Imagine that you need a cash loan to tide you over to your next paycheck, but banks cannot or will not lend to you. So you stop at a machine that looks very much like an ATM.  You scan your passport photo, pose for a photograph, enter your cell phone number, and punch in the sum of money that you would like to borrow.  Within 15 minutes you receive a text message indicating that your loan application has been approved and directing you to return to the machine and withdraw your cash.

In response to  my article on Net Neutrality yesterday, some readers claimed that since ISPs are already regulated (i.e., granted partial monopoly power) then Net Neutrality is good. In short, their position is: there’s already regulation, so the answer is more regulation. 

This week’s Mises Weekends:

Jeff Deist and Jay Taylor, host of Taylor’s Hard Money Advisers, discuss the role of Austrian economics in understanding the market crash of 2008.

That drop in the gas prices came just tin time. Ground beef was once a simple, basic, and easy source for protein. Now, not so much. But at least iPads are cheaper, right? 

CNS reports: 

The average price of a pound of ground beef climbed to another record high — $4.235 per pound — in the United States in January, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Independent Institute links to Burton A. Abrams’s (Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics at the University of Delaware) sound criticism of Fed policy at Investors.com powered by Investor’s Business Daily. Abrams provides some of the best commentary I have seen on the Fed’s nonsensical commitment to 2% inflation as price stability.

Some highlights:

Mises Daily Friday by Brendan Brown: 

Janet Yellen testified before Congress this week, but the Senate Republicans, who claim to be the guardians of monetary sanity, failed to show any true understanding of monetary policy and the damage the Fed has inflicted.

[This article is adapted from Chapter 11 of The Fed at 100: A Critical View on the Federal Reserve System.]