Excerpt from The Case Against the Fed
Central Banking began in England, when the Bank of England was chartered in 1694. Other large nations copied this institution over the next two centuries, the role of the Central Bank reaching its now familiar form with the English Peel Act of 1844. The United States was the last major nation to enjoy the dubious blessings of Central Banking, adopting the’ Federal Reserve System in 1913.
Excerpt from The Case Against the Fed
Government paper, as pernicious as it may be, is a relatively straightforward form of counterfeiting. The public can understand the concept of “printing dollars” and spending them, and they can understand why such a flood of dollars will come to be worth a great deal less than gold, or than uninflated paper, of the same denomination, whether “dollar,” “franc,” or “mark.” Far more difficult to grasp, however, and therefore far more insidious, are the nature and consequences of “fractional-reserve banking,” a more subtle and modern form of counterfeiting.
1. The Phenomenon of Interest
It has been shown that time preference is a category inherent in every human action. Time preference manifests itself in the phenomenon of originary interest, i.e., the discount of future goods as against present goods.
When we have goods of first order at our disposal, it is in our power to use them directly for the satisfaction of our needs. If we have the corresponding goods of second order at our disposal, it is in our power to transform them into goods of first order, and thus to make use of them in an indirect manner for the satisfaction of our needs.
Before proceeding to other topics, it appears to me to be of preëminent importance to our science that we should become clear about the causal connections between goods. In our own, as in all other sciences, true and lasting progress will be made only when we no longer regard the objects of our scientific observations merely as unrelated occurrences, but attempt to discover their causal connections and the laws to which they are subject.
1. The Value of Exchange
How did money begin? Clearly, Robinson Crusoe had no need for money. He could not have eaten gold coins. Neither would Crusoe and Friday, perhaps exchanging fish for lumber, need to bother about money. But when society expands beyond a few families, the stage is already set for the emergence of money.
