Mises Daily

In the America of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration these categories and institutions were to have the opportunity which they were never fully to achieve in their constricted English home.

"While there are many who will agree that they, personally, should not kill, steal, enslave, it is only the individual with a first-rate moral nature who will have no hand in encouraging any agency — even government — in doing these things for him or others."

Rival explanations — for example ones that claim government deficit spending doesn't help an economy — fit the evidence far better.

"The conference on Austrian economics was planned as a catalyst for expanding interest in the praxeological approach. To this end, the conference must be declared a resounding success."

[Introduction to Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy]

There is, however, no denying that the banks have tremendous vested interest in influencing the policies of the Fed, nor that the power being so narrowly vested in the president makes him a special target for influence. Still, the power to control the Fed is not in the hands of its "owners" but firmly in the hands of the federal government and the president of the United States.

The problems involved will become discernible as soon as the wartime attitude in the United States toward financial and trade matters is replaced by a more realistic mentality.

"Socialism and legislation seem to be inevitably connected if socialist societies are to keep alive."

"Recognizing the inability of their sophisticated models to predict or even explain the financial collapse and subsequent Great Recession, leading macroeconomic theorists of the day have lapsed back into raw and simplistic Keynesianism."

One may say that, apart from wars and revolutions, there is nothing in our modern civilizations which compares in importance to [in