A guilty verdict by US voters last November on inflation mongers will have no follow-through in terms of monetary regime change. Problem: the verdict was not delivered in sharp and comprehensive form. Instead, communication was largely via exit polls and other such surveys. The propagandists of the present monetary regime have been able to manipulate this messaging to the advantage of themselves and their clients.
Donald Trump’s pickapalooza continues at Mar-a-lago with potential bank regulators being asked if the current deposit insurer and bank regulator (FDIC) can be folded into the Treasury department. The WSJ’s Gina Heeb writes, “Trump advisers and potential nominees have also discussed plans to either combine or otherwise restructure the main federal bank regulators: the FDIC, OCC and the Federal Reserve, the people said.”
Ebenezer Scrooge was not an admirable man. He was bitter, unfriendly, and thrifty beyond reason. The three spirits of Christmas, however, did not improve his morality, rather, they terrified him into embracing what the ghost of Marley called “the common welfare.” While Scrooge rightly dropped many of his imprudent traits on Christmas Day, following his haunting, this need never have required the dropping of the rugged individualism he originally embodied.
The Austrian school offers a unique perspective on human action, the role of the entrepreneur, the market, capital, and the importance of individual freedom. Austrian economics is one of the most distinguished and intellectually rigorous schools of economic thought. It has a long history, even with ideas dating back to at least the 16th century and the 17th century, experiencing an impressive renaissance.
In “Abolition: An Acid Test,” Murray Rothbard criticized libertarians who defended slavery as part of their defense of property rights. Those libertarians had argued that slaves were classified as property and, therefore, abolishing slavery would be tantamount to expropriation of the slaveowners’ property. This was indeed one of the arguments put forward by slaveowners who claimed compensation from the British government when the British Empire abolished slavery.
Economists have long sought to integrate the subject matter of money into the general theory of the market. Various monetary doctrines and theories have been formulated to achieve this aim. However, most of them were refuted on the basis of inherent flaws in the arguments and/or conclusions. One of the standing theories of money is the quantity theory.
It is hard to find an article in the past century more influential in economic methodology than Milton Friedman’s “The Methodology of Positive Economics.” Its significance lies not in presenting groundbreaking new ideas but in its power to organize and articulate existing ones that had already been shaping the subconscious of many economists.
Everybody knows that Lord Keynes favored an inflationary monetary policy. He thought that expanding the money was a way that the business cycle could be bypassed, by making booms perpetual. Of course, Austrian business cycle theory teaches us that this policy won’t work and, if continued, will result in hyperinflation, destroying the use of money completely. Keynes also had an inflationist view of history, according to which the general trend of prices tends to be upward in the long run. He thought this would lead to progress, for reasons different from his business cycle theory.
