Today’s worldwide fiat-money regime has effects that extend beyond what most people would imagine, writes Thorsten Polleit. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Harold Fritsche.
I. The ongoing financial and economic crisis has not only stoked fears that it will end in inflation — as central banks will print up ever-greater amounts of money — but it has also given rise to a diametrically opposed concern: namely, that of deflation . For instance, in December 2011 Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund
I. The latest wave of financial-market turmoil has been caused in particular by growing investor concern about the financial health of commercial banks, especially banks in the eurozone. It seems that investors have been increasingly losing confidence in banks’ ability to live up to their payment obligations under “normal” market conditions and to
I. Monetary Expansion Is Kept Going In monetary analyses, the balance sheet of the commercial banking sector is typically kept separate from the balance sheet of the US Federal Reserve (Fed). However, combining the two balance sheets might be much more informative. First, adding up the business volumes of commercial banks and the Fed provides a
I. Today’s worldwide paper-, or “fiat-,” money regime is an economically and socially destructive scheme — with far-reaching and seriously harmful economic and societal consequences, effects that extend beyond what most people would imagine. Fiat money is inflationary; it benefits a few at the expense of many others; it causes boom-and-bust
I. The saying that things may work nicely in theory, but do not necessarily work in practice is well known. It is typically meant to disparage the importance of theory, suggesting it would be too far removed from practical matters to help in solving the issue at hand. The Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), in his 1793 essay “On the
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.