Peddling Protectionism is a real gem. Irwin does not mince words, and he ably tosses aside misconceptions of Smoot-Hawley and replaces them with objective economic analysis.
While I have a high regard for what Austrian economics gets right that other economic schools do not, I consider myself a “Neo-Scholastic” economist, a term which I will try to explain.
Murray Rothbard told us that liberty is what allows human flourishing, that liberty requires private property rights and the non aggression principle (NAP), and that this nation was conceived in liberty.
In 1925, Winston Churchill, in spite of massive wartime inflation of the pound sterling, restored the gold standard at the old pre-war exchange rate. This set off a chain of events that led to the 1929 crash in America, and the rise of Keynesianism.
Asset-price inflation is being ignored as pundits focus on consumer goods. But if we look at asset prices, the carry trade, and commodities, we have reason to believe that the current boom is entering a stage similar to what we saw in 2007.
The old tricks of conventional monetary stimulus — low interest rates — no longer work, so we've entered the untested waters of zero-interest-rate policy.
Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 24 July 2015.
Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 22 July 2015.
