An Ordinary Tuesday Morning

After contemplating the title of this post, I realized that it isn’t really true. Every Tuesday is different, in some sense, from the last Tuesday, so how can I say it is “ordinary”? But at least it means that nothing extraordinary has happened today.

My mother is waiting for me to clean up my room. You see, my room is where people iron their clothes, so the ironing board is always set up. It is right next to my closet (if you can call it that…more like a cubby hole) so the ironing board becomes very handy for throwing my clothes on and using as a makeshift table. I said that I’d clean it up yesterday, but it is still a bit of mess. To be honest, it is the exact same mess she saw Monday morning. But don’t blame me, blame BBC. That’s right, blame the British Broadcasting Corporation. For you see, cleaning my room is such a chore, I like to listen to things while working. An Agatha Christie mystery or Jeeves and Wooster are preferable. And BBC doesn’t have anything good available for listening right now. So the mess will just have to wait. And if my mother wants it cleaned up sooner, she’ll have to talk to BBC. Unless she tells me to pick up the mess regardless of if I have a nice story to enjoy.

Yesterday I started reading Guido Hulsmann’s “The Ethics of Money Production.” It is a really interesting book, especially as it deals with the morals of money. Is it “bad” (in a moral or ethical sense) to inflate the money supply? Is fractional reserve banking wrong? He will be addressing those sorts of questions. Right now he’s laying the groundwork, talking about the different kinds of money (real money, certificates, credit, etc…) and how they developed. As others have said, it is exciting to watch Guido Hulsmann, he’s really one of the leading Austrians of our day. A very brilliant man with many good books and contributions, and I’m eagerly waiting to see what he comes out with next. Not only is he teaching Austrian economics, but he’s also refining and improving the Austrian theories. He spent around 10 years researching his book on the life of Mises, “The Last Knight of Liberalism.” By the way, if you want to read that book, but don’t really want to read, I happen to have inside information that an audio reading of the book will be available online at Mises.org at some point. But it was fun to hear his stories of running around the world trying to get original documents and information about Mises to put in his book. I’m slightly biased, I suppose, because I have met him, and so if I make you think he’s a really amazing economist, then you’ll be impressed that I actually talked to him. But it is true, and I wasn’t the first one to say it either. 🙂

I’m also trying to read part of “Man, Economy, and State” and part of “Conceived in Liberty” before Christmas, along with “Democracy: The God That Failed” and “The Ethics of Money Production.” Oh, and a book about life in the 1920’s and 30’s, I think I’ve mentioned before. And a book by Thomas Watson called “The Great Gain of Godliness.” This really is keeping me quite busy. And that reminds me, I’ve run out of time to ramble on and on here, and must get going. 🙂