Business Cycles

Recorded at the Austrian Economics and Financial Markets conference at The Venetian Hotel Resort Casino, Las Vegas, 02-18-2005

Sean Corrigan asks the crucial question: if the causes of the business cycle are that well known and understood, why can't business wise up and avoid the trap of making clusters of investment errors?

Ultimately, the power of the Austrian Theory of the business cycle is not whether some economists of the Austrian School rolled the dice on some day trades and made money, writes William Anderson.

Business cycles are usually treated as though they were unavoidable natural phenomena, writes William Anderson, when they are actually the result of government manipulation.

This year's Nobel laureates in economics, writes Frank Shostak, have contributed to further obscuring our understanding of the business cycle.

It was capitalism that finally ended the Great Depression, writes Tom DiLorenzo, not FDR's hair-brained cartel, wage-increasing, unionizing, and welfare state expanding policies. 

Frank Shostak explains what Mises meant when he wrote that: "The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself." Most individuals in the western world take the ample availability of goods and services for granted.

Just when the supposed threat of disinflation passed, now comes another frightful creation from the fearsome flation family: stagflation. Sean Corrigan explains.

Joseph Salerno writes about a long-term look at this conventional wisdom that shows that 90 percent of deflations since 1820 have not resulted in depression.

Booming home prices and record low interest rates are allowing homeowners to refinance their mortgages, "extract equity" to increase their spending, and lower their monthly payment! As one loan officer explained to me: "It’s almost too good to be true."