5 ms·

http://mises.org/daily/320 http://mises.org/daily/320 a history of speculation and a rebuttal of many of its disparagements

by pook 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago
That does come from mises.org, though, and sort of says what you'd expect the Mises Institute to say about speculation. Which doesn't make it wrong, but does mean you're getting one particular side of a long-running debate in economics (roughly, the Austrian-School side). There are a lot more perspectives in the literature: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22role+of+speculation%22 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22role+of+spe...
- grandalf 16y ago
  Search this doc for "speculators" to see where this is really coming from. The modern arguments against speculation are just echoes of this. http://www.jrbooksonline.com/Intl_Jew_full_version/ij23.htm http://www.jrbooksonline.com/Intl_Jew_full_version/ij23.htm
  - _delirium 16y ago
    It surely doesn't come from that, which you must know is a kind of lame slander, the usual "the Nazis did [x], so you're a Nazi" non-argument. General attacks on speculation and finance go much further back than anti-Semitic worries about "Jewish finance", to long before the medieval era when European Jews became associated with finance--- the Jewish scriptures themselves, and writings of the early Christians, both have a bunch of attacks on finance in them. Surely the Talmud itself isn't anti-Semitic? And a modern quantitative understanding of the role of speculation is pretty unconnected to Jews (most financiers are atheists or Christians, anyway).
    - grandalf 16y ago
      I know it's not 100% derived from that, there are similarities in how it's articulated, though, one must acknowledge.
    - asdflkj 16y ago
      Not to take any sides, but you're wrong on two counts. First, Talmud itself may well be anti-Semitic in this sense, only this is irrelevant. For example, the Bible says, quite clearly and redundantly, many things that Christians reject. Bible doesn't matter--Christians and their actions do. Likewise, Judaists matter and not the Talmud. Second, Jews, in the sense of targets of most anti-Semitism beyond the troglodytic variety, are not a religious, but rather a social construct. Hitler wrote this in Mein Kampf, and this is why it's not okay to talk about anymore. The thing that makes it tricky is that while the racial aspect is relevant, it is not relevant in the way that makes criticizing Jews racist. That would have been Jew-by-culture <=> Jew-by-race. Instead, we have Jew-by-culture => Jew-by-race.
      - joe_the_user 16y ago
        Huh? "Talmud itself may well be anti-Semitic in this sense" In what sense? In the sense of attacking speculation since it's been pre-decided that all attacks on financial speculation are anti-semitic going back to Roman times?? The possibility of the Talmud being anti-semitic was simply assumed and implicitly rejected by parent as a standard rhetorical device so I'm not sure what you're driving at here. (and while usual the homily about actions mattering more than words is appropriate in some context, here it's apropo of nothing given that the overall discussion concerns the origin and implications of various criticisms). Modern antisemitism may indeed involve the cultural racial equation you describe but this doesn't demonstrate that either modern finance theory and early Jewish scripture, the criticisms of finance mentioned by parent, have any relation to modern antisemitism.
        asdflkj 16y ago
        I don't understand your question. Edit: I see that you've edited your post. _delirium's post had two things in it that are incorrect. It was highly rated, so many other people are presumably wrong in the same way. I pointed out why they're wrong. On most other topics, it wouldn't occur to anyone to object to my pointing out why some things are wrong, just because it wasn't apropo [sic] the origin of the thread. This is why I don't talk about this and a few other topics publicly unless I'm anonymous, and mostly even then. People just tell me to shut up, in so many words (and that's if I'm lucky).
  - jfager 16y ago
    Anti-semites link Jews to speculation, therefore all criticism of speculation is anti-semitic? Congratulations on the lamest troll I've ever seen on HN.
    - grandalf 16y ago
      The motives and moral decay historically attributed to Jews by anti-semites is the same as that currently attributed to speculators. Yes, finance is one area where Jews have historically had significant power and influence, and so the "anti-speculation" rhetoric is often wielded against them.
artsrc 16y ago
That article really misrepresents the issue in a serious way. It confuses what is necessary - taking risk, with what is reviled - extracting profit at the expense of others from the deficiencies of markets.

http://mises.org/daily/320 http://mises.org/daily/320 a history of speculation and a rebuttal of many of its disparagements

by pook 16y ago

http://mises.org/daily/320 http://mises.org/daily/320 a history of speculation and a rebuttal of many of its disparagements

_delirium 16y ago

That does come from mises.org, though, and sort of says what you'd expect the Mises Institute to say about speculation. Which doesn't make it wrong, but does mean you're getting one particular side of a long-running debate in economics (roughly, the Austrian-School side). There are a lot more perspectives in the literature: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22role+of+speculation%22 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22role+of+spe...

grandalf 16y ago
Search this doc for "speculators" to see where this is really coming from. The modern arguments against speculation are just echoes of this. http://www.jrbooksonline.com/Intl_Jew_full_version/ij23.htm http://www.jrbooksonline.com/Intl_Jew_full_version/ij23.htm
- _delirium 16y ago
  It surely doesn't come from that, which you must know is a kind of lame slander, the usual "the Nazis did [x], so you're a Nazi" non-argument. General attacks on speculation and finance go much further back than anti-Semitic worries about "Jewish finance", to long before the medieval era when European Jews became associated with finance--- the Jewish scriptures themselves, and writings of the early Christians, both have a bunch of attacks on finance in them. Surely the Talmud itself isn't anti-Semitic? And a modern quantitative understanding of the role of speculation is pretty unconnected to Jews (most financiers are atheists or Christians, anyway).
  - grandalf 16y ago
    I know it's not 100% derived from that, there are similarities in how it's articulated, though, one must acknowledge.
  - asdflkj 16y ago
    Not to take any sides, but you're wrong on two counts. First, Talmud itself may well be anti-Semitic in this sense, only this is irrelevant. For example, the Bible says, quite clearly and redundantly, many things that Christians reject. Bible doesn't matter--Christians and their actions do. Likewise, Judaists matter and not the Talmud. Second, Jews, in the sense of targets of most anti-Semitism beyond the troglodytic variety, are not a religious, but rather a social construct. Hitler wrote this in Mein Kampf, and this is why it's not okay to talk about anymore. The thing that makes it tricky is that while the racial aspect is relevant, it is not relevant in the way that makes criticizing Jews racist. That would have been Jew-by-culture <=> Jew-by-race. Instead, we have Jew-by-culture => Jew-by-race.
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
      Huh? "Talmud itself may well be anti-Semitic in this sense" In what sense? In the sense of attacking speculation since it's been pre-decided that all attacks on financial speculation are anti-semitic going back to Roman times?? The possibility of the Talmud being anti-semitic was simply assumed and implicitly rejected by parent as a standard rhetorical device so I'm not sure what you're driving at here. (and while usual the homily about actions mattering more than words is appropriate in some context, here it's apropo of nothing given that the overall discussion concerns the origin and implications of various criticisms). Modern antisemitism may indeed involve the cultural racial equation you describe but this doesn't demonstrate that either modern finance theory and early Jewish scripture, the criticisms of finance mentioned by parent, have any relation to modern antisemitism.
      - asdflkj 16y ago
        I don't understand your question. Edit: I see that you've edited your post. _delirium's post had two things in it that are incorrect. It was highly rated, so many other people are presumably wrong in the same way. I pointed out why they're wrong. On most other topics, it wouldn't occur to anyone to object to my pointing out why some things are wrong, just because it wasn't apropo [sic] the origin of the thread. This is why I don't talk about this and a few other topics publicly unless I'm anonymous, and mostly even then. People just tell me to shut up, in so many words (and that's if I'm lucky).
- jfager 16y ago
  Anti-semites link Jews to speculation, therefore all criticism of speculation is anti-semitic? Congratulations on the lamest troll I've ever seen on HN.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    The motives and moral decay historically attributed to Jews by anti-semites is the same as that currently attributed to speculators. Yes, finance is one area where Jews have historically had significant power and influence, and so the "anti-speculation" rhetoric is often wielded against them.

artsrc 16y ago

That article really misrepresents the issue in a serious way. It confuses what is necessary - taking risk, with what is reviled - extracting profit at the expense of others from the deficiencies of markets.