I don’t have the time to write a whole bunch because I need to prepare for my talk tomorrow. So, here are some of my notes from my favorite lectures of the day and a video wrap up as well:

• Walter Block and William Barnett – Time Deposits: Fraud and the ABCT
  • Debate that fractional reserve banking is illegal
  • Other side says that FRB notes can be considered contracts
    • Problem: not all contracts can be legitimate
    • Example: I contract with Walter for Walter to murder someone
  • More proper position is property rights
    • Can’t have two people owning 100% of the same thing
  • ABCT: mises originated, Hayek expanded “Monetary Theory of the Business Cycle”
    • Mises called it the circulating credit theory of the trade cycle
  • What we assume when we say that monetary inflation causes the business cycle is that the money is entering the market via credit markets.
    • Government could instead just use printed money to pay off receipts (like salaries)
    • According to Barnett, this would not constitute the conditions that create BC
  • What’s the problem with a demand deposit?
    • Banks are borrowing short and lending long
    • Intertemporal misallocation
    • Lenders want to be more liquid than they want to be as borrowers
    • Dealers work in between
  • Credit has two dimensions: Dollar value, and Time
  • Banks don’t have the right to lend money for longer than which they have the property right for.
    • i.e. I lend $100 for 1 year, bank cannot, praxeologically, turn around and lend the $100 for 5 years
    • This is a credit inflation
  • Time mismatching of borrowers and lenders
    • In example above, no monetary inflation, but credit inflation is happening.

• Anthony Gregory – Habeas Corpus, Centralism, and Decentralism
  • Most people go back to the Magna Carta
    • But it was 100 years later before we see habeas corpus writs
    • Authoritarian method of law
  • Habeas corpus evolved over time
    • Impetus was to protect high up officials
  • Some moral principle involved, people should be held just for the hell of it.
  • An admirable bottom-up tradition in American colonies
  • By the time of the revolution, all the colonies had
  • Here’s the interesting thing, constitution had habeas corpus but it was a step backwards because the states were already practicing it.
    • Who was it who issued habeas writs in antebellum America?
    • States had the right to issue writs of habeas corpus as a check AGAINST the federal government.
  • Once the FG used writs of habeas corpus against the states, downhill
    • Even some of our more admirable founding fathers suspended habeas
  • Some southern states used habeas to get slaves back.
  • Northern states passed liberty laws about slaves
  • After civil war, interesting reconstruction dynamic
    • On one hand, wanted slaves to have their rights protected
    • But in the next year, it was used to protect a guy who criticized reconstruction. Oops, they didn’t like this.
  • Last straw, 1871
    • Used to be a state check on Federal power.
    • Now a Federal check on state power.
  • What’s unfortunate is that we have moved away from the original design completely.

And here’s footage of what happened today with some summary thoughts from me…

The day began with coffee and bagels at the Mises Institute’s courtyard area. I met some nice people and caught some old friends that I hadn’t seen in quite a while.

The first session was the Author’s Forum, highlighting SEVEN new works of Austrian-inspired literature…

First, we have Tom Wood’s hot new book Meltdown. It is very impressive, to me, that he was able to get this book out so fast while covering the events of the financial crisis even up to December 2008. Quoting his talk: “Wouldn’t it be unbelievable to have an Austrian book out on the bailouts before the bad guys even get organized?” Indeed, many have benefited from Tom’s great work.

Lawrence Reed spoke about his new “pamphlet,” as he called it, on the Great Myths of the Great Depression – which is free to download here. Reed has put together a lot of information explaining exactly why the Great Depression was the fault of GOVERNMENT, not the free market. Since it’s free and pretty short, this is definitely a great resource to give to your friends who are curious.

Paul Cleveland talked about Unmasking the Sacred Lies. Paul likes to tell stories to illustrate economic principles, and his book collects many of his story-styled writings together.

Thomas DiLorenzo’s Hamilton’s Curse is a book I actually received from my brother as a Christmas present. Great quote: “At least Aaron Burr had a good reason for shooting someone, unlike Dick Cheney.” LOL!

“The Left, the Right, and the State: three of my least favorite things.” That’s how Lew began his talk. He pretty much read straight from the introduction to the book, which is understandable. It is essentially a collection of his essays, but it looks pretty great.

I was probably most excited about Guido Hulsmann’s talk on The Ethics of Money Production. The book is not so much about policy, per se, as much as it is about the morality of the creation of money – either by the market or by government. For those interested in monetary theory, this book should be next on your list. I am definitely getting my copy tomorrow.

Finally, the forum was concluded by the witty Robert Murphy talking about his new Human Action Study Guide. His goal is to make the reading of Mises’s masterwork a little less intimidating – an impressive feat. How he managed to talk for 15 minutes about it… is actually a more impressive feat, but hey that’s what Bob does. Hahaha, just kidding Bob!

After the session, Dan and I went to lunch with Graham Neal and Brian Canny from Ireland (they write the Irish Liberty Forum blog) at Firehouse Subs.

The first afternoon session was the Lou Church Memorial Lecture on Religion and Economics. This year’s speaker was the noted speaker and author Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and his lecture was INCREDIBLE. I hope it is posted on YouTube soon, because I cannot give his talk justice with a paragraph or two. Of principle importance to him is the idea that Jews (and I would extend this to Christians) believe implicitly that making money is a good thing. You are de facto doing something good. You don’t have to give it away to validate yourself or your work! Why is this? Because in the relationship that is developed you have provided value to someone else. Lapin’s deep conviction is that by engaging in commerce you are doing something helpful and good for people. You are making them better off. This is firmly rooted in the Judeo-Christian system of ethics!

I very much enjoyed his exposition on the two models of social organization: the Abramitic model and the Socialist model. The Abramitic model represents a proper biblical perspective of honest work and of recognizing that people are unique. The Socialist model, on the other hand, treats everyone as interchangeable, identical, disposable animals. What is interesting is that he related this to the Tower of Babel – of which I wrote about recently.

I tried to do a little video recording here and there, and I have put together a little mashup of footage and a wrap-up of today’s events. Enjoy!

I mentioned before that you could watch sessions from ASC via a live video feed. Here’s the information from Briggs:

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the annual international scholarly conference of the Austrian School of Economics will be broadcast live on Mises.org’s UStream Channel, where there is a schedule listed. Everything not broadcast live (there are many sessions running at the same time) will be audio recorded and archived on Mises.org in short order.

If you have a facebook account please consider posting the link to the ASC live feed as your facebook status in order to spread the Austrian theory. To do this, click on the link provided above and copy the URL and paste it to your status.

Again, here is a link for the video feed:

Mises Media UStream Channel (watch ASC live here!)

First session is the author’s forum at 10:30am (all times are CST, by the way).

The drive was nearly 13 hours long, but we made it to Auburn at long last in safety. I drove for about half of it, but during the other half I read through Robert Murphy’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism. I have to say, this book is great. Bob answers so many of the common questions so succinctly that I’m thinking it deserves to be read as a supplement to Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Bob’s book is witty, pithy, memorable, and brilliant. I’ll have to write more about it at another time.

I recorded a brief video about what’s in store for tomorrow. Enjoy!

Greetings, my libertarian Christian friends and others from all over the libertarian blogosphere!

Starting Wednesday, I will be live blogging the Austrian Scholars Conference 2009 at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. If you’re a regular reader, you know how much emphasis I put on economics – especially that of the Austrian School. My first peer-reviewed publication in press is an economics article, and that paper was what I presented at the ASC in 2008. This year, I will be presenting a paper entitled “Science and the Free Market: How Government Distorts Scientific Research Through Public Funding,” and you can read my abstract here. My talk will be on Saturday, and you should be able to see it via the LVMI’s live video stream. Check out the entire schedule and I am sure you will find some other talks that interest you as well.

Let me explain how this live blogging will work… I will update the blog with posts throughout the day, all tagged “ASC 2009“, with what is going on at the ASC. I’ll write about the sessions I attend, the people I talk to, and the interesting things that happen. At the end of the day, I’ll post a short summary and post some pictures. If I get lucky enough to have some high-speed internet access, I’ll even try to post videos from my new Flip Video camcorder.

I will also be making even more frequent updates on Twitter, so if you’re into tweeting then follow me and listen in. For the uninitiated, Twitter is a service similar to status updates on Facebook but more interesting. You have exactly 140 characters (no more!) to write whatever you want, including links. Thus, it’s often called a “micro-blogging” service. I find it to be a very fun way of sharing information with people without all the excess of Facebook.

My friend Daniel (from Libertarian Longhorns) and I will begin our journey tomorrow from Austin. It’s a lot less expensive to drive than to fly, so if you think about us please pray that we have a safe trip.

So if you haven’t already done so, subscribe via RSS or Twitter and keep up-to-date with this awesome event! I hope you enjoy the reporting; I hope you will comment on the posts and let me know what you are thinking… Next week, things will calm down a bit in my life and I will resume more regular posting of articles about liberty and faith.