Have you read Jesus from Outer Space?

That’s literally the book you are describing.

Good catch. Thank you. The URL for the video (which is supposed to show up in the immediately following blank space) seems to be missing from the code.

I’ll let them know and have them email you when a fix is up.

More of you doing the same thing.

Lo and behold.

You are in a death-loop.

What strikes me in your replies is the rhetorical pattern rather than the substance. When someone raises a point you disagree with, the response is not to identify the claim and explain why it is wrong, but to frame the other person as “duped,” irrational, or mentally deficient.

That move functions as pre-emptive delegitimization rather than argument. By declaring opponents incompetent or deceived, the claim itself never has to be examined while certainty is signalled to the audience. It’s a pattern visible across many of your discussions, particularly when the topic moves outside your primary field. The result is less analysis than intellectual status-defence.

You’re still doing it. Ignoring that you got conned (or were trying to con me) and complaining that you got caught.

If everyone else acted like you, civilization would be in ruins. And you would probably be dead, eaten by cannibal Nazi biker gangs.

And yet you continue to fail to learn. Time after time. Right here in real time.

Richard, I commented here because you posted the productivity–compensation chart on your Facebook page and comments were closed there. The chart appears in the same collection of long-run economic series on the site I linked, and the underlying data come from the Economic Policy Institute. Since you raised the issue of wages, affordability, and the cost of living, the broader set of historical series is directly relevant to that discussion.

You were also the one who introduced “crypto” and Bitcoin into the thread, not me. Those two things are not the same. Much of the crypto token ecosystem deserves the criticism it receives. Bitcoin, however, is a monetary protocol and settlement network, which is a different phenomenon entirely.

As for the suggestion that I have been “duped,” that seems to be your standard way of dismissing interpretations you disagree with. Progressive interpretations of economic trends are contested, just as Austrian, Keynesian, monetarist, and MMT approaches are debated within economics. That is simply how intellectual inquiry works.

And dismissing Hayek as if he were some fringe crank is historically inaccurate. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on capital theory and the role of dispersed information in economic systems. One does not have to agree with his conclusions to recognize that his contributions are part of mainstream economic thought.

In any case, I was simply engaging the economic point you raised when you posted the chart. If you prefer not to engage the economic question, I am happy to leave it there.

Getting caught being duped by crypto shill manipulation and then attacking the messenger rather than acting wisely on the message is exactly the worst possible thing you could be doing here.

I’ll give you a moment to realize that.

For everyone else:

Absolutely never do what Richard Martin is doing here. This behavior, society-wide, is the doom-loop that will destroy civilization. Don’t be that guy.

Richard, I was hoping to engage in useful exchange with you about macroeconomics as viewed through a monetary lens. You posted some interesting points of view on FB. However, your resort to ad hominem attacks reveals more about your anger and resentments than me. You know nothing about me other than what I shared through those links. Of course you’re free to ignore me, but I don’t take insults and personal attacks lightly. I appreciate your historical work and have most of your books. On the other hand, you act as if your political beliefs and philosophy are facts. They’re not. They are simply opinions that are open to debate, just like everyone else’s. I also find it ironic that you accuse others of being shills when you are constantly promoting your own works and services. I am okay with that as we all have to earn our bread. But don’t pretend you’re morally superior because you think your work is worthwhile while that of others isn’t.