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Ask Von Mises

  
  

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Regrettable Juvenilia
20:40 / 09.12.04


Hello boys and girls! My name is Ludvig Von Mises, economist and philosopher. You may remember me from such books as Capitalism: Yay! and I Heart Wal-Mart. However, now I've decided to diversify and offer advice to problems that are not just economic, but also personal, social, spiritual and sexual. So please, if you have a problem, post your dilemma or query here, and I will attempt to provide a solution just as quickly and comprehensively as I can!

Yours fondly,

Uncle Ludvig.
 
 
lekvar
20:45 / 09.12.04
Dear Mr. Von Mises,
I have this, er, friend that suffers from Erectile Disfunction. How can the Free Market Economy and Market Liberalization cure my, I mean his little difficulty? Failing that, can he use the power of Globalisation to satisfy his girlfriend?
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
20:48 / 09.12.04
How can I make people feel better about me being so great? It must be hard on their self esteem. Paupers.
 
 
Elegant Mess
20:51 / 09.12.04
Can I borrow a fiver?

Just 'til Tuesday, like.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
20:53 / 09.12.04


Hello lekvar!

I like your name. Is it Russian? If so, you have my sympathy. Your people have suffered terribly under the iron yoke of SOCIALISM.

As it happens, this relates to the problem of erectile dysfunction - or, as I like to call it, ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION. This is caused by the fact that people are not free to choose their own food and instead have to swallow the food that their SOCIALIST governments FORCEFEED them. The food contains lipids which impede the flow of blood to the penis, scientifically.

There are many drugs available that can cure this ailment. Unfortunately some of them are BANNED by tyrannical, nanny-ing socialist governments who think they know best. (Boo!) If their was a totally free market these drugs would be freely available and very cheap. (Yay!)

If your friend cannot get hold of any such medication, I would advise him to read and then re-read The Fountainhead. That always gets my jock rock.

Yours with kind wishes,

Uncle Ludvig.
 
 
w1rebaby
20:59 / 09.12.04
Dear Mr Von Mises,

Despite a thoroughly moral grounding in the primacy of free market principles, I have recently found myself growing tired and listless when watching President Bush on TV, and suspecting that he may be just a representative of a self-serving oligarchy determined to keep itself in a position of wealth by creating and exploiting unjustified fears in the populace and influencing mass media in order to suppress dissenting viewpoints.

I am bothered by these intrusive thoughts. How can I get rid of them? Is there a remedy involving exercise, perhaps massaging of the kidneys?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:00 / 09.12.04


Get thee behind me, Elegant Mess! I will happily SHARE my worldly goods with my family, fellow thinkers of the Austrian school, and stunning 25 year-old supermodel girlfriend, but I will not bestow HANDOUTS upon those who refuse to EARN their daily crust.

Yours fondly,

Ludvig.
 
 
MJ-12
21:01 / 09.12.04
Lekvar, fortunatly individuals pursuing their self-interest have clearly placed a higher subjective value on drugs which deal with erectile dysfunction than with those that deal with things like HIV or cancer, so prices have come down to where you have a number of options available. If, however, you would prefer to avoid chemical solutions, you can always turn to the global market, and aquire a mail-order bride. I'd recomend Laos.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:04 / 09.12.04


Dear Suedey, you young scamp,

I feel for your predicament, my brother! This is a problem that all great thinkers and artists have faced over the centuries. The jealous ones who envy us should not be hated, though - their minds have been warped by the teachings of SOCIALISTS, such as Adolf Hitler.

I am reminded of something my friend and former lover Caterine Vauban once wrote: "YOU KNOW I AM RIGHT." I find those words comforting in my hour of solitude. I hope you will too.

Your Friend,

Ludvig Von Mises.
 
 
Mazarine
21:09 / 09.12.04
Dear Herr von Mises,

How can I tell if my supervisor at work is unstable/insane?

Sincerely,

Sally Dammerung
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:22 / 09.12.04


Dear fridgemagnet,

You are right to be suspicious of that socialist, George W Bush. Like his father and other far-left political tyrants such as Franco and Mussolini, he is imposing a harsh tyrannical yoke upon the beautiful shapely neck of CAPITALISM. Capitalism wishes to run free, capering about the marketplace like a coltish peasant girl, but SOCIALISM will always seek to lock her in a dank and horrid cell. Please see my website, www.mises.org (www.mises.org) for further details.

Yours thoughtfully

Ludvig.
 
 
eddie thirteen
02:47 / 10.12.04
Dear Mr. Von Mises,

Sir -- I stand in awe of your stylish bowtie, and wouldn't mind sporting one myself...IF tilting my own bowtie at the rakish angle portrayed in your icon would be couth. It's a distinctive style, and I'm unsure of the etiquette surrounding such things; the last thing I'd want to do is cause offense. Would such an act on my part be flattering homage, or would I merely be just another bitch mothafucka who's trying to steal your flow? I'd like to avoid the latter, if possible. Thanks in advance!

Respectfully,

Eddie Thirteen
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:28 / 10.12.04
Dear Professor von Mises,

There's this girl. I know she likes me. We spend lots of time together, and I'm the one she complains about her boyfriend too. Her boyfriend is a pig. He doesn't appreciate her, and what a wonderful person she is. I knbow that she could do so much better. And, since I have been single since I recently broke up with this chick who dug my cartooning and songwriting in 1999, I am perfectly placed to give her the love she needs. I have seen her looking a little unhappy when he kisses her, and she often tells me that I am such a good friend, that I am just like one of the girls and that she feels so safe and unthreatened around me. I believe that she is in love with me, if only she would notice.

So, my question is, how do I make her realise that she is in love with me and not her boyfriend at all?
 
 
Elegant Mess
13:56 / 10.12.04
Dear Ludvig (can I call you Ludvig?),

I respectfully accept your invitation to get me behind thee. While I'm here behind you, I have one more question:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
 
 
doglikesparky
21:33 / 10.12.04
Dear Uncle Ludvig,

I would very much like to ask you a question but cannot think of anything with which I would seek your advice.
Can you help me think of something suitable to ask you please? Plainly, you're insights are without equal and I feel advice from you on any matter could only be a boon.
Please help me receive some of your expert tutelage.

Yours respectfully,
Sparky (doglike)
 
 
■
21:52 / 10.12.04
Mein Herr, Von Mises,
bin ein stranges muonkey im Weiss Haus, Waschestadt, USA. Hilfe. Meine freundin macht mir vielen auslander tod machen. Ich liebe den freiheit und ich hoffe zu das meine Heimat werde mehr frei. Was sagt sie? Ich habe "arbeit mach frei" hoeren. Stimmt?
bis bald
Georgei
 
 
Never or Now!
00:28 / 11.12.04
Dear Von Mises,

Upon finishing work yesterday, I visited a nearby restaurant. As I ordered my food, I specifically stated: "No corn!" - I dislike corn very much! When at length my meal arrived, I was dismayed to find that it quite literally HAD CORN IN IT! I pointed this out to the restaurant staff, and they were kind enough to rectify the situation. All well and good, and yet: I don't seem to be able to get the incident out of my mind, and the more I think of it, the more furious it makes me. How DARE these CORN NAZIS treat ME this way with their insolence and their time-wasting and their CORN and no doubt making JOKES ABOUT ME in the kitchen. I feel the need for REVENGE, perhaps using some sort of incendiary device culled from the pages of "THE ANARCHIST COOKBOOK". Von Mises: what measures do YOU feel would be appropriate?

Yours Amiably,

Anon. in Exeter
 
 
Bear
00:33 / 11.12.04
Guten Tag Mises,

Do you we have to speak in German like above because mine's kinda rusty.

In fact I don't know how to type in German, should I go back to school and study German or should I give up on it and study Russian?

Wei gates, vo vonst du? See that's all I can do, however my Russian is even worse.

Please help Gamesmaster.
 
 
Bear
00:34 / 11.12.04
Or how about English?
 
 
Whisky Priestess
12:44 / 11.12.04
The GCSE German Translatron has this to say:

Mein Herr, Von Mises,
bin ein stranges muonkey im Weiss Haus, Waschestadt, USA. Hilfe. Meine freundin macht mir vielen auslander tod machen. Ich liebe den freiheit und ich hoffe zu das meine Heimat werde mehr frei. Was sagt sie? Ich habe "arbeit mach frei" hoeren. Stimmt?
bis bald
Georgei

Dear Von Mises
There is a strange monkey in the White House, Washington, USA. My friend would like to kill a lot of foreigners (lit. "make them dead"). I love freedom and I wish my homeland were more free. What's your advice? I've heard "work makes you free". Ok?
yours
Georgei

(Disclaimer: The GCSE German Translatron is frequently inaccurate and downright misleading, relying as it does on worn-out, superseded and misremembered vocabulary. Do not sign or act on any document translated by The GCSE German Translatron. Do not take internally.)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
19:07 / 11.12.04


Dear Sally Dammerung,

You have a beautiful name. It is so beautiful it reminds me of capitalism. Perhaps you would like to visit me some day in my beautiful chalet?

In answer to your question, a good way to tell if your supervisor is INSANE is if you see him reading a book that contains SOCIALIST propaganda. Examples of this include The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, and Fly-Fishing by J.R. Hartley.

Yours lovingly,

Ludvig.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
19:11 / 11.12.04


Dear Elegant Mess,

It depends on whether the woodchuck was FREE to chuck as much wood as the woodchuck wished to chuck (as he or she would be in a truly free capitalist economy), or if the woodchuck were CONSTRAINED by a tyrannical socialist government that did not trust he or she to chuck wood according to his or her own wishes, and imposed foolish and unnecessary restrictions upon his wood-chuckery.

Yours in Christ,

Von Mises.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
19:16 / 11.12.04


Dear doglikesparky,

Your humility is inspiring, touching, and entirely warranted. You are a lesson to everyone except me and my fellow thinkers of the Austrian school.

A good question to ask me might be "Von Mises, what is the greatest album of the past ten years?" or "Von Mises, please describe the most erotic experience of your life to date."

Yours,

Uncle Ludvig.

PS: The rest of you, I promise to answer all your questions in time, but Eva is calling me to the table to partake of a fine dinner of parsnip broth and the powdered bones of the workers, so I must postpone my answers for now. All in good time. LVM.
 
 
■
21:32 / 11.12.04
WP, I salute your ability to render my drunk garbled German into English:

Dear Von Mises
There is a strange monkey in the White House, Washington, USA. My friend would like to kill a lot of foreigners (lit. "make them dead"). I love freedom and I wish my homeland were more free. What's your advice? I've heard "work makes you free". Ok?
yours
Georgei

It was supposed to be "I am a strange monkey", "my friends". However, everything else is pretty exact. Bad gag done badly (Must not post drunk!). I was trying to be GW as a pathetic Nazi in search of advice. It was an attempt to play on the appropriation of the Nazi "Heimat" which needed expansion at all costs ("arbeit mach frei") and "Homeland" which needs protecting at all costs. Much less funny when I finally dragged myself out of bed at 4 this afternoon and looked at what I had posted.
Please ignore these posts. very sorry. Fell into the old British racist fall-back of German=Nazi. My apologies to any real Germans on the board.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
22:35 / 11.12.04
Oh dear ... such schoolgirl errors! Goethe would not be proud. I must be punished. Professor - what sort of chastisement would be appropriate?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:08 / 13.12.04
Dear Von Mises,

I'm experimenting with soya bean flour. For the most part I've enjoyed modest success, simply replacing the flour componant in my recipies with the bean flour and a little extra liquid.

However, my roux refuses to turn. This means that whenever I make a bechamel sauce I am FORCED to return to cornflour.

I feel that as a consumer I am ENTITLED to make my bechamel sauce out of whatever flour I CHOOSE. Yet when I attempted to return the OBVIOUSLY SUBSTANDARD bean flour to the shop where I had purchased it, the TILL NAZI refused to refund MY money! Worse, she had the nerve to complain that the runny bechamel sauce I had brought in as EVIDENCE was leaking out of the plastic bag and onto the carpet.

I reported the matter to the police, who are SUPPOSEDLY charge with protecting my property (in this case, the money that was SWINDLED from me by the fraudulent health-food shop). To my HORROR, they refused to help!

How can I obtain the JUSTICE which I am denied?
 
 
SMS
04:58 / 14.12.04
Dear professor,

I am consumed with sin. I have rejected God and all his ways and have fallen into the hands of Satan. I wish to repent, but I feel that I am unworthy of it. I wish to love God, but fear I have forgotten how to love. Each day is a nightmare. Each night is a journey through hell. How can God ever forgive me of my sins?

Yours unworthily,
a condemned man.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:38 / 15.12.04
Nevermind your soul, what about my bechamel?

I shouldn't have to point this out to an economist of Von Mises' standing BUT it seems I MUST:

I posited a VERY REASONABLE question. Since YOU (Von Mises) have commenced a thread requesting questions and PROMISING answers, it follows that an answer to my question exists WITHIN the very SUBSTANCE of my question which is my intellectual PROPERTY. Since my question is my intellectual PROPERTY, the answer existing within it is also my PROPERTY. I DEMAND my intellectual PROPERTY, viz my ANSWER to my very reasonable question!
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:03 / 24.12.04


Hello there again, boys and girls!

I am sorry that I have been away from you for so long. I have been very busy buying Christmas presents to sell to all my friends and fellow thinkers of the Austrian school.

In many ways Christmas is a wonderful time of year, in that it enables us to glory fully in the wonder of CAPITALISM. However, I myself am always aghast at some of the other traditions popular at this time of year, such as the increase of beggars. It beggars belief (ho ho) that some people want to THIEVE from me the precious, precious coins that I have EARNT myself over the past year and want to SPEND profitably and constructively in honest SHOPS. The other day, as I passed one of these feckless wastrels and gave him not some "spare change" (it is not SPARE!), but rather a kick in the face, I was reprimanded by my assistant, Pratchett.



Pratchett

"B-but Mr Von Mises", he blubbered from beneath the pile of presents I was making him carry, like the failed fantasy writer he is, "If that poor soul does not find food or shelter this night, he may perish from hunger or cold!"

"If he's going to perish, then he should get on with, and decrease the surplus population!" I cried, and poked my worthless sidekick in the eye with one thumb. "I'm docking you a day's wages, Pratchett, for your insubordination."

At this point Pratchett dropped one of the many copies of PJ O'Rourke's I Am A Wretched Boil Of Inhumanity, Hee Hee! under which he was struggling, and I was forced to beat him soundly in the street. But I have digressed. On with your questions:

eddie: I appreciate your aesthetic taste. Fortunately, the WEALTH of free CHOICE afforded to us by capitalism means that there exist a wide range of bowties for you to purchase, many of which are notably different from mine. However, be careful that you are not persuaded by some LIBERAL ELITIST NINNY of a shopkeeper (unlikely, I know, since most liberals work in BAD SCHOOLS or as chimneysweeps instead) to buy a bowtie which has been included on the shop's sheleves not through its own irrefutable OBJECTIVE worth as piece of CRAFTMANSHIP, but because it was made by a BLACK LESBIAN IN A WHEELCHAIR. This kind of tokenism is a symptom of SOCIALIST corruption and one must always be on the watch for it.

Haus: you foul dog. How dare you presume to INFRINGE upon another man's PROPERTY?

With love,

Von Mises.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:08 / 24.12.04


Dear Lionel Wallace

Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the masses. Since Marx was WRONG AND EVIL IN EVERY RESPECT (as shown by his acolytes, such as Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Nick Griffiths, and Margaret Thatcher), it stands to reason that religion is JUST GREAT. Repent or be damned.

Yours sincerely,

Von Mises.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
18:45 / 25.12.04


Hello Barbelith!

I do want to answer all these questions of yours, and I will in time. But do you know, the funniest thing befell me last night, an experience that has profoundly changed my outlook on life. Do you wish to hear about it? Please tell me if you do, and I will start a new thread to recount my tale.

Yours even more sincerely than usual,

Ludvig Von Mises.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:19 / 24.08.05
And what was this experience, Uncle von?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
19:48 / 24.08.05
Did you see a mimsy?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
21:39 / 24.08.05
More likely a Wimsey.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:37 / 24.08.05
Who wouldn't want to see a Wimsey?
 
  

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