How should Congress assess the Federal Reserve’s track record as an investor in residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS)? Regardless of Fed spin, it merits a failing grade.

There has been much talk lately about the Great Depression. Not only because we are on the cusp of a recession, but comparisons have always been drawn to this ominous period of economic downturn. The best action we can take as economists is to study it, and Murray Rothbard did just that. America’s Great Depression, published in 1963, contains many valuable lessons that still hold true today for preventing and dealing with depressions.

On March 15, 2020, The Federal Reserve announced that the legal reserve requirement for banks was being lowered to zero percent1 . In 2023, the legal reserve requirement is still zero percent. With this policy change, banks can now effectively loan out their reserves infinitely, drastically increasing the money supply.

In the midst of an economic downturn caused by central banks interfering with the economy, economists and politicians have proposed a variety of proposed causes and remedies to these business cycles, many hoping to have their plans followed so as to achieve fame and government privilege. Though some are close to the mark as to what causes business cycles, with a few inadvertently stumbling upon the correct way to prevent them, the vast majority of these “antidotes,” in spite of being done by men with PhDs from top universities and receiving funding from various D.C.

There’s nothing like a bank failure to get people thinking about the banking system. And though it appears the Fed has bought the nation’s banks some time, the pair of bank runs on Friday and Sunday again exposed the fragility of the nation’s banks.

Political correctness in Western societies fosters polarization and a toxic culture of ignorance. Although people are rightly outraged by the cancellation of prominent figures, the most glaring consequence of political correctness is the proliferation of ignorance. When speakers are cancelled for contradicting sacrosanct opinions, this leads to an environment where people never arrive at the truth because ideas are not disputed in the public domain.

As the war in Ukraine drags on into its second year, protest demonstrations have been taking place in major European cities. They express the growing sentiment that the people are tired of the protracted conflict and fearful of what could come should the war continue even longer.

The war in Ukraine has become a bloody grind — and there’s no end in sight.