Peter Foster, writes in Canada’s National Post about Paul Krugman’s Con Job . In response to Krugman’s recent piece in the New York Times, The Tax-Cut Con , Foster writes: That truly great economic journalist, Frédéric Bastiat, who saw the first waves of socialist humbug sweeping across Europe in the late 19th century, wrote, responding to the
The GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises) are large quasi-governmental financial institutions that own or insure about half of the nation’s mortgages. They are fueling a housing bubble by injecting purchasing mortgages, bundling them into securities, and re-selling them or holding them. They are able to borrow to fund their activities at
Gene Epstein, writing in Barron’s ($) , continues his assault on the Fed. Auburn University economics professor Roger W. Garrison points out that the enduring capacity of monetary and fiscal policy to do harm derives directly from their adaptability. One period is never the same as the next. But the 1920s and the 1990s have a lot in common. Of
Mises Institute scholar Guido Hülsmann on fractional reserve banking versus 100% redeemeable gold in the Independent Institute’s excellent journal The Independent Review . Has Fractional-Reserve Banking Really Passed the Market Test? by J. G. Hülsmann Some economists suggest that because fractional-reserve banking is the rule in Western banking
Gene Epstein, economics writer of Barron’s (a paid subscription web site), continues his assault on the Fed and explains why it should be abolished. This week he responds to questions that he has received on his previous three articles. Here is a quoted passage from Epstein’s article in which he answer one question: 3. Weren’t these policy
Morgan Stanley analyst Joachim Fels has penned an analysis of the bubble and crash cycle that could have been written by an Austrian economist. Fels has a very good idea of the way that injections of inflation by the central banks works its way into asset markets, causing bubbles and economic distortions. The heroes and the villains in this
Australian Austrian economics writer Gerard Jackson skewers the fallacy that home extracting equity by borrowing against higher home prices then spending the money is good for the economy. Borrowing, argues Jackson (considering for a moment the case of an economy without fractional reserve banking), is the postponement of a consumption
Michael R. Sesit, writing in the Wall Street Journal ($) , poses the question ”In a World of Bubbles, Which Will Pop Next?”. After reviewing a succession of bubles in paper assets and housing that have been inflating and popping in several countries over the last few years, he writes (sounding very Austrian): Will the cycle of bubbles forming
Financial columnist Bill Bonner, a frequent critic of the world fiat money system, whacks recent efforts by the US government to get China to allow its currency to float. As Bonner has frequently opined, the dollar standard allows Americans to consume without producing and to spend without saving, by living at the expense of the rest of the
Floyd Norris, writing in the New York Times, explains that Foreigners May Not Have Liked the War, but They Financed It . This is one of the many perversities of the world wide dollar reserve system. The US imports more goods than it exports, which must be balanced by exporting more financial assets than it imports. Firms in foreign countries
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.