Sound Banking
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“Fresh Attacks on Fed Move”
“A group of prominent Republican-leaning economists, coordinating with Republican lawmakers and political strategists, is launching a campaign this week calling on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to drop his plan to buy $600 billion in additional U.S. Treasury bonds. “The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve…
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“Fed’s Plosser Says Understanding Crisis May Take 50 Years”
““It will be at least 50 years before we really understand very well what happened in 2008-2009, and we will be interpreting for another 50 years as to whether the Federal Reserve undertook the right policies or the wrong policies,” Plosser said today during an audience discussion at a Fed conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia.…
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“Ireland Crises Could Cause EU Collapse”
“The president of the European Union has warned that the EU could collapse unless the debt crisis that is gripping the region is resolved. Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, raised the stakes ahead of this evening’s showdown talks between finance ministers in Brussels. With Ireland and Portugal both on the brink of…
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“Has the Fed Been a Failure?” – Selgin, Lastrapes and White
“As the one-hundredth anniversary of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act approaches, we assess whether the nation’s experiment with the Federal Reserve has been a success or a failure. Drawing on a wide range of empirical research, we find the following: 1) The Fed’s full history (1914 to present) has been characterized by more rather than…
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“Leading Chinese credit rating agency downgrades USA government bonds”
“One of China’s leading credit rating agencies has downgraded United States of America government debt in response to what it sees as deliberate devaluation of the dollar by quantitative easing and other means. If China, now the second biggest economy in the world, stops buying US government bonds this could have a very negative effect…
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Getting on Track
On Wednesday, November 10, Sound Money held a panel at annual Liberty Forum hosted by Atlas. The panel featured Judy Shelton, Sean Fieler and Steven Horwitz, with Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks acting as moderator. Perhaps it is a bit self-serving to say that it was excellent, but the point still stands. I, personally, had little…
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Larry White on the Business Cycle
Peter Boettke over on Coordination Problem posted an excellent video of Larry White discussing the Austrian theory of the business cycle. Enjoy!
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“Ben Bernanke’s Impossible Dream” – WSJ
“At Jackson Hole, Mr. Bernanke explained that “if inflation expectations were too low . . . an increase in inflation expectations could become a benefit.” Well, he’s certainly succeeded in raising inflationary expectations. But rising commodity prices and a debased dollar have proved harmful to many businesses because inflated costs mean deflated profit margins. The…
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“Fed Counts on ‘Psychological Bump’ With Borrowing, but May Just Add to Debt, Inflation”
“Investors beware: The Federal Reserve may have just agreed to make $600 billion more available for borrowing, but don’t expect to see that money flooding the market any time soon. At least that’s the warning from some financial experts who say the Federal Reserve’s pledge to buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds is unlikely to…
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“Sovereign Debt Concerns Weigh on Euro”
“The euro came under pressure as worries over the finances of countries on the edges of the eurozone continued to undermine the single currency. While the cost of insuring against a default in Portuguese, Greek and Spanish government debt has risen sharply, Ireland has become the main focus of investors’ concerns. The cost of protecting…
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Democracy in Deficit
“Vol. 8 of The Collected Works. Democracy in Deficit is one of the early comprehensive attempts to apply the basic principles of public-choice analysis to macroeconomic theory and policy. The book serves to bolster Buchanan’s central beliefs in the necessity of a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution and in monetary rules rather than central…
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“Fed’s Hoenig: Fed Needs To Increase Key Rates, Normalize Policy”
“The Federal Reserve’s vocal dissenter stood his ground against ultraloose monetary policy Friday in a week that the Fed opened the floodgate to loose additional dollars into the system. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig on Friday said the Fed needs to move rates “off of zero” to ensure a more stable…