Civilization is subverted by inflation. Readers old enough to remember 13 percent inflation remember how it turned life upside down. Savers were considered to be suckers while financial profligacy was considered wise. Plans of a lifetime were gutted, employees were always angry, and businessmen found even the simplest accounting tasks to be maddeningly confusing. And yet 13 percent is hardly high by this century's egregious standards.
Today, the United States has the most draconian financial disclosure system in the developed world. People who keep their money in offshore banks to avoid taxes are considered traitors. And when a citizen demands a zone of financial autonomy, the government wants to know: "What exactly are you trying to hide?" The natural answer of a free people is: Everything. The state has no more right to know about your affairs than your ne'er-do-well cousin (who at least isn't holding a gun to your head).
The Y2K computer bug isn't like a natural disaster or mass disease. It is a technical problem with a technical fix that can be overcome with work and time. However, and without speculating about the ultimate fallout from the problem, the bug has exposed a very real and deep infraction that has long plagued the U.S. banking system.
What is it the Justice Department wants out of the biggest credit-card associations? Is duality in credit-card membership, the freedom for a bank to be a member of both major credit-card associations in the United States, good or bad? Is it legal or illegal? Is it a system that promotes cartels or a system that results in vigorous price cutting much to the consumer's benefit?
As the world financial system entered a state of collapse, commentators said that Russia had traded the shortages of socialism for the bank runs and financial panics of capitalism. In fact, modern finance and banking are built on unstable, socialistic foundations.
Clinton and friends propose a global lending facility as a prelude to endless bailouts.
When I received this book, I turned first to the contribution of Murray N. Rothbard, "The Gold Exchange Standard in the Interwar Years."
