Hello World

I apologize for the bad joke of a title - but only a little.  I am starting this blog both at the behest of a friend and as a way to force myself to organize my thoughts and focus my free-time studies.  I am not an expert.  I have a masters degree in microeconomics so I am somewhat fairly well acquainted with the basics of modern macroeconomics, but I was highly influenced by my primary statistics professor - who always stressed trying to understand the true story that we attempted to get numbers to represent - and by my fantastic, fantastic history of economic thought and methodology professor - who posed many questions and refused even more answers.  As such, I am a believer in the traditional Austrian school of thought.  Fundamentally this means I believe two things:  that incentives matters and that there is no such things as a free lunch.  I believe the economy is driven by incentives and that the market co-ordinates relative scarcity with society's demands to (generally) provide the most Pareto-efficient outcome.  I believe that when Adam Smith wrote,

"...as the machines and instruments of trade, etc. which compose the fixed capital either of an individual or of a society, make no part either of the gross or of the neat revenue of either; so money, by means of which the whole revenue of the society is regularly distributed  among all its different members, makes itself no part of that revenue.  The great wheel of circulation is altogether different from the goods which are circulated by means of it.  The revenue of the society consists altogether in those goods, and not in the wheel which circulates them.  In computing either the gross or the neat revenue of any society, we must always, from their whole annual circulation of money and goods, deduct the whole value of the money, of which not a single farthing can ever make any part of either."

he certainly would not approve of the dogma of economics holding that the economy should be controlled via a debt-based, consistent, monetary-expansion.  

I do believe that the market is the democratic process that determines what is produced.  This process occurs because of the "invisible hand" of price-coordination.  The "invisible hand" of the market comes into focus when you examine the two traditional ideas of value and price:  Smith's three-parts (labor, profit, and rent) and Alfred Marshall's marginal theory of value, which helped explain the diamond water paradox.  Businesses that produce goods or services at a cost higher than the marginal price, which consumers are willing to pay, go out of business; those markets that earn extra-ordinary profits are eventually expanded to return more value to society.  I believe that this means this means politically, or by any other means, altering price in a way that distorts the societal-cost of production and/or consumption is tantamount to public fraud and inhibiting the fundamental right and ability of the everyday citizen to effectively cast their vote on how resources are distributed.  And I believe that payment is required for all things - if the cost is not paid today, then it will be paid at some greater cost in the future.

These are the most basic tenants that guide my thinking and view of the economy and to economic data.  Now that I have my elementary diatribe out of the way, I will attempt to use this space to interpret basic economic (and political, such that it directly impacts the economy) data with an emphasis on the details and what I see as their most likely explanations.  I will be happy to respond to any questions and accept any criticisms.