Interventionism

Recorded at Jekyll Island, Georgia; May 1992.

If we are really sincere about not wanting to repeat the 1930s, the political classes should do nothing but cut taxes and free the labor market — but otherwise do nothing to "help" the problem.

Folsom places great emphasis on Roosevelt's character, and the president comes off very poorly indeed.

We have a unique opportunity to provide future stability for our banking system. Sadly, it is an opportunity that will almost assuredly pass us by.

Bernanke and company are making matters worse by endlessly inflating and bailing out dysfunctional firms. The result will be more unemployment, not less.

Creating programs outside of the markets to try to support illiquid assets undermines the objective signals of markets in which value is measured by the market price.

There is something government can do in the Austrian cure for a recession: radically remove itself from the economy.

Efforts to avoid the agony of recession—policies that seek to prop up insolvent firms and maintain employment—will only ensure that more resources are squandered in unsustainable lines.

We are once again in a situation where the public and the economics profession have rushed to judge capitalism as the source of periodic and severe crises.

Discovering the Austrian business cycle theory, then, is a revelation, because through it, you learn how the whole business traces to loose money and credit generated by the Fed.