If you are curious about the Austrian theory of time preference and the determination of interest rates, see the new dissertation by Robert Murphy of New York University, now online: Unanticipated Intertemporal Change in Theories of Interest. Posted by Jeffrey Tucker
Foreclosures Hit Record High in 1st Quarter (Wash Post): U.S. mortgages in foreclosure climbed to a record high in the first three months of 2003 as job losses and personal bankruptcies forced more people out of their homes, a mortgage industry group said on Friday. Home loans in the process of foreclosure climbed to 1.2 percent of all mortgages in the first quarter, beating the previous high of 1.18 percent set in the fourth quarter of 2002, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America said.
The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod (Slashdot): “MacLeod himself is a Trotskyist libertarian, a label which gives some feel for his eclecticism, and he depicts very different political systems working reasonably well -- though he often verges on parody. There are also plenty of little jokes, such as a statue of Mises in the Central Planning Committee building.”
The new Monetary Trends published by the St. Louis Fed includes some revealing data on May’s money creation rates (percentage change at annual rates). See page 18.
Jerry Muller’s Mind and the Market reviewed in Foreign Affairs.”The value of the book lies less in its contribution to the literature on any particular individual than in its gathering together in one place of a wealth of information on figures from Burke, Smith, and Voltaire to Schumpeter, Keynes, and Hayek.
Rate Cut Looking Like a Sure Thing (Washington Post): “Federal Reserve officials, concerned there is still no sign of the solid pickup in U.S. economic growth needed to foreclose the possibility of deflation, appear certain to cut their target for overnight interest rates next week.”
A paper posted on the San Francisco Fed’s web site provides some surprising takes on the post-bubble economy. The paper, by economist Kevin Lansing, is almost Austrian in the way that it tells the story.
The seeds for the subsequent drop in investment were actually sown during the boom years of the late 1990s.
The only man speaking any sense was once again our old friend Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, who told an audience at the annual Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur: ‘Governments should once again control their currency and stabilise it. Then world trade would be less risky and would grow faster. With expanded world trade, the oil business and economies generally would prosper.
Suddenly, life isn’t so sweet for two key agencies of the easy-money state, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Lew Rockwell on the Medicare reform that magically makes high prices for prescription drugs disappear.
