Austrian predictions

This page attempts to list various predictions made by Austrian economists about important economic and other developments. UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Important note: Austrian economists, as Austrian economists, or praxeologists, do not predict. They can predict not as formal economists, or praxeologists, but, rather, in their role as thymologists, or economic historians. In praxeology, A causes B, other things remaining the same. But, in the real world, other things cannot be relied upon to always remain constant. Therefore, predictions of the "A will necessarily lead to B" type are strictly prohibited. Instead, praxeologists, but not thymologists, must limit themselves to statements of the if-A then-B variety.

Housing bubble

These economists predicted the 2000s housing bubble that culminated in the Great Recession from 2008 onward.

Anderson, 2001, 2003, 2007; Beale, various dates; Blumen, 2002, 2005; Corrigan, tba; Crovelli, 2006; DeCoster, 2003; DiLorenzo, 1999; Duffy, 2005A, 2005B, 2005C, 2005D, 2006, 2007A, 2007B, 2007C, 2007D; Economics of contempt, 2008; Englund, 2004, 2005A, 2005B, 2005C, 2005D, 2006, 2007, 2008; French, 2005; Grant, 2001; Karlsson, 2004; Mayer, 2003; Murphy, 2007, 2008; North, 2002, 2005; Paul, various dates, 2000, 2002; Polleit, 2006; Ptak, 2003; Rockwell, 2008, 462; Rogers, 2005; Rothbard, tba; Schiff, Undated A, Undated B, Undated C, Undated D, 2003A, 2003B, 2003C, 2004A, 2004B, 2005A, 2005B, 2005C, 2005D, 2006A, 2006B, 2006C, 2006D, 2007A, 2007B; Sennholz, 2002; Shostak, 2003, 2005; Thornton, 2004, 2009, Undated; Trask, 2003; Wenzel, 2004; See also Woods (2009, p. 188 for further bibliography).

Anderson, William L. 2001. "The Party is Over," February 20

Anderson, William L. 2003. "Recovery or Boomlet?" July 07

Anderson, William L. 2007. "The Party is Over – Again," August 30

Armentano, Dominick. 2004. "Memo to Federal Reserve: Increase Interest Rates Now!"

Beale, Theodore. Various dates.

Blumen, Robert. 2002. "Fannie Mae Distorts Markets." Mises Daily, June 17

Blumen, Robert. 2005. "Housing Bubble: Are We There Yet?" May 8

Bonner, Bill. tba

Corrigan, Sean. tba

Crovelli, Mark R. 2006. "Gold, Inflation, And... Austria?" May 31

De Coster, Karen. 2003. "The House that Greenspan Built: Irrationally Exuberant Wall Street Welfare Parasites and Their Fed-God." September 12

DiLorenzo, Thomas J. 1999. "Regulatory Sneak Attack." September 16

Duffy, Kevin. 2005A "The Super Bowl Indicator," February 5

Duffy, Kevin. 2005B. "Honey, I Shrunk the Net Worth," March 3

Duffy, Kevin. 2005C. "Alan, We Have a Problem," August 2

Duffy, Kevin. 2005D. "Panic Now and Beat the Rush," September 24

Duffy, Kevin. 2006. "Are Mortgage Borrowers Rational?" June 24

Duffy, Kevin. 2007A. "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," May 22

Duffy, Kevin. 2007B. "For Whom Do the Bells Toll?" Barron’s, June 18

Duffy, Kevin. 2007C. "Financial Markets on Crack," August 22

Duffy, Kevin. 2007D. "Mr. Mozilo Goes to Washington," September 15

Economics of contempt. 2008. "The Unofficial List of Pundits/Experts Who Were Wrong on the Housing Bubble." July 16

Englund, Eric. 2004. "Monetizing Envy and America’s Housing Bubble." July 19

Englund, Eric. 2005A. "Houses Are Consumer Durables, Not Investments," June 8

Englund, Eric. 2005B. "Diminishing Property Rights Will Lead to a Higher Rate of Mortgage Defaults."

Englund, Eric. 2005C. "When the Housing Bubble Bursts, Will President Bush Practice Mugabenomics?" July, 19

Englund, Eric. 2005D. "When Will America's Housing Bubble Burst?" November 4

Englund, Eric. 2006. "The Federal Reserve and Housing: A Cluster of Errors?" April 22

Englund, Eric. 2007. From Prime to Subprime, America's Home-Mortgage Meltdown Has Just Begun." September 24

Englund, Eric. 2008. "Countrywide Financial Corporation and the Failure of Mortgage Socialism." January 28

French, Doug. 2005. "Condo-mania." July 11

Grant, James. 2001. Sometimes the Economy Needs a Setback." New York Times. September 9

Karlsson, Stefan. 2004. "America's Unsustainable Boom." November 8

Mayer, Chris. 2003. "The Housing Bubble." The Free Market. Volume 23, Number 8 August

Murphy, Robert P. 2007 "The Fed’s Role in the Housing Bubble." December 28

Murphy, Robert P. 2008. "Did the Fed, or Asian Saving, Cause the Housing Bubble?" November 19

North, Gary. 2002. "How the FED Inflated the Real Estate Bubble by Pushing Down Mortgage Rates: Report As of 2002," Reality Check, March 4

North, Gary. 2005. "Surreal Estate on the San Andreas Fault." November 25, 2005

Paul, Ron. Various dates.

Paul, Ron, 2002. Testimony to U.S. House of Representatives, July 16; text of speech in Woods (2009, 16–17):

"The special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

"Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged overinvestment in housing."

Paul, Ron. 2000. "A Republic, If You Can Keep It" January 31

Paul, Ron. 2002. "Government Mortgage Schemes Distort the Housing Market," July 16

Polleit, Thorsten. 2006. "Sowing the Seeds of the Next Crisis." April 25

Ptak, Justin. 2003. "Government Employees, Go Home!" November 12

Rockwell, Llewellyn H, Jr. 2008. The Left, the Right, and the State. Auburn, AL: The Mises Institute

Rogers, Jim. 2005. "Interview with Jim Rogers on the housing bubble." April 22

Rothbard, Murray N. tba

Schiff, Peter. Undated A.

Schiff, Peter. Undated B.

Schiff, Peter. Undated C.

Schiff, Peter. Undated D.

Schiff, Peter. 2003A. Commentary, March

Schiff, Peter. 2003B. Commentary, April

Schiff, Peter. 2003C. Commentary, June

Schiff, Peter. 2004A. Commentary, May

Schiff, Peter. 2004B. Commentary, June

Schiff, Peter. 2005A. Commentary, April

Schiff, Peter. 2005B. Commentary, July

Schiff, Peter. 2005C. Commentary, August

Schiff, Peter. 2005D. Commentary, October

Schiff, Peter. 2006A. Appearance on CNBC, January

Schiff, Peter. 2006B. Speech to the Money Show Conference, February

Schiff, Peter. 2006C. Speech to the Mortgage Bankers Assoc.

Schiff, Peter. 2006D. Mortgage Bankers Speech to the Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Conference in Las Vegas; November 13

Schiff, Peter. 2007A. Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (1st edition) New York, N.Y.: Wiley

Schiff, Peter. 2007B. Appearance on Fox News – January 12

Sennholz, Hans F. 2002. "The Fed is Culpable." November 11

Shostak, Frank. 2003. "Housing Bubble: Myth or Reality?" March 4

Shostak, Frank. 2005 "Is There a Glut of Saving?" August 4

Thornton, Mark. 2004. "Housing: too good to be true." June 4

Thornton, Mark. 2009. "The Economics of Housing Bubbles." America’s Housing Crisis: A Case of Government Failure, Benjamin Powell and Randall Holcombe, eds., Transaction Publishers

Thornton, Mark. Undated.

Trask, H.A. Scott. 2003. "Reflation in American History." October 31

Wenzel, Robert. 2004. "Government Isn't God: FDIC Sticks Banks With Bad Loans and Sticks Borrowers With Subprime Junk." July 21

Woods, Thomas E. Jr. 2009. Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing