In his interview with the CNBC on November 9, 2010, a highly regarded Wall Street economist, Nouriel Roubini, the cofounder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, said that a gold standard is unlikely to stabilize the financial system. On the contrary, holds Roubini, such a standard can only make things much worse.

For instance, argues Roubini, an economy that is growing quickly would tend to overheat and this in turn is likely to lead to a higher inflation and asset bubbles.

Randall G. Holcombe is DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics at Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Tech, and taught at Texas A&M University and at Auburn University prior to coming to Florida State in 1988. Dr. Holcombe is also Senior Fellow at the James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based think tank that specializes in issues facing state governments.

Robert F. Mulligan is from Westbury, New York, and studied civil engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, receiving a BSCE degree in 1983. He served in the U.S. Air Force and then did his graduate studies at SUNY Binghamton, receiving his Ph.D. in economics in 1993. He was a visiting assistant professor at Clarkson University from 1993-1994. He then completed the Advanced Studies Program at the Kiel Institute of World Economics in Germany, receiving the Advanced Studies Certificate in International Economic Policy Research in 1995.

An article over at The Economist comments on the Austrian business-cycle theory.

The article states, “The Austrians may have said smart things about the boom, but what about the bust? One criticism is that the Austrians offered a ‘counsel of despair’, suggesting that the authorities do nothing while a crisis blows itself out.”

The authorities do nothing? According to The Economist, we can’t have that.

Great to see The Economist discussing not only the Austrian business cycle theory but also drawing attention to its Misesian roots.

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES is back. The British economist has modern intellectual champions in Paul Krugman and Robert Skidelsky. For all today’s talk of austerity, a policy of Keynesian fiscal stimulus was adopted by most governments in the immediate aftermath of the credit crisis.

John Sophocleus has taught economics at Clemson University, Auburn University, and Auburn University Montgomery. He has been twice nominated to the Who’s Who Among American Teachers. He is an adjunct faculty member of the Mises Institute and occasionally lectures there, usually on United States tariff history. Sophocleus generally teaches the principles of microeconomics.

I guess the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.

Now that the FDA has effectively banned caffeine-laced alcoholic beverages, to be consistent, it will have to take the next logical step of banning the concurrent consumption of caffeine and alcohol, regardless of how the two are mixed.