Both the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are owners of the printing press. They produce base money. On top of the base-money production, the fractional-reserve-banking system can produce money out of thin air. Both central banks produce money in order to finance their respective governments. As a result of their money production, prices will be higher than they would have been otherwise.
Ever since Ben Bernanke began his massive infusions of money into the financial system, many analysts (including me) have been worried about the severe weakening of the dollar if and when the fractional-reserve-banking system magnified the initial injections severalfold.
Although the trend could reverse, data from the past two months suggest that the inflationary big one may be upon us.
The city of Salem, Oregon invoked a law that prohibits residents from having more than three yard sales per year to shut down a woman with terminal bone cancer who was trying to raise money to pay her medical bills.
The Reddit community is aghast at such heartlessness. Yet they do not realize that most of them support policies that result in similar tragedies on a daily basis.
In his paper Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap, law professor John Tehranian explains how the normal activities (see pp. 543-48) of a typical Internet user–he takes an “average American, …take an ordinary day in the life of a hypothetical law professor named John”–someone who does not even engage in P2P file sharing–could result in up to $4.5 billion in potential liability annually, for copyright infringement. The acts include:
Although it is admirable that you are putting up your own money, economic analysis shows that your “solutions” will not work. The so-called root causes of crime and poverty in urban areas today can be tied to destructive government policies such as the drug war, the minimum wage, compulsory schooling, and high taxes.
