Monetary Theory

The recession isn't the disease, it's the cure. Patrick Newman on why the Austrians blame the boom, not the bust, and trace it all to one cause.

Your bank says the money in your checking account is yours, available in full, any time. Its own balance sheet says it's holding a fraction of it. Jonathan Newman on what banks actually do with your deposits.

Try paying for a roof in moonwalk lessons. That's the problem money solves. Sandy Klein on why barter fails and how gold became money.

Bob uses U.S. economic history, centering on the greenback era, to work through some subtle but important distinctions in Austrian monetary theory.

The two great confusions about money and interest, from Aristotle’s “money cannot beget money” to modern credit expansion, and how monetary manipulation by banks and governments produces inflation and the business cycle.

In the wake of Alan Greenspan's recent passing, Bob revisits two contested claims about his legacy: did the Fed under Greenspan fuel the housing bubble, and did that bubble cause the 2008 financial crisis? 

Money did originate from the state, no matter how many times contemporary monetary theorists might claim otherwise.

Money didn't originate from the state, no matter how many times contemporary monetary theorists might claim otherwise.

Bob sits down with fund manager and author Larry Lepard to discuss his book The Big Print, which argues that the core problem with modern America is not corporate greed or partisan politics, but a monetary system deliberately structured to benefit those closest to the Fed.

The velocity of money doesn’t have a life of its own. It is not an independent entity and, hence, it can’t cause anything. Contrary to popular thinking, money does not circulate. Money always belongs to somebody.