Business Cycles

This audio essay, read by Gennady Stolyarov II, is found in The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays (pp.

It’s time that we question the very foundations of this war on recession. The recession is a regrettable but inevitable backlash against a boom that was not justified by the fundamentals.

The problem for free-market economists is that their policy recommendations at the dawn of recession are not too sexy to the political mindset. They involve either doing nothing to hinder price adjustments, or actively removing extra-market barriers to price adjustments that already exist. This often involves short-term pain in exchange for long-term solutions, when politics rewards short-term solutions that result in long-term pain.

When used with discretion, debt can be a good thing. But many of us individually, and we as a society, can have too much of a good thing.

Not only has the Austrian Business Cycle Theory described the real world, but only Austrians have a cure for the problem.

Tough times require cutbacks and a beefing up of savings.

A general rise in prices can only occur if there is either a drop in the supply of all commodities or an increase in the supply of money.

James Grant, writing in the New York Times, gives the briefest possible explan

The Hans Sennholz Memorial Lecture, delivered at the Austrian Student Scholars Conference hosted by Grove City College; 2 November 2007.

Here lie the two key factors that make the current cycle different than the past 2 cycles.