So says the President of Iceland. He also said that the financial sector, even a successful one, is like a parasite on the economy drawing out vital resources for the innovative productive sectors.

Doing some research the other day, I came across a 1926 article from Harper’s Monthly on the Florida real estate boom and how the journalist covering the story eventually succumbed to the boom mentality. (Sorry, there’s no link.) Here’s a short excerpt (from Gertrude Mathews Shelby, “Florida Frenzy,” Harper’s Monthly, January 1926, p. 177):

Today is the 57th anniversary of  the death of H. L. Mencken, perhaps the greatest of American writers. Murray Rothbard called him the “joyous libertarian” (a term that describes Rothbard as well). Rothbard wrote that “American Kultur . . . was incapable of understanding H. L. Mencken. . .

John B. Taylor is always worth the time to read when he comments on monetary policy.

Today’s WSJ critique of Fed policy, John Taylor: Fed Policy Is a Drag on the Economy, is no exception.

Some highlights:

While borrowers like near-zero interest rates, there is little incentive for lenders to extend credit at that rate.

[Part 3 of “The Secession Tradition in America,” a paper presented at the 1995 Mises Institute conference, “Secession, State, and Economy.” Click here for Part 2, “A Voluntary Federation”.]

There is so much in the government’s official deficit figures that is phony it is hard to say what is real.

But we should add at least $89 billion to the official deficit figure. To see why, we need a bit of background.

The US government deficit is supposed to be running at around $1.2 trillion. But the government gets there by using accounting methods that would put private business executives in jail for fraud. The real deficit by different estimates should be multiples higher. This is already widely known.

Now in its 31st year, the Mises Institute’s monthly newsletter, The Free Market, is expanding into a longer, more diverse publication with more articles and interviews, plus Institute Alumni news, and the latest news from our Donors, Members, and Faculty. We’re now seeking submissions of various sorts including featured articles, movie reviews, book reviews, and one-to-four-panel comics.

As outlandish as the idea of the $1 trillion platinum coin at first appears, it gives us a glimpse of a monetary arrangement that, although far from ideal, is superior to the current system. Now that the Obama Treasury has definitely ruled out the scheme to mint the coin to circumvent the gimmicky debt ceiling, it is instructive to take a closer look at the reason why it did so and to articulate the lessons that can be learned from the episode.

Gavin Kennedy offers a nice review of Alexander Brodie’s 2012 book, Agreeable Connexions: Scottish Enlightenment links with France. Hayek, of course, locates the roots of classical liberalism in the 18th-century Scottish philosophers such as Ferguson, Smith, and Hume, while Rothbard, influenced by