Ed: The following is an excerpt from a talk given by Mises Institute president Jeff Deist at the 2016 Texas Libertarian Party convention. This portion of the talk deals with the political reality faced by libertarians and the Libertarian Party. The full talk can be viewed here.

During the period 1980s and 1990s, the desirability of the “independence from politics” of central banks became almost an article of faith among mainstream macroeconomists and those operating in financial markets. This development was driven by two factors: academic research on central banking; and the personality cults that grew up around the two Fed Chairmen during this period, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan.

There is the ancient bugbear of “hoarding.” The image is conjured up of the selfish old miser who, perhaps irrationally, perhaps from evil motives, hoards up gold unused in his cellar or treasure trove—thereby stopping the flow of circulation and trade, causing depressions and other problems. Is hoarding really a menace?

The Foundation for Economic Education The Freeman 1991

Those who have been following the presidential campaign in the United States are undoubtedly familiar with the proposal by Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders to allow the United States Postal Service to offer banking services at its post office branches. What many are not familiar with is that this idea was already tried in the past and failed miserably, ending in 1967.

Following the unconventional monetary policy of negative interest rates, central banks are now considering an even more desperate measure: “helicopter money.” Milton Friedman is credited with this idea:

I enjoyed listening to Theral Timpson’s podcast interview of Jason Hoyt yesterday.

Labor activists have continued to press for a nationwide minimum wage of 15 dollars, and in a surprisingly economically-literate article at ABC news, commentators recognized that the higher a minimum wage is pushed, the more it will increase unemployment:

Recently on the Tom Woods Show, Tom Woods and I discussed the problem with using job growth as in indicator of economic progress. It’s worker productivity and wealth that are the real indicators. We largely discussed “Job Growth Doesn’t Mean We’re Getting Richer.“

Friday was tax day, which — for the non-Keynesians among us — often serves as a useful reminder of the burden imposed on us by the state. Of course, as Ryan McMaken reminds us, income taxes are only one piece of the puzzle — with every cent government spends representing cost taxpayers in one form or another.