The monetary central planners never stop thinking of new gimmics to manipulate the money supply, price inflation and interest rates.
Ben Bernanke has long been an advocate of what is called “Inflation-Targeting.” The Fed would explicitly set a desired rate of price inflation and manipulate the money supply to hit the target.
I am hesitant to compliment Tucker’s A Book that Changes Everything, given that he generously over-praises me in it, but I can’t help it–it’s really a great piece–just perfect. And he has a tantalizing suggestion in it: “As I’ve thought more about their book, it seems that it might suggest a revision in classical-liberal theory. We have traditionally thought that cooperation and competition were the two pillars of social order; a third could be added: emulation.
Often we opponents of socialistic, legislatively-created, utilitarian-based, property-redistributing, artificial, arbitrary, inconsistent, irrational, innovation-hampering, monopolistic, anti-competitive, and wealth-destroying intellectual property laws are accused of hypocrisy when we “copyright” our articles and books.
He was, and is, but he is not alone. Writing in Time magazine (January 19 issue, online here), Jeffrey Sachs, in an article called “The Case for Bigger Government,” makes the case for, what else--bigger government.
I have been out of academia and working for think tanks for a while now, and so I may have a better ear for the changing climate than those of you still grading papers. “Real people” are a lot more receptive to thinking hard about economic issues lately, for obvious reasons.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this Federal fiscal year will see a budget deficit of $1.2 trillion. And that is not counting what will be borrowed to cover the $775 billion “stimulus” package soon to be passed by Congress and signed by our in-coming president.
Since the beginning of this decade, the Federal debt has grown from over $5 trillion to more than $10 trillion. The two-year stimulus package and “regular” government spending will likely add another $3 trillion to the Federal government’s debt before the end of Obama’s first term.
