Libertarian Autobiographies, edited by Jo Ann Cavallo and Walter Block, delves into the trials, tribulations, intellectual formation, and accomplishments of 80 libertarians from around the world—in their own words! The following is an amended excerpt from the introduction written by the co-editors:
If we search the news from 2007, we can find plenty of headlines with the IMF and the Federal Reserve predicting a soft landing. No one seemed to worry about rising imbalances. The main reason is that market participants and economists like to believe that the central bank will manage the economy as if it were a car. The current optimism about the U.S. economy reminds us of the same sentiment in 2007.
Former President Donald Trump infuriated many anti-abortion voters last week when he refused to commit to national abortion restrictions and seemed to blame them for Republican losses in the 2022 mid-term elections. Trump even criticized the six-week abortion ban signed by Florida Governor (and fellow Republican candidate) Ron DeSantis. So, not only is Trump balking at national restrictions but he is criticizing a state restriction. What are pro-life voters to do?
The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Wednesday left the target policy interest rate (the federal funds rate) unchanged at 5.5 percent. This “pause” in the target rate suggests the FOMC believes it has raised the target rate high enough to rein in price inflation which has run well above the Fed’s arbitrary two-percent inflation target since mid-2021.
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America’s debt clock has ticked past $33 trillion, reaching a billion dollars of spending every hour. Meanwhile, the monetary policy conditions that have emboldened Washington’s spending spree are over.
After not raising rates to fight inflation last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered his usual speech and Q & A. He opened with three very peculiar sentences regarding price stability, leading to a few unsettling conclusions.
He starts with:
Price stability is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve.
