Latest
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One Currency Doesn’t Require “One Europe”
The creation of the euro was either the greatest historic achievement of the last century—or its worst delusion. Not to be glib, but the answer is both: The euro represents a magnificent step toward fulfilling money’s highest purposes—to serve as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value—but it’s also…
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“Placing our faith in economic oracles”
“One of the sadder categories in the history of human misfortunes is the list of those things that are obvious, but wrong. By definition, if something is obvious, most people agree with it, and thus, it is likely to win the day – but lose the verdict of history. The Earth is flat – obviously.…
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“Something Besides Money Growth Causes Inflation?”
“Some economic phenomena can result from a variety of causes. A temporary increase in unemployment, for example, might be caused by a sudden, disruptive change in production technology, or in trade patterns, or in labor or tax laws; or it could be caused by natural disasters or wars, or by recessions due to monetary or…
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“Giving the Fed New Powers Ignores History”
“The Fed’s own origins are evidence for this point. It is usually argued that the Fed was created to avoid the banking crises that plagued the United States in the late 19th century. That is true to an extent. What it misses is that those crises were the product of the regulations of the National…
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“Competitve Currencies, Legal Restrictions and the Origins of the Fed”
“In the last several years, economists have produced numoerous studies examining both the theoretical operations and historical manifestations of unregulated banking systems. Recent examples of historical investigations are the studies by L. White (47), who explores the Scottish experience, Selgin (33) on China, and Timberlake (43), Gorton (12), and Mullineaux (20), all of whom examin…
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“Sound Money: The Impossible Dream?”
“Our gold standard money didn’t fail us in 1913; it was murdered. Did it deserve to die? What was its crime? It had provided us with nothing less than relative peace and prosperity over a span of 136 years. It had not only retained one hundred percent of its value, it had gained eleven percent.…
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“More Muscle to Fed”
“Mr. Dodd’s bill would allow the Fed to examine any bank-holding company with more than $50 billion in assets, and large financial companies that aren’t banks could be lassoed into the Fed’s supervisory orbit. This came after Treasury officials pushed Mr. Dodd to bring more companies under the Fed’s purview. Any financial company, from small…
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The Global Debt Crisis
Recent developments have clearly demonstrated that “there is no such thing as a Keynesian free lunch.” The grim story of fiscal crises afflicting major economies is something that should not be taken lightly. It could happen sooner than most people think if the governments of the US and other debt-ridden countries don’t get their fiscal…
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Getting to the Bottom?
On Wednesday, March 10, a Wall Street Journal article announced that the Financial Crisis Panel will be convened in early April with Alan Greenspan as the center act. According to the article, “The hearing will focus on the explosion of subprime mortgages, and the complex securitizations that Wall Street engineered from those loans. And it…
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“Gold and Economic Freedom”
“An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and…
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