[This lively essay appeared in James H. Weaver, ed., Modern Political Economy (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1973), pp. 419–30, as chapter 28; it followed an essay by Professor Robert T. Averitt, to which Rothbard refers once or twice in his piece.]
Since the Second World War, the deep-seated enmity between France and Germany, whose governments waged war against each other thrice in less than a century, has been exhausted.
I have this in common with NPR, Michael Moore, the Black Caucus, and assorted other grasping, complaining, anti-capitalist victim lobbies: a burning desire to see George Bush’s fingers pried loose from the levers of power. This of course means that I, along with millions of others anxious to get rid of the Bush junta, want to like Kerry and his new trial-lawyer running mate named something or other. [Full Text]
On June 30, the Fed lifted its Federal Funds rate target by 0.25% to 1.25%. The catalyst that brought about the reversal in the trend towards lower rates was a series of rising economic indicators, including GDP growth, job creation, and the fear of price inflation.
Econlib is featuring the 1936 Ph.D. dissertation of Vera C. Smith which was directed by F. A. Hayek. In The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative, she discusses the rise of central banking as a thoroughly political phenomenon: Notes issued under this system [free banking] would be “promises to pay,” and such obligations must be met on demand in the generally accepted medium which we will assume to be gold.
The New York Times recently ran an interesting article on everyone’s favorite global retailing behemoth, Wal-Mart. It offers an interesting look at Wal-Mart’s changing corporate culture (they’re apparently beginning to wonder if they should pay off the barbarians at the gate), two stunning examples of economic illiteracy, one misrepresentation of a very heroic deed, and a lovely comparison of Sam Walton to Chairman Mao.
In another excellent piece from Paul Kasriel, you can read that
The recently-released flow-of-funds data from the Fed for the first quarter show that U.S. commercial banks continued to increase their relative exposure to the mortgage market....mortgage-related assets accounted for 60% of U.S. banks’ total earning assets – a post-WWII record high.
