Business Cycles

Presented to the Auburn University Economics Club; Auburn, Alabama, on 25 March 2010. Includes a Question and Answer period.

Fake booms and their consequent busts are directly linked to financial cycles, which in turn reflect the swings in money creation.

This lecture was presented remotely from the Mises Institute to Dr.

"Since credit expansion is made possible by state action, the business cycle — so far from being a natural consequence of the free market and a heavy debit against it — is ultimately traceable to government…"

It is Rothbard and Hülsmann that know the way to prosperity: we must bring back failure and deflation.

There is no "socially desirable" level of work or of saving and investment other than what individuals freely choose as desirable. And unless the case for "supply-side" economic reform is modified to reflect an argument for individual freedom, it may very well serve as a means for even greater state control over the economy and not less.

The recent improvement of the global economy, with particularly high economic- growth numbers for the United States, is just one more deception in a long series of deceptions that have plagued policy makers and investors.

Recorded at Jekyll Island, Georgia; 26 February 2010.

"And it is here — let's pinpoint the exact date at Greenspan's 'irrational-exuberance' call in December 1996 — where the Austrian men separate themselves from the Keynesian and Friedmanite boys."

Presented by Rothbard at New York Polytechnic University in 1972.