(스압/요약 포함) 북한 원전 사태 총정리 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11320942906 예전부터 팔로우하던 페북에서 퍼가도 된다길래 일일히 캡쳐해왔다 3줄 요약 - 문재인 정부에서 세계 1위 원전 기술 폐기하고 국민 쥐어짜 세금 탕진 뿐만 아니라 중국에 갖다 바치기까지 했는데, 이를 수사하려 하자 검찰 압박해왔음 - 감사 진행 사실을 어떻게 알아내서 몰래 파일 삭제해 은폐해놓고 "내가 신내림 받았나보다"라고 답변, 그 파일들의 내용은 북한에 핵 기술의 집약체인 원전을 몰래 지어주려 했던 것 - 이완용도 나라를 팔아 먹었을지언정, 적국에 직접 국민들 죽일 무기 기술을 갖다바치진 않았음 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 북한원전의 비밀에 대해 araboja 메르 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11320648734 2018년에 쓴글을 업데이트함. 앞 부분은 2018년에 일베를 간 아래 링크글인데 지금 다시 봐도 비슷하게 가고 있음. 북한 철도의 비밀을 Araboja(feat 노잼 주의) | 일베-일간베스트 | 일베저장소 (ilbe.com) 1. 독일 베를린올림픽에서 마라톤 금메달을 딴 손기정은 서울역에서 기차를 타고 베를린을 감. 1936년 이었음. 개성-신의주 구간을 히카리호는 시속 57km로 달림. 2. 서울보다 먼저 평양에 지하철이 생김. 1973년이었음. 북한은 산악지대가 많아 도로가 발달되지 못해서 철도운송이 중요했기에, 일제시대부터 철도운송에 많은 투자를했고 해방이 되면서 좋은 철도 인프라를 공짜로 먹음. 한국보다 훨씬 더 기차와 관련된 제반 시설이 좋았다는 말임. 3. 문제는 김일성이 철도에 큰 뻘짓을 해버림. 4. 철도를 전철화 한 것임. 5. 전체 철도의 80%를 전철로 만듬. 6. 전철은 전기먹는 하마라 어마어마한 전기가 필요하게 됨. 7. 전철로 결정한 이유는 있었음. 석탄이 많은 나라니 화력발전을 해서 전기를 만들수 있고, 수풍댐 이라는 대형 발전소가 있어 수력발전으로도 전기를 만들수 있겠다 싶어 그렇게 밀어붙이게 됨. 8. 그런데 옥수수가 문제를 일으킴. 9. 김일성은 옥수수를 곡식의 왕 이라고 부르며 븍한 전역을 옥수수밭으로 만드는 주체농법을 밀어붙임. 주체농법이란 거름이 많은 부식토에 옥수수알을 키운뒤 싹이 나면 밭에 옮겨심어서 효율을 높이는 방법임. 부식토에 난 수많은 싹들을 모두 옮겨 심기 위해 웬만한 산들의 나무를 다 베어버리고 옥수수 밭을 만들게 됨. 10. 산의 나무를 다 베고 옥수수를 심어버리자, 비가 올때 뿌리로 산사태를 막아주던 나무들이 사라져서 민둥산이 되었고, 비만 오면 산사태가 나기 시작함. 그중 몇몇 산사태는 석탄을 캐는 탄광들을 덮치게 됨. 11. 큰 탄광 몇개가 산사태에 매몰되자, 석탄을 원하는 만큼 캘 수 없게 되고, 석탄이 제대로 공급이 안되니 석탄을 연료로 하는 화력발전소가 제대로 가동될 수 없었으며, 대안으로 생각했던 수풍댐은 수력발전이라 수량이 적은 겨울철에는 쓸모가 없었음. 12. 화력발전소와 수력발전소가 제대로 가동이 안되니, 전력이 부족해졌고, 전력이 부족하니 전기먹는 하마인 전철이 멈춰섬. 전철이 서버리니 광산에서 캔 석탄을 화력발전소로 옮길수가 없어짐. 13. 화력발전소는 석탄이 없어 전기를 못 만들고, 석탄광산은 전기가 없으니 석탄을 캘수가 없게 됨. 북한의 탄광이 갱도식이라 발전기가 멈추면 갱도에 지하수가 차버려 멈추게 됨. 나라 전체가 악순환에 빠져버림. 14. 식량이 없고, 전기를 못 만들자 나라 자체가 멈춰서며 300만명이 굶어 죽었다는 고난의 행군이 시작됨. 인구 17만 김책시에서만 하루에 200명이 굶어죽는 일이 생김. 15. 이때 인민들은 먹을것을 구하기 위해 중국으로 탈북을 하고, 그중 일부는 한국으로 들어옴. 엄청난탈북자들이 들어와서 하나원이라는 민간인 수용 및 교육시설까지 만들게 됨. 16. 김일성은 전기가 얼마나 위험한지 몰랐음. 전기는 필요한 양보다 많이 생산하면 쓸모없는 잉여전력이 되고, 1kw라도 모자라게 되면 전체 전력이 한꺼번에 멈추는 블랙아웃이 발생하게 되는 무서운 ㄴ이었음. 17. 전기가 제대로 공급이 안되자 전기먹는 하마인 전철이 서고, 전철이 서자 물류가 멈춰버림. 선상님이 쌀을 해주항에 엄청 내려줬는데, 굶고있는 인민에게 가져다줄 길이 없어 계속 굶어죽는 일이 생김. 18. 물류가 서고 수많은 사람이 굶어죽는 고난의 행군이 오자 인민들은 철로의 나사를 빼서 팔고, 당은 철로를 지탱하는 자갈이나 침목관리도 할수 없게 됨. 위의 사진처럼 철도가 ㅆㅊ이 남. 19. 현재까지도 이런 상황이 이어져서 현재 북한 기차들의 평균 속도는 시속 15km임. 부산-서울 정도를 가는데 23일까지 걸리는 경우가 생기고, 제대하는 병사가 열차안에서 굶어죽는 일도 생기게 됨. 사흘안에 목적지에 도착하면 대박이라고 함. 20. 기차가 제 속도로 달리기 위해서는 기관차만 신형을 넣으면 되는게 아님.기차가 달리는 길인 철로의 강철도 맛이 가 있는데다 철로밑의 자갈이나 침목도 없거나 썩어서 속도를 내면 열차가 탈선해버림. 북한에서 제일 신형인 평양과 중국을 오고가는 열차가 시속 40킬로로 달리고 있음. 21. 올해 1차 남북선언에서 문재인이 앞으로 북측과 철도로 연결되면 남북이 모두 고속철도를 이용할 수 있다고 함” 북한에 일반 철로도 아니라 고속열차를 깔겠다는 말임. 22. 기존 철로가 워낙 ㅆㅊ이라 고쳐서 깔수있는 상황도 아니라서 새로 깔아야됨. 가장 짧은 구간은 경의선 350km만 깔아도 최소 25조 정도 비용이 나옴. 23. 우리 세금이 빠져나가는 문제 외에 다른 부담도 있음. 24. 현대전은 보급 및 수송의 전쟁임. 25. 현재 북한의 열악한 수송망으로는 휴전선 일대에 쟁여놓은 화력이 소모되면 후방에서 보급이 올라오기 힘듬. 전력이 조루라는 말임. 26. 철도가 현대화되면 북한군의 전쟁수행능력은 급상승하게 됨. 27. 수소차도 문제임. 전기차가 상식이지만 탈원전과 신재생 때문에 전기차를 밀기가 힘듬. 28. 전기차의 문제는 전기를 많이 쓰는것임. 특히 충전속도를 빨리하기 위한 급속충전이 전기를 많이 씀. 29. 이마트 주차장에 있는 2천대를 한꺼번에 급속충전하면 1기가. 원전1대 발전량이 필요함. 30. 신재생에너지도 문제임. 신재생에너지는 태양열과 풍력이 주력이라 여름에는 전기가 남아돌고 겨울에는 전기가 모자람. 31. 신재생비중이 높아지면 높아질수록 때로는 남고, 때로는 모자라는 일이 반복되어 전기 관리가 힘들게 됨. 32. 대안으로 수소가 나오고 있지만 수소의 문제는 공급임 33. 현재 수소는 국내의 3개 석유화학단지가 공장을 돌리는 과정에서 덤으로 만들어 짐. 부생수소라고 부름 34. 다른 화학공정을 돌리는 와중에 덤으로 나오다보니 1킬로에 5천원 정도로 공급을 할 수 있음. 35.이걸 수소운반 특수트럭에 실어서 충전소까지 운반하는 과정에서 비용이 추가로 들어서 킬로당 8천원에서 만원 정도가 현재 가격임. 36. 석유화학단지에서 나오는 부산물에서 나오는 수소는 양이 얼마 되지 않아 앞으로 전기차에 들어갈 대부분 수소는 수입을 해야됨 37. 가스공사 발표에서 답을 찾았음. "공사는 수소를 수입할때 북방자원을 우선 활용" 38. 북한임 39. 북한이 충분하게 가지고 있는 자원이 갈탄임. 탄화수소에서 탄소를 떼면 수소가 됨 40. 6.13탄광, 우리는 아오지탄광이라고 부르는 함북의 탄광 한곳에서만 1억5천만톤이 매장되어 있음 41. 일본은 호주에서 갈탄을 액화시켜 배로 수입하려고 하지만, 우리는 이번에 건설해주려고 하는 철도를 통해 갈탄을 수송해서 국내에서 수소를 만들려는 것 같음 42. 수소차로 가면 금강산 관광이나 개성공단에 비교가 안되는 돈이 갈탄값으로 북한에 들어갈 수 있음. 43. 갈탄은 북한에 돈을 줄수 있지만 전기를 주지는 않음. 44. 전기는 원전으로 줄수가 있음. 45. 원전의 장점은 외부 원조가 끊겨도 소량의 우라늄만 있으면 계속 전기 공급을 할 수 있는 것임. 46. 북한은 원폭개발을 통해 우라늄 공급망을 갖춰놓은 상황. 47. 원전을 통해 북한에 전기가 충분히 공급되고, 철도로 운송이 강해지면 북한이 세지는게 있음. 48. 북한의 전쟁수행능력임. 한줄요약 음모론은 싫지만, 하는짓이 빅 피쳐각임. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott 인간과 자유이야기 과거엔 Deep State란 표현을 제한되게 사용하려고 노력했는데, 트럼프 대선 이후, 너무 자주 사용했고, 거기다 소아ㅅㅇ, 인신제사설이 가세해서 지나치게 악마화가 되어 제대로된 비판이 오히려 불가능해졌다. 엄밀하게 이야기하면 정치인을 배제하고 "권력화된 관료 계급"에 국한해야한다. 쉽게 이야기하면 "늘공"으로, 선거로 당선된 정치인들도 통제가 불가능할 정도로 조직의 논리와 이익에 충실한 "늘공" 계급이 뿌리깊게 자신만의 그림자 권력을 구축한 것으로 볼 수 있다. 국가 보건 부문의 닥터 파우치, CIA 지나 헤스펠, FBI 후버 국장 등. 펜타곤도 마찬가지다. 미국에서 연방 공무원들이 박봉에 시달리다가 민간에 나오면 별볼일 없는 사람도 3~5년 안에 재산이 2~4백만불씩 불어나 있는 경우를 자주 볼 수 있다. 연방 공무원 시절 구축한 권력을 바탕으로 민간에 나오면, 로비스트나 각종 기관, 기업의 고위직으로 날라가서 몇 년만에 한 재산 챙기는 모습은 일상에 가깝다. 미국도 상당히 부패한 나라다. 여기에 국제적인 레버리지를 더하면 뭔 떡고물을 챙겨먹는지는 미지수다. 헐리우드 영화의 3/4는 구라다. 미국 사법기관들이 헌터 바이든 사건을 뒤지지 않는 이유가 있다. 자신의 차례를 기다리는 것이다. 솔직히 자식이 좋은 민간기업 가는 것보다 연방 공무원이 되면 더 축하를 하는 나라이기도 하다. --->저런 관료조직과 정치인들을 청소해야 하는데, 그런 혁명적인 행동을 할 인물이 보이지 않는다. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nassim Nicholas Taleb #Skininthegame: only what people do counts. The rest is cheap signaling, bureaucratic BS, or just blather. 단지 인간의 행동만이 중요하다. 그 나머지는 값싼 장식이거나 관료적 헛짓거리이고 또는 그냥 헛소리일 뿐이다. 2/ The reasons idiots who score high on IQ tests don't get it is because these tests are devoid of context. They select for context free-thinkers. 멍청이들이 지능검사는 높지만 이해하지 못하는 이유는, 이들 지능검사들이 상황이 결여되어 있기 때문이다. 그들은 상황과 격리된 사상가들을 선택한다. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Cooke Twitter suspends Christian magazine for saying Biden’s trans nominee is a man, not a woman 크리스천 잡지들이 바이든의 트랜스젠더 지명자가 여자가 아니라 남자라고 말했다고, 트위터가 계정을 정지시켰다. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Wave of Abusive Federal Prosecutions Is Coming William L. Anderson With the Capitol riots, Biden has his 9/11. Now come the legal assaults against Americans. 의사당 난입 사태로 바이든은 그의 9/11을 얻은 것이다. 이제 미국인들을 향한 법적 공세가 시작될지도 모른다. Federal criminal law provides these antiliberty groups the kinds of devices that can be used to criminalize speech and turn garden-variety dissenters into criminals. We should not be surprised if ambitious US attorneys in the Biden administration, cheered on by the likes of the New York Times and MSNBC, decide it is time to do just that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 當歸四逆加吳茱萸生薑湯 (傷寒論-355) 若其人內有久寒者.宜當歸四逆加吳茱萸生薑湯. 몸 안에 오랫동안 한기가 있던 사람에게는 당귀사역가오수유생강탕을 복용케 한다. 아래 처방에서 통초가 무엇인지 여러 의견이 있다. 그래서 황황 교수는 아예 통초를 빼고 처방을 한다. 그래도 약효에는 큰 차질이 없다. (當歸四逆加吳茱萸生薑湯方) 當歸三兩 桂枝三兩.去皮. 芍藥三兩 細辛三兩 甘草二兩.炙. 通草二兩 大棗十五枚.擘.一法.十二枚. 生薑半斤.切. 吳茱萸二升 1.少陰病，脈微而弱，身痛如掣者，此榮衛不和故也，當歸四逆湯主之。 2.傷寒，手足厥逆，脈細欲絕者，當歸四逆加人參附子湯主之；若其人內有久寒者，當歸四逆加吳茱萸生薑附子湯主之。 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 국제 수지의 통화적 접근 방법론적 개인주의의 원칙에 따른 미제스의 국제 수지 분석 The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments Joseph T. Salerno Leland Yeager offers an illuminating discussion of a serious problem that has historically plagued monetary theory and continues to do so to this day: the failure to clearly distinguish between the individual and the overall viewpoints when analyzing monetary phenomena. I wish to emphasize particularly Yeager's insight that the source of this problem lies in the failure of monetary theorists to heed "the sound precept of methodological individualism," which dictates that bridges be constructed between the two viewpoints "by relating propositions about all economic phenomena, including the behavior of macroeconomic aggregates, to the perceptions and decisions of individuals." In detailing and critically analyzing the errors engendered by this confusion of viewpoints in monetary theory, Yeager has taught an elementary, yet much needed, lesson in the principles of economic reasoning and the dire consequences of neglecting them. I daresay this lesson would have been wholly unnecessary had economists attended more closely to the earlier lessons taught by Ludwig von Mises, certainly the foremost exponent and practitioner of methodological individualism in twentieth-century monetary theory. Since I am in fundamental agreement with the thrust of Yeager's argument, I shall utilize one illustration in his discussion to elucidate an especially neglected contribution to monetary theory made by Mises in his consistent application of methodological individualism to the explanation of monetary phenomena. In this connection, I wish to focus attention on Yeager's treatment of the modern monetary approach to the balance of payments. I propose to show, first, that the valid and vitally important insight on which the monetary approach rests forms the basis of Mises's own elaboration of balance-of-payments theory and, second, that Mises's approach is not open to the objection that Yeager raises against the monetary approach, precisely because Mises firmly adheres to the precept of methodological individualism. This enterprise, it may be noted, has important implications for the contemporary formulation of the monetary approach as well as for doctrinal research into its historical antecedents. On the doctrinal side, it is a matter of setting the record straight. Several studies have appeared recently of the doctrinal roots of the monetary approach. With one minor exception,1 all of them have completely neglected Mises's contribution. Hopefully, greater familiarity with Mises's approach to the balance of payments, which so strongly anticipates the monetary approach, will spark a rethinking of the latter approach and lead to its reformulation on sounder methodological foundations. The fundamental insight of the monetary approach is that the balance of payments is essentially a monetary phenomenon. The very concept of a balance of payments implies the existence of money; as one writer puts it, "Indeed, it would be impossible to have a balance-of-payments surplus or deficit in a barter economy."2 This being the case, any endeavor to explain balance-of-payments phenomena must naturally focus on the supply of and demand for the money commodity. The monetary approach consists in the rigorous delineation of the implications of this simple yet powerful insight for the analysis of balance-of-payments disequilibrium, adjustment, and policy. As I shall attempt to demonstrate, Mises fully anticipated the modern monetary approach by explicitly recognizing these implications. Mises grounds his balance-of-payments analysis on the insight that the balance of payments is a monetary concept. He states that, "If no other relations than those of barter exist between the inhabitants of two areas, then balances in favor of one party or the other cannot arise."3 Mises thus conceives of money as the active element in the balance of payments and not as a residual or accommodating item that passively adjusts to the "real" flows of goods and capital: The surplus of the balance of payments that is not settled by the consignment of goods and services but by the transmission of money was long regarded as merely a consequence of the state of international trade. It is one of the great achievements of Classical political economy to have exposed the fundamental error in this view. It demonstrated that international movements of money are not consequences of the state of trade; that they constitute not the effect, but the cause, of a favorable or unfavorable trade balance. The precious metals are distributed among individuals and hence among nations according to the extent and intensity of their demand for money.4 Mises uses his marginal-utility theory of money to explain the "natural" or equilibrium distribution of the world money stock among the various nations. Regarding the case of a 100 percent specie standard, he writes that the proposition is as true of money as of every other economic good, that its distribution among individual economic agents depends on its marginal utility … all economic goods, including of course money, tend to be distributed in such a way that a position of equilibrium among individuals is reached, when no further act of exchange that any individual could undertake would bring him any gain, any increase of subjective utility. In such a position of equilibrium, the total stock of money, just like the total stocks of commodities, is distributed among individuals according to the intensity with which they are able to express their demand for it in the market. Every displacement of the forces affecting the exchange ratio between money and other economic goods [i.e., the supply and demand for money] brings about a corresponding change in this distribution, until a new position of equilibrium is reached.5 Mises goes on to conclude that the same principles that determine the distribution of money balances among persons also determine the distribution of money stocks among nations, since the national money stock is merely the sum of the money balances of the nation's residents.6 In thus building up his explanation of the international distribution of money from his analysis of the interpersonal distribution of money balances, Mises sets the stage for an analysis of balance-of-payments phenomena that conforms to the precept of methodological individualism. Like the later proponents of the monetary approach, Mises envisages balance-of-payments disequilibrium as an integral phase in the process by which individual and hence national money holdings are adjusted to desired levels. Thus, for example, the development of an excess demand for money in a nation will result in a balance-of-payments surplus as market participants seek to augment their money balances by increasing their sales of goods and securities on the world market. The surplus and the corresponding inflow of the money commodity will automatically terminate when domestic money balances have reached desired levels and the excess demand has been satisfied. Conversely, a balance-of-payments deficit is part of the mechanism by which an excess supply of money is adjusted. The role played by the balance of payments in the monetary-adjustment process is clearly spelled out by Mises in the following passage. In a society in which commodity transactions are monetary transactions, every individual enterprise must always take care to have on hand a certain quantity of money. It must not permit its cash holding to fall below the definite sum considered necessary for carrying out its transactions. On the other hand, an enterprise will not permit its cash holding to exceed the necessary amount, for allowing that quantity of money to be idle will lead to loss of interest. If it has too little money, it must reduce purchases or sell some wares. If it has too much money, then it must buy goods.… In this way, every individual sees to it that he is not without money. Because everyone pursues his own interest in doing this, it is impossible for the free play of market forces to cause a drain of all money out of the city, a province or an entire country. If we had a pure gold standard, therefore, the government need not be the least concerned about the balance of payments. It could safely let the market take care of maintaining a sufficient quantity of gold within the country. Under the influence of free-trade forces, gold would leave the country only if a surplus of cash balances were on hand. Conversely it would always flow into the country if cash balances were insufficient. Thus, for Mises, the monetary-adjustment process ensures that gold money, like all other commodities, is imported when in short supply and exported when in surplus.7 An implication of this view of the balance of payments as a phase in the monetary adjustment process is that international movements of money that do not reflect changes in the underlying monetary data can only be temporary phenomena. "Thus," writes Mises, "international movements of money, so far as they are not of a transient nature and consequently soon rendered ineffective by movements in the contrary direction, are always called forth by variations in demand for money."8 Although Mises therefore does regard the long-run causes of balance-of-payments disequilibrium as exclusively monetary in nature, he does not make the error, which Yeager attributes to the more radical, global-monetarist proponents of the monetary approach, of identifying a balance-of-payments surplus with the process of satisfying an excess demand for domestic money or a deficit with the process of working off an excess supply of domestic money. Mises explicitly recognizes that changes occurring on the "real" side of the economy, for example, a decline in the foreign demand for a nation's exports, may well have a disequilibrating impact on the balance of payments, even in the absence of a change in the underlying conditions of monetary supply and demand. However, in Mises's view, such nonmonetary disturbances of balance-of-payments equilibrium are merely short-run phenomena. It is one of the functions of the balance-of-payments adjustment mechanism to reverse the disequilibrating flows of money that attend these disturbances and to restore thereby the equilibrium distribution of the world money stock, which is determined solely by the configuration of individual demands for money holdings. If the state of the balance of payments is such that movements of money would have to occur from one country to the other, independently of any altered estimation of money on the part of their respective inhabitants, then operations are induced which re-establish equilibrium. Those persons who receive more money than they will need hasten to spend the surplus again as soon as possible, whether they buy production goods or consumption goods. On the other hand, those persons whose stock of money falls below the amount they will need will be obliged to increase their stock of money, either by restricting their purchases or by disposing of commodities in their possession. The price variations, in the markets of the countries in question, that occur for these reasons give rise to transactions which must always re-establish the equilibrium of the balance of payments. A debit or credit balance of payments that is not dependent upon an alteration in the conditions of demand for money can only be transient.9 The foregoing passage illustrates the difference between Mises and the global monetarists, who deny the possibility that international flows of money can proceed from nonmonetary causes. Their denial is tantamount to claiming that all international movements of money are necessarily equilibrating, since they are undertaken solely in response to disequilibrium between national supplies of and demands for money. As Yeager has pointed out, this line of reasoning leads to the outright and fallacious identification of balance-of-payments surpluses and deficits with the process of adjusting national money stocks to desired levels. It is not difficult to pinpoint the source from which this erroneous line of reasoning stems: it is the tendency of the monetary approach to depart from the sound precept of methodological individualism and to focus on the nation rather than the individual as the basic unit of analysis. In so doing, it has naturally, although quite illegitimately, applied to the nation analytical concepts and constructs that are appropriate only to the analysis of individual action. In particular, the monetary approach attempts to explain balance-of-payments phenomena by conceiving the nation in the manner of a household or firm that is consciously aiming at acquiring and maintaining an optimum level of money balances. The concept of what Ludwig Lachmann has called "the equilibrium of the household and of the firm" is then invoked to describe the actions which the nation-household must and will undertake in the service of this goal.10 As Lachmann explains, the concept of household-firm equilibrium is implied in the very logic of choice.11 An economic agent will always choose the course of action consistent with his goals and their ranking given his knowledge of available resources and of technology. His actions are, therefore, always equilibrating in the sense that they are always aimed at bringing about a (possibly only momentarily) preferred state of affairs. In the context of the issues dealt with by the monetary approach, the implication of this analytical concept is that the nation will never alter the level of its stock of money unless it is dissatisfied with it, that is, unless there is an excess supply of or demand for domestic money. A further implication is that all international movements of money will be equilibrating, the result of deliberate steps undertaken by nations to adjust their actual money balances to desired levels. National payments, surpluses and deficits, then, are logically always associated with the adjustment of monetary disequilibrium. To argue that balance-of-payments disequilibria may arise, even temporarily, for reasons unrelated to monetary disequilibrium is to argue that the economic agent, in this case the nation, has taken leave of economic rationality. Why else acquire or rid oneself of money balances, if not as a deliberate act of choice aimed at securing a more preferred position? Thus the global monetarists are prepared to deny, for example, that a shift in relative demands from domestic to foreign products would create even a temporary deficit in the balance of payments in the absence of the development of an excess supply of domestic money. This clearly illustrates the confusion that results when monetary theorists lapse into methodological holism and apply to hypostasized entities such as the nation concepts whose use is inappropriate outside the realm of individual action. The concept of household-firm equilibrium has meaning only within the framework of the logic of choice. And the logic of choice itself is meaningful only within the context of individual action. By virtue of his thoroughgoing methodological individualism, Mises maintains a firm grasp on the all-important distinction between the equilibrium of the individual actor and interindividual equilibrium in his balance-of-payments analysis. This difference between Mises's approach and the monetary approach may be seen in their divergent analyses of the effects on the balance of payments of a change emanating from the "real" or "goods" side of the economy. Assuming an international pure specie currency and starting from a situation of monetary and balance-of-payments equilibrium, let us suppose that domestic consumers increase their expenditures on foreign imports and that this increase reflects increased valuations of foreign products relative to domestic products. Let us further assume that the overall demand for money balances remains unchanged and that no other changes in the real or monetary data occur elsewhere in the system. Under these conditions, those proponents of the monetary approach who are inclined to identify balance-of-payments surpluses and deficits with the process of adjusting monetary disequilibrium would naturally deny any disequilibrating effect on the balance of payments, since the nation, by hypothesis, does not wish to alter its level of money balances but merely its mix of consumers' goods. The adjustment will thus proceed entirely in the goods sphere, with the nation simply increasing its exports of domestic products, which it now demands less urgently, to pay for the increased imports of the now more highly esteemed foreign products, while the level of its money balances remains unchanged. For Mises, however, things are not simple, since the adjustment process does not consist of the mutually consistent choices and actions of a single macroeconomic agent. Rather, it involves a succession of configurations of mutually inconsistent individual equilibria representing numerous microeconomic agents who are induced by the price system to bring their individual actions into closer and closer coordination until a final interindividual equilibrium is effected. As a consequence, in Mises's analysis there will indeed emerge an initial balance-of-payments deficit and corresponding outflow of money from the nation as domestic consumers shift their expenditures from domestic products to foreign imports. Now, from the point of view of these individual domestic consumers, this outflow of money is certainly "equilibrating" in the logic-of-choice sense, because it demonstrably facilitates their attainment of a more preferred position. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the economic system as a whole, far from serving to adjust a preexisting monetary disequilibrium, this flow of money disrupts the prevailing equilibrium in the interindividual distribution of money balances and is therefore ultimately self-reversing. Thus, the domestic producers of those goods for which demand has declined experience a shrinkage of their incomes, which threatens to leave them with insufficient money balances. On the other hand, the foreign producers, the demand for whose products have increased, experience an augmentation of their incomes and a consequent buildup of excess money balances. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that the steps undertaken by both groups to readjust their money balances to desired levels will initiate a balance-of-payments adjustment process that will reestablish the original, equilibrium distribution of money holdings among individuals, and hence among nations. Mises thus arrives at the same long-run, comparative-static conclusion as the proponents of the monetary approach do, to the effect that the change in question will not result in any alteration in national money stocks. However, his focus on the individual economic agent leads him to analyze the dynamic macroeconomic process by which the comparative-static, macroeconomic result emerges. Before concluding, I wish to briefly note two other important ways in which Mises anticipated the monetary approach. The first involves the global perspective of the monetary approach, which contrasts so sharply with the narrowly national focus of closed-economy macro-models typical of the various Keynesian approaches to the balance of payments. The monetary approach views the world economy as a unitary market with the various national commodity and capital submarkets fully integrated with one another and subject to the rule of the law of one price. As a consequence, arbitrage insures that a particular nation's prices and interest rates are rigidly determined by the forces of supply and demand prevailing on the world market. The analytical importance of the global perspective, which has revolutionized modern balance-of-payments analysis, was grasped completely by Mises: The mobility of capital goods, which nowadays is but little restricted by legislative provisions such as customs duties, or by other obstacles, has led to the formation of a homogeneous world capital market. In the loan markets of the countries that take part in international trade, the net rate of interest is no longer determined according to national, but according to international, considerations. Its level is settled, not by the natural rate of interest in the country, but by the natural rate of interest anywhere…. So long and in so far … as a nation participates in international trade, its market is only a part of the world market; prices are determined not nationally but internationally.12 I might add that Mises's individualist and subjectivist analytical focus enables him to deal more trenchantly than the writers on the monetary approach with the objection that the existence of internationally nontraded goods and services, for example, houses, haircuts, ice cream cones, severely limits the operation of the law of one price and thus undermines the unity of the world price level. The response of the proponents of the monetary approach, such as Jacob Frankel and Harry Johnson, is the empirical assertion that the elasticities of substitution between the classes of traded and nontraded goods approaches infinity in both consumption and production, a condition that places extremely narrow limits on the range of relative price changes between the two classes of goods.13 Mises, on the other hand, disposes of the objection theoretically.14 His argument is based on the important insight that the location of a good in space is a factor conditioning its usefulness and, therefore, its subjective value to the individual economic agent. For this reason, technologically identical goods that occupy different positions in space are, in fact, different goods. To the extent that the overall valuations and demands of market participants for such physically identical goods differ according to their locations, there will naturally be no tendency for their prices to be equalized. Mises is able to conclude logically, therefore, that the existence of so-called nontraded goods whose prices tend to diverge internationally does not constitute a valid objection to the worldwide operation of the law of one price in the case of each and every good and the corollary tendency to complete equalization of the purchasing power of a unit of the world money. A final respect in which Mises can be considered as a forerunner of the monetary approach is in his analysis of the causes and cures of a persistent balance-of-payments disequilibrium. For Mises and for the monetary approach, a chronic balance-of-payments deficit can only result from an inflationary monetary policy that continuously introduces excess money balances into the domestic economy via bank-credit creation. The deficit and the corresponding efflux of gold reflects the repeated attempts of domestic money holders to rid themselves of these excess balances, which are being re-created over and over again by the inflationary intervention of the monetary authority. The deficits will only be terminated when the inflationary monetary policy is brought to a halt or the stock of gold reserves is exhausted. Tariffs and other protectionist measures will fail to rectify the situation, since they do not address the fundamental cause of monetary disequilibrium. The connection between inflationist, interventionist monetary policies and chronic balance-of-payments disequilibrium is delineated by Mises in the following passage: If the government introduces into trade quantities of inconvertible banknotes or government notes, then this must lead to a monetary depreciation. The value of the monetary unit declines. However, this depreciation in value can affect only the inconvertible notes. Gold money retains all, or almost all, of its value internationally. However, since the state — with its power to use the force of the law — declares the lower-valued monetary notes equal in purchasing power to the higher-valued gold money and forbids the gold money from being traded at a higher value than the paper notes, the gold coins must vanish from the market. They may disappear abroad. They may be melted down for use in domestic industry. Or they may be hoarded.… No special government intervention is needed to retain the precious metals in circulation within a country. It is enough for the state to renounce all attempts to relieve financial distress by resorting to the printing press. To uphold the currency, it need do no more than that. And it need do only that to accomplish this goal. All orders and prohibitions, all measures to limit foreign exchange transactions, etc., are completely useless and purposeless.15 In conclusion, Mises's contribution to balance-of-payments analysis should be hailed not only as a doctrinal milestone in the development of the monetary approach but, much more importantly, as a shining exemplar of methodological individualism in monetary theory.16 [This article is excerpted from Money, Sound and Unsound, chapter 6: "Ludwig von Mises and the Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments: Comment on Yeager." This essay originally appeared in Method, Process, and Austrian Economics: Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises, ed. Israel M. Kirzner (New York: D.C. Heath and Company, 1982), pp. 247–56.] 1.The exception is Thomas M. Humphrey, "Dennis H. Robertson and the Monetary Approach to Exchange Rates," Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Review 66 (May/June 1980), p. 24, wherein Mises is briefly mentioned as one whose contributions to the monetary approach have been largely overlooked. 2.M.A. Akhtar, "Some Common Misconceptions about the Monetary Approach to International Adjustment," in The Monetary Approach to International Adjustment, eds. Bluford H. Putnam and D. Sykes Wilford (New York: Praeger, 1978), p. 121. 3.Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, new enl. ed., trans. H.E. Batson (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1971), p. 182. 4.Ibid. 5.Ibid., pp. 183–84. 6.Ibid., p. 184. 7.Ludwig von Mises, On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, ed. Percy L. Greaves, trans. Bettina Bien Greaves (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Free Market Books, 1978), pp. 53–54. 8.Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, p. 185. 9.Ibid., pp. 184–85. 10.Ludwig M. Lachmann, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Economy, ed. Walter E. Grinder (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977), p. 117. 11.Ibid., pp. 117, 189. 12.Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 374–75. 13.Jacob A. Frenkel and Harry G. Johnson, "The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments: Essential Concepts and Historical Origins," in The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments, eds. Jacob A. Frenkel and Harry G. Johnson (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1976), pp. 27–28. 14.Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 170–78. 15.Mises, Manipulation of Money and Credit, p. 55. 16.Limitation of space has precluded a discussion of Mises's analysis of the exchange rate. Suffice it to say that Mises anticipated the monetary approach to the exchange rate, both in his pathbreaking explanation of the purchasing-power-parity theory (which predated Cassel) and also in his integration of expectations into the explanation of short-run exchange-rate movements. Moreover, Mises brought his global perspective to bear in his insight that the exchange rate between national currencies is to be explained on the same principles as the exchange rate between parallel currencies circulating in the same nation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------