smell a rat, reach for the mouse trap
i saw this article on gold last night and began writing a small rebuttal, though i agree with much of it. however, in the writing it snuck up on me that the article’s approach had a cultish odor to it.
going to have to trust my nose more often. this guy antal fekete is all over the internet (though i’d never heard of him), and i must hand it to him: i’ve rarely had such an interesting surf session as in tracking down and analyzing not only his positions but those he’s trying to skewer. quickly found that i had 30 IE windows open.
starting to get busy with some real life stuff, so i hope i can find time to smash this fucker in the nuts eventually. the cool thing about it is that as wrong as he is when he’s wrong, he’s also sometimes wrong for good and right reasons, if that isn’t too absurd a way to put it.
where i think this guy is most off is in his borderline sexual love of gold, and in the varying of absolutes for his convenience. for example, he claims explicitly that gold has constant marginal utility, and then decries mises for a supposedly rigid quantity theory of money, which he characterizes all over the place as “linear” in a “non-linear” world. this is arbitrary bullshit for his warped arguments. could there be a more non-linear theory than praxeology? and this is his big parting zone with mises!
it so strongly reminds me of a recent wikipedia dispute that i’m shocked i haven’t noticed this sort of thing much before. an entire view is set up that acknowledges agreement with a previous school, except on one big issue that’s either misunderstood, or so fundamentally at odds that it precludes any real agreement at all (in other words, it’s not an advancement, but more a glom for the sake of attention). in this case i think it’s a misunderstanding of fekete’s, though i do think he’s raising worthwhile points with regard to rigidity (what he calls linear thinking) and economics short-hand speak.
surprised he seems to have mostly been ignored at mises.org. i guess they think he’s a crank. however, an in-your-face rebuttal could be just the thing that’s needed. too bad that if i’m the one who finds time and inclination to do it, it won’t be read. heh heh.