Before, during, and after the 2007–09 financial crisis, the masthead of the Federal Reserve Board’s main webpage included the following assertion right below its name at the top of the page:
The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, provides the nation with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system.
It is a natural human tendency to focus on our problems, but such a focus has a cost—exaggerating the size of the problems we face relative to the size of the blessings we benefit from. In a sense, that tendency may be more pronounced today among those who advocate for liberty, because they recognize the cornucopia of blessings liberty enables, yet they see those liberties eroding and sometimes collapsing.
Sohrab Ahmari’s new book The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in An Age of Chaos is so disappointing I don’t know where to begin. This may seem to be a harsh invective, but in reality, it is a confession. My previous attempts to review this book have resulted in little more than hours and hours of frustration and discarded drafts.
From the Roaring Twenties to the “great moderation,” America has always shown a flair for labeling things, and speculative manias are no exception. Historians remember the ignorant, blissfully happy times that preceded the Panic of 1819 by the same label as those who lived through them—the Era of Good Feeling.
When the Federal Reserve or government intervenes in our lives and the free market, it’s normally referred to as “central planning” or “economic planning.” However, whenever a handful of handsomely compensated people make economic decisions on behalf of the citizens, economic calculation is impossible. But without economic calculation, how are decisions made?
