‘“Have you ever heard of Ludwig Von Mises.” He said “no”.
I was stunned—and learned just how ignorant so many of the big named Economics professors were.’
I think I would have learned about Mises in school if I had taken a two-semester elective on the history of economic thought. Instead, I took two semesters of econometrics. I thought it had more cash value in future employment.
I did put econometrics to use at work. However, I regret not taking the other courses with would have provided a rich literature with diverse thinking. Mainstream econ leaves you with marginal this and marginal that. It’s not bad but you can get in a rut.
I think it was Mises who wrote of the frugal wife who deferred every purchase. Inflation set it and she raced out to spend money before prices rose again. Then hyperinflation.
Monetarists would be right to say the wife is not at fault. Blame the government printing presses for printing more money. Yet changing psychology (all the housewives!) across the nation, is both effect and cause.
I can give an example of how Mises affected me in the real world.
One of my hobbies is Cuban cigars. They are illegal in the United States. In addition many fakes are sold in Mexico and the Caribbean and to some extent in South America. They are also crazy expensive in Canada.
To order them Americans who know what they are doing order them by mail from large respected Internet retailers based in Europe and Australia with a long track record of quality and legitimacy and excellent customer service.
I stocked up like crazy in the 2019-2020 period—lifetime supply.
The reason—I had an old Cuban price list from 2007 in a regulated market (Spain) and noticed that those prices had not gone up for a dozen years.
That was crazy—obviously there had been some inflation over those years.
So—the price was “cheap” and I went into hoarding mode.
Then—Covid hit hurting manufacturing capacity in Cuba and inflation hit.
Prices since my purchase days are three, four, five times as high as just three years ago.
When prices are cheap we consumers should buy deep.
:-)