Money and Banking

Central bankers mistake the cause for the cure. (Essay by Jeffrey Herbener)

It's traduced in normal times and blamed for every economic crisis, but speculation has an important role to play in the market economy. (Article by Christopher Mayer)  

Robert Mundell's economics, both praised and criticized from an Austrian perspective. (Comments from scholars)

So long as the Fed has the power to print, the boom-bust cycle is here to stay. (Paper by Frank Shostak)

Keynesian economics continues to infect much public debate, despite being debunked for decades by Austrian economists, some mainstream economists, and reality itself.

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?

Austrians deal with a central but overlooked monetary conundrum.