (AIMS).’ Had the claim been true, it would have constituted a rare objective justification for the district’s ethnic studies program. But the claim of proof-positive academic improvement is not true.” See Horne, Tom.
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| Machiavelli, Niccolò |
Had something to say about moral hazard, and I don’t mean the fictional country-western band featuring Ben Bernanke at banjo. See Section VIII of my 2004 paper.
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| Malinvestment |
“Of Mises, Hayek, Keynes and Kirzner, only Mises is close to this author’s position that the severity and recalcitrance of recessions is explained by the wastage of capital. Hayek describes a rather mechanical shuffling of wealth back and forth between the higher and lower stages of production… But Mises was adamant that his theory was about malinvestment, not overinvestment, and made the quality of loans central to his thesis.” See Section X of my 2004 paper.
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| Marginal Utility |
The first derivative of Total Utility. It is described by Axiom Two of my theory. Also called Diminishing Utility. See my Simplified Exposition.
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| Market Manipulation |
See Morici, Peter.
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| Marxism |
See Feminism, Radical.
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| Mathematical Economics |
Like spraying perfume on a turd, no matter how much math is smeared over the top of bad economic theory, it is still bad economic theory. See General Equilibrium Theory.
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| Max the Beagle |
The brains of the outfit. See my biography.
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| McBama |
See Ken and Barbie.
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| McCain Shuffle |
The latest dance craze to sweep the nation. It’s fun and easy! Just grasp your walker firmly in both hands, tentatively slide one foot forward and then the other. Look over your shoulder to verify that you are still perfectly in line with your puppet master – er – dance instructor, George Bush. Repeat. Wake up partner as necessary. See Obama Two-Step.
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| McCain, John |
Just as Ron Paul’s association with Jeffrey Tucker‘s false police report makes Paul a liar, so John McCain’s association with George Bush’s arguments for invading Iraq makes McCain a liar, even if they personally managed to keep their fingerprints off any blatant fabrications. If one wants a “straight-talk” reputation, one has to be more careful about the company one keeps. See Free Lunch.
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| McPherson, Guy |
“In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream… If you’re alive in a decade, it will be because you’ve figured out how to forage locally.” (Whoa!) See Alarmism.
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| Mcquire, John |
“When [the fake letter from Habbush to Saddam Hussein] was discussed with me, I just thought it was incredible, a box-checking of all outstanding issues in one letter, from one guy.” See Culture of Deception.
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| McSame |
What we are going to get more of after the Democrats self-destruct. A Black man or a woman? They are both just so politically correct. It's hard to decide! “Normally, when you see a Black man or a woman president, an astroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty,” observes Jon Steward. Perhaps the Democrats would have been better off skipping the political-correctness angle and using the tried-and-true technique of bribing voters by offering them a free lunch. It seems to work for the Republicans.
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| Menger, Carl |
I have spoken highly of Menger’s economic theory in my Critique of Austrian Economics. Here, let us recall one of his lesser-known dictums: “There is no better means to disclose the absurdity of a mode of reasoning than to let it pursue its full course to the end.” This is why I do not feel that any book, including the Turner Diaries, should be banned. There is a place for censorship in children’s literature, but I believe that grown-ups should be allowed to read whatever they want. That’s why they’re called “grown up.” See Banned Books.
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| Mikey |
“Mikey’ll eat it. He’ll eat anything!” (From a 1980’s breakfast cereal commercial.) “Do we have some stuff on the books that will be tough to get rid of? Yes. Am I worried about it? No. The Fed’ll buy it. They’ll buy anything!” proclaimed Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers C.E.O., summer 2007. “The worst is behind us,” he added in April 2008, after the Fed came through with their implicit guarantee to buy up all the worthless crap that nobody else wants. See Fool’s Gold.
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| Minderbinder, Milo |
“Cotton’s price spike this year has market watchers scratching their heads,” says Ann Davis of the Wall Street Journal, “The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is conducting an investigation of whether cotton prices were ‘artificially inflated.’” See Fool’s Gold to learn what other hi-jinks Milo has been up to.
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| Mises Institute |
Attaching themselves lamprey-like to a basketball college with a master’s degree program in economics, they promote the belief that Ludwig von Mises is actually God. The place to go if your voice hasn’t changed yet and you enjoy sitting in a circle singing about dead economists while creeps like Jeffrey Tucker ply you with wine – a beverage that he refers to as “Mises Juice.” See Cult.
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| Mises University |
A fund raiser – er – scholarly gathering held every summer in Guyana by the Mises Institute. Don’t forget to sample the Kool-Aid!
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| Mises, Ludwig von |
Richard Mises’ kid brother. Obviously the recipient of one-too-many wedgies while growing up in Austria, Ludwig harbored a lifelong hatred for mathematicians.
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| Mises, Richard |
A renowned mathematician, he designed airplanes for Germany during WWI and for America during WWII. But in philosophical matters he was a positivist and he lost to the axiomatist A. N. Kolmogorov in the debate over the proper foundation for the theory of probability.
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| Mission Accomplished |
Every year, on the first of May, journalists mock George Bush for flying to a carrier thirty miles off the coast and speaking under a “mission accomplished” banner. As well they should – the banner was a bad idea. (For that matter, the entire war was a bad idea.) However, a point that is often overlooked is that Saddam Hussein grounded his bombers for fear that the pilots, instead of bombing the Americans, would bomb him instead. Also, when Hussein met with his generals, he had a pistol on his belt and they were all unarmed. The purpose of Bush flying thirty miles out to a carrier was to demonstrate to the world that American presidents are not afraid of their own military. Every sailor on those ships, including the ones manning the guns, was aware that Bush had led them into a quagmire under false pretenses – “fuckin’ illegal,” as Pat Tilman said. Bush was demonstrating that he had their loyalty whether or not they were happy with what he had done.
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| Misspoke |
The new word for what used to known as lying. See Clinton, Hillary.
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| Model Citizens |
What George Bush advises Furman University graduates to become, though admitting that, when he acquired his Harvard MBA, being a model citizen was the furthest thing from his mind. Given the culture of deception that he created in Washington, it is obviously not something he’s given much thought to since, either.
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| Money |
A medium of exchange which one can always expect others to accept as payment. For every definition on one’s Value Scale to which phenomena might conform, there stands beside it the number of units of money to which one is indifferent to which one received. See my Simplified Exposition.
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| Montagne, Mike |
“For example, a $100,000 home with a 100 year lifespan would be paid for at the overall rate of $1000 per year or $83.33 per month; and the earning this alone would immediately free should we implement mathematically perfected economy™ immediately, reflect the degree to which we would prosper further, without any other improvement whatever.” (For pure comedic effect, I can do no better than to quote the man himself.) See my Critique of Mathematically Perfected Economy.
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| Moral Hazard |
A country-western band led by Ben Bernanke, most famous for setting “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades” to banjo music. The “thump, thump” of the printing press backstage helps them keep the beat. Don’t miss their upcoming Christmas album featuring that holiday classic, Jingle Mail!
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| Morici, Peter |
“There seems to be something in the water in Washington where people think market manipulation is the reason oil prices are rising and stocks are falling. Stocks are falling because the global capital markets are downgrading the U.S. economy because the banks are broken.”
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| Morons |
The common clay of the new Democratic Party. Also known as Soccer Moms or NASCAR Dads.
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| Mortgages, Sub-Prime |
Loaning money to people who don’t have jobs. See AAA-Rated Securities.
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| Moving to a New Location |
Going out of business. See Recession.
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| Murphy, Robert |
The leader of Austrian Economics. For them, the sole criterion for leadership is the courage to defend their theory against my Critique of Austrian Economics. So far, he is the only one to have attempted it. However weak his defense may have been, at least he gave it the old college try. See Garrison, Roger.
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