My second rap video with John Papola is now live. Please spread it wide and far.
The Fight of the Century
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My second rap video with John Papola is now live. Please spread it wide and far.
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There should be a empty chair next to Hayek that says Romer
That would have been great.
I was a little shocked when I first saw that it was 10 minutes long however it was a quick 10 minutes.
That’s the highest compliment we could get as filmmakers. Thanks!
I thought the first one was great and would have been hard to top, but you certainly did improve on it with this magnificent product. I really like the philosophic insertion of Mises and Say. The unexpected ending satirically mimics present day life and some boxing matches I have witnessed! If your mission is to convey a easy to understand Economics lesson to a mass audience, you definitely succeeded. Excellent job.
‘there’s no “it” at all’
That’s it. That’s difficult to get people to realize.
Excellent video.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but Mike Munger is quite the actor.
Was Munger channeling the visible hand an unintended irony?
*Like*
Well played, sir. Well played indeed.
When will the audio be available for download? I would be happy to donate again to EconStories.tv for the privilege of having this song on my iPhone right alongside “Fear the Boom and Bust”
Easy to make your own. The free version of RealPlayer has a Youtube downloader and an FLV -> MP3 converter.
One of the YouTube commenters posted the following about the “Fight of the Century” rap video:
“I feel like this piece was pretty free-market biased.” I had to support that assertion with this response:
I agree, you can’t trust those goons at Cafe Hayek to produce a video that doesn’t advocate their belief in human freedom, and their conviction that the government’s role is to protect individual liberty. That’s why we cannot allow them to not force us to do anything – we have to keep electing leaders who will use the coercive power of government to enrich their cronies while pretending to give us entitlements (that clown de Tocqueville pejoratively termed this as being “bribed with our own money”, but what do French economists know? I wish I knew the French word for moron). Freedom after all isn’t free, it requires shared sacrifice, and I’m more than happy to elect people to decide what the meaning of the word “shared” is. And no more quibbling that freedom is violated by legislative acts, we know that markets are not perfect – it takes powerful elected officials to get perfection and root out all that nasty influence from special interests. All that Constitutional blather about limited government – that’s for utopian dreamers!! If I and my team can just get control, we’ll solve everything and best of all, we’ll use other people’s money (the bad people whom I’m sure we all can agree are not paying their share) to do it! With love, Reversoswabbie
Zed su kek……
Yes! The YouTube commenter would have been one of those dopes that congratulated Keynes on his boxing match ‘victory’. Because of this, the obvious sarcasm wont be so obvious and will be lost in commenter’s clogged filters.
Lowcountry, your prediction was accurate – the response was “I didn’t call anyone a goon.” It was impolite to hijack that post, but at least he didn’t feel personally insulted. Hopefully, someone besides us two got a laugh from the spoofing.
moron is English for “idiot”, both as noun and adjective
Fergunil, thanks, I fear that approach to humor is lost in the present time as you can always find out what a particular word is in another language. Lesson learned for possible future spoofing.
Interesting, even fascinating, that you two were able to take these beautiful ideas about liberty and individual human rights and deliver them in a presentation that is stark, mostly verbal, and still emotionally evocative – at least for a geek like me, who, saddled with the appearance of knowledge, still knows better than to expect an elected official to have any idea how to run an economy.
“The Fight of the Century” is even better the second time through.
1080p, and crank the volume!
I’m not good with faces, though, and need some help with the celebrity sightings. Where is Robert Higgs? Where is Greg Ransom? Is that John Papola’s dad or uncle or something?
It is my dad. Ransom is thanked for his discovery that Hayek used to say “high explosives”. Robert Higgs is thanked for his amazing work on the great depression.
Recommending to friends and family. I requested viewing from them. My 9yr old and 8yr old enjoyed, then asked questions. Teach them early.
The Munger Choice: the hand of government vs. the invisible hand.
I just got that. Nice.
Superbly done. I can’t praise it enough.
Lyrics here: http://hayekcenter.org/?p=4804
I see you made the credits.
Worth every penny I donated. Thanks.
Thanks for your support!!!
Awesome. But Hayek used a US passport for identification.
Hayek definitely lived in the US late in his life, and I think he might have even become a citizen.
Nevermind, I’m wrong.
I really enjoyed the video. Excellent piece of work. A few points though…
Pros:
-The Bernank!
-The music is better on this one than the first.
-It’s lengthy for a music video, but the actual song is from about 1:35 – 8:45, a little more manageable. Even so, I’ve thought for a while that songs telling real stories deserve to be much longer than the standard 3 minutes or so.
Cons:
-The Fed Chairman was a little too evil for my taste.
-Hayek’s point of view is not presented as well in this video as the first. It’s passable though.
-I consider myself more Hayekian than Keynesian, but even I see that Keynes’ point of view is presented very poorly. This really bugs me in any arguments because it just makes my side look worse overall; setting up a weak version to argue against only works if you’re trying to convince people who don’t know anything about the argument. If you want to actually make some headway with the people you’re arguing against, not a good strategy. I don’t know if anyone else advised on the lyrics, but a strong Keynesian would’ve been a good idea.
Again though, extremely enjoyable.
re: “even I see that Keynes’ point of view is presented very poorly… I don’t know if anyone else advised on the lyrics, but a strong Keynesian would’ve been a good idea “
Skidelsky is a softie.
I see it the other way. Keynesian theory is represented in about as good a way as is possible considering how silly it is.
(not Keynes actual General Theory, but what it has morphed into. IT really is pretty stupid, and amounts to the belief that you can tax, spend, and borrow your way into prosperity.)
.
BTW this thing is blowwing up exponentially on You tube
that is not “what it amounts to” !!! jesus christ, have you even read keynes?!
the fact that russ has not read keynes either and has chosen to represent the simplistic cartoon version of him that everyone else takes for granted doesn´t mean there wasn´t much more to the man than that
Yeah yeah, JCE.
Smith was more than the invisible hand.
Keynes was more than spending=prosperity
and Krugman is more than ketchup.
JCE: What makes you so confident that Russ hasn’t read Keynes? I’ve read Keynes, and Russ’s and John’s interpretation of him strike me as spot-on. So please tell us precisely *where* and *how* Russ’s and John’s Keynes is off-base in any relevant way in this video.
Thanks for stepping in to challenge a lame ad hominem attack by JCE on Russ Roberts. One of the great things about the blogosphere is the dampening of ad hominem. Unlike in conversation where ad hominem can catch people of guard by being extremely hyperbolic, in the blogosphere extra time exists after being personally attacked to get past the personal rage of being personally attacked. After regaining composure, a blogger whose person has been attack can calm type two words: ad hominem. Case closed, argument won.
Did you read my post? I said, not his general theory, but what it has morphed into.
As it is, Keynes was just wrong on a lot of major issues. But what the political class, and Shills like Krugman have made of his arguments is indeed not much more than spending our way into prosperity.
I stand by that, and dare you to refute it.
Well said, kyle.
I think most people should realize that references to Keynes and Keynesianism are usually short-hand for modern keynesianism and the ideas of Keynes that we saw being the foundation of policy.
Yes, he was a statistician/boxbrain by trade.
Are you really going to imply that Dr. Roberts has never read anything from Keynes…seriously!? Do you know how ridiculous sounding that is.
“jesus christ, have you even read keynes?!”
I’m sure He read enough to know where to cast him.
The Fed Chairman was a little too evil for my taste.
I was thinking the same thing after yesterday’s post-FOMC press conference.
like!
+++
Perfect +100
Perfecto!
I rewatched the video and maybe my initial reaction was a little too much. I’d replace the very with somewhat. I think it’s mostly that the first video was a little more technical, and this one is much more general.
Does anyone remember how long it took the first video to get 200K views? This one took about a day and a bit, which seems pretty quick.
Also, does anyone know if Billy and Adam have gotten a bump in their other work because of this? I hope so, ’cause they’re pretty awesome, not just in this but in their comedy videos as well.
The Keynes and Hayek here are not meant to be purely historical. Both men are dead. Our representations here are a combination of Keynes as he is taught in schools, as he is used by modern popular proponent from Krugman to DeLong to Stiglitz and Schiller and our best effort to represent the spirit of his concerns personally: that uncertainty and frail attitudes create the alleged instability of mark
Hayek, who knew Keynes better than anyone here, believed that he wouldn’t have supported much of what became of his theory and possibly even rejected it had he lived .
The Keynes and Hayek here are not meant to be purely historical. Both men are dead. Our representations here are a combination of Keynes as he is taught in schools, as he is used by modern popular proponent from Krugman to DeLong to Stiglitz and Schiller and our best effort to represent the spirit of his concerns personally: that uncertainty and frail attitudes create the alleged instability of market economies.
Hayek, who knew Keynes better than anyone here, believed that he wouldn’t have supported much of what became of his theory and possibly even rejected it had he lived . Maybe he’s right. Maybe not.
In any event, we treated Keynes with dramatically more thought and effort and fairness than, say, George Soros treated Hayek yesterday. Sheesh.
Papola is dead set Bernanke. I had to do a double take.
Fantastic video. The moment the winner of the boxing is declared I nearly fell off my chair: priceless. And I love the look Keynes gives Hayek at the end as the media goes crazy for him. Didn’t the real Hayek step away from his own ideas toward the end? Beautifully done. So many great ideas packed into 10 minutes.
I have read most of Hayek’s books from Road to Serfdom to The Fatal Conceit and am not aware of him stepping away from his own ideas.
From the context I think he meant Keynes.
Awesome. I can’t wait to have my kids watch it. After we watched the last video, we talked for about 2 hours about economics. There are so many ideas and concepts in both the videos. They’re fabulous!
Grats Guys! This was featured today on CNBC’s NetNet!!!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42797596
Incredible! Two thumbs way up. The tone and lighting remind me of that iconic Nirvana video Smells Like Team Spirit, complete of course with the super hot background cheerleaders. The fact that Keynes appears to corruptly win in the end despite a weaker argument also gives it a similar dystopian message. I am not sure if the average person could possibly understand its message although it would surely be great for teaching and provoking thought and argument among young soft headed econ students which must be its purpose. Hopefully Paul Krugman will now give it wide play by criticizing it.
Great video. Thank you very much.
Kind regards from Spain.
Oh now I get it. A physical knock out is no real victory for the logical and truth based economic argument of Keynes. And thus Keynes is declared the winner… very good.
Neoliberalism only carries the day via brute force of its well to do powerful promotors…. but eventaully the reality of circumstances awards the winner… reveals the truth.
We are stuck in this global rutt until demand rises suffeciently… no way around it.
C + I + G + X − M = Y(GDP)
Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Exports − Imports = Gross Domestic Product
Do you ever have the urge to just shut the fuck up?
I asked if I could help a few years back…
Great job, Russ, et al. John Taylor has it up on his blog:
http://johnbtaylorsblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/youtube-assignment-for-macroeconomics.html
Methinks, I love you!
Heck no… not if I’m pissing you off too this degree… this is great. You don’t need to reply butyou can’t help your silly 5th grade school yard girl self now can you.
Like on the matter with derivatives I will be proved right again and you wrong. The economy will not improve until demand picks up as outlined in the above equation.
And you will be more and more angery as it becomes clear that you are more and more wrong. And that is why it sucks to be you… a very angry and unhappy person. Did I say shallow…that too.
Idiot, lo those many years ago, when I first identified your idiocy, Your Grand Idioticness, little did I think that you would serve a useful purpose, contained in this very video.
You have made the greatest case for Hayekian analysis and emergent complexity that anyone could possibly hope to make, and entirely unwittingly, which is par for the course for you.
I do congratulate you, and hope you don’t maim anyone for the foreseeable future as much as you expertly – and persistently – butcher logic, reason, and economics.
Of course you don’t understand. Let me put it in words my goldfish can wrap its vastly superior mind around:
You will have plenty of time on future threads to machine gun Cafe patrons with your usual putrid senility. Shut the hell up for five seconds and let John, Russ and the crew enjoy their effing moment.
The Dulcinian doesn’t understand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulcinian
Insisting that Christ lived in poverty, they slaughtered the “rich.”
Muirdouche,
Do you ever say a nice thing to people you disagree with? without a backhanded compliment? Are you always such a depressing party pooper?
I doubt that he has much of a social life.
muirbozo doesn’t seem to understand metaphors.
Or economics.
and THAT is self evident.
Or physics. Or chemistry. Or biology. Or law. Or history. Or…..
…or the English language…
Or medicine…
LMAO @ Muirbozo!
Is Yasafi Obama’s Bebe Muirbozo?
truth based
Terms added because the argument or assertion does not carry on its merit.
Why single out G? Why not include it in the C? If you imagine any I in all that G, you could include a little G in the I too.
Shouldn’t we have an F term for the Fed’s direct expenditure on countless “securities” that no one outside of the Fed trusts enough to buy with money borrowed from the Fed? The numerical value is large enough.
Since you guys love Main Street and hate Wall Street so much, why not an M term distinguished from a W term?
These questions are hypothetical of course. The answer is obvious. Your equation is a simplistic accounting identity, and its purpose is political, not scientific.
Someone must first produce something of value to others at cost-covering prices before they can demand other things. C+I+G is ex-post accounting, not economics nor a causal formula. If some people increase their demand for cash balances, that is not magically balanced by borrowing money from other people to give it to yet a third group. The source of demand is effective production. Production and coordination failures reduce demand because they reveal that we’re poorer for having wasted our money on stuff nobody wants at prices we thought they would.
Malthus and Say had this debate already. Say won. Even Hume understood that money demand can have real effects, so that’s not new. What was new in Keynes was the combo of his straw man version of Say’s law and the spirit of top-down planning in 1930s thru 1960s that made a defunct underconsumptionist aggregated view seem appealing.
He was great on inflation, though.
My view on youtube this morning was # 321 around 8 am EDST. As of 4:45 pm EDST views are 13,193.
Can you say increasing at an increasing rate?
Thank you very, very much, prof Roberts. Baie dankie.
The referee rapper stole the video.
Naturally you would think so, since he obvously cheated.
Russ this is terrific. Mazel Tov! I especially liked Say and Mises as the trainers
As a lover of hip hop I was pretty skeptical of this video. But I was shocked by the production value of this video, it couldn’t have been cheap to make. The song actually had a pretty good beat and I thought that rapping about economics would sound silly, but it surely passed my test.
Thank you for this, Russ. I’m battling a sickness right now and this livened me up.
This video gave me a stimulus that created an emergent order in my loins.
The production values (very high) almost detract from the message.
Fantastisk!
One of the reasons this one is better is because it goes beyond the Austrian Business Cycle theory and introduces broader Hayekian themes .
Liked
I like Hayeks line about people not being chess pieces and wondered if that was a reference to Adam Smiths “Man of System”.
Yes
I have viewed it a couple times, looking for a Krugman cameo. Was he busy?
I like the overall message of this one, I especially like how Hayek summed up the power issues towards the end. When you present central planning as messing with people’s lives instead of “just” the economy, it gets people’s attention. I do think the first video had a better hook, it stuck in my head instantly. This song has more meat, but it isn’t as catchy. Good job, you’re really taking Econ education to a new level.
81,736 views at 10:45 pm EDST. Its going viral.
Spanish translation by the Libertarian Party of Argentina (Partido Liberal Libertario)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_tQ-wXly4k&feature=player_embedded
Well played, russ and John!
Keynes’ and Hayek’s moustaches are very well groomed and the Bernanke body double is spot on!
Professor Roberts and Mr. Papola,
I am a very happy investor. Polished, lyrical, intelligent, educational, catchy – the list goes on. Excellent work.
And judging by my difficulty getting to this page at the moment, I can probably add: server-straining.
I’ll start forwarding this one as well.
Thank you.
Russ, I am continually thankful that I followed Don to this site and met you through your work here.
Yay for the video.
And yah for George Mason!
There have been a lot of good econ references on the web lately:
http://econanons.blogspot.com/2011/04/economics-in-entertainment.html
Awesome!!
Any chance you guys can provide a downloadable version?
Just look for a YouTube downloader.
I have Download Helper in FireFox.
Not liked, but LOVED!!
You do realize you are living the Hayak dream? You are producing what the people need and want with your videos. So far, it is still a free market. It is still an organic environment where people are being put to work because of these productions.
We are hungry to learn. I hope you do more.
Should this production get the attention it deserves, how long before pundits declare the ‘six degrees of separation’ racism of this video?
Hunger for knowledge. Correct knowledge. The shared wisdom for proper and correct application. And……… How can I make more money from this education?
5 AM 04/29/2011, 22 hours after release views on youtube stand at 156,131. The new normal is “GeorgeMasonWood” while Hollywood is straight out. Creative destruction?
Great video. Better than the first.
One suggestion: I would have put that referee at the table with Bernanke and the Wall Street guys trading stacks of cash. That would explain better why he declared Keynes the winner. Or was he there and I missed him?
Brilliant! Is there any subtitled translation of this video in Spanish to circulate it?
Adam provided a link above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_tQ-wXly4k&feature=player_embedded
Well done! I too loved Say and Mises in Hayek’s corner. I would love for someone to explain Malthus in Keynes corner. I am familiar with his view of the world (in fact, sometime in the future I would love to see a match between Julian Simon and Malthus).
Steve
Malthus identified the importance of effective demand in the prospect of general gluts (this was a point that Jean-Baptiste Say – later in life – conceded to Malthus… unforunately by then everyone was a Ricardian). Malthus was missing the liquidity preference theory of the interest rate, which Keynes introduced (and which Hicks later formalized – some say a little unfaithfully).
In the very early 19th century Say would be in Hayek’s corner. By 2011 he would have been in Keynes’s corner.
“By 2011 he would have been in Keynes’s corner.”
Only if he were incapable of learning.
You’ve got it backwards – it’s precisely because Say was a smart guy that he conceded the point to Malthus.
Say is the issue, it is Malthus. I think Malthus would have eschewed naive Keynesianism. Don’t you? If not, then you think Malthus less capable than I do.
Say is NOT the issue.
No edit here, sorry
I don’t think Matlhus would embrace “naive Keynesianism”, no.
But now I’m wondering exactly how you’re defining that. Above we were talking about Keynes, not “naive Keynesianism”.
My only regret is that the Roberts/Papola team didn’t get the rights to produce Atlas Shrugged.
Yes, their work on this production is of extraordinarily high quality. On the other hand, the are ideologically opposed to John Galt: Roberts/Papola are about the business of winning the battle of the century via Hayekian means (broadening exposure to Hayekian ideas). Hayek was hopeful about the ideas eventually going viral; Roberts/Papola are all about this.
I thought exactly the same thing while watching it…”maybe John Papola should have directed Atlas Shrugged?”
Fantastic video- And here is another video on same subject without any need for knowledge of economic history. Enjoy http://www.foramerica.org/2011/04/1274/
By the way, does Doc Brown know you are borrowing his flux capacitor?
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