It may still be too early to pen the postmortem on the New Economy. The final chapters on that episode are still being written. Nonetheless, Leon Levy’s discursive memoir, The Mind of Wall Street, is a first cut, perhaps inadvertently so, at disentangling some of the threads that helped create the great bull market of recent vintage. Levy is a
The consultation of oracles, a practice long thought dead, continues today in many forms, perhaps in a more subtle and less institutionalized than during antiquity, but powerfully nonetheless. In Michael Wood’s new book, The Road to Delphi, he explores this “extended metaphorical afterlife of oracles”. Wood draws primarily from history and
Today, it is taken for granted that the Federal Reserve System’s role is to manage the economy with the crook of monetary policy, as shepherds leading a flock to greener pastures. Therefore, Fed Governor Bernanke could state in a recent speech , “The ultimate objective of monetary policymakers is to promote the health of the U.S. economy, which
With JP Morgan’s acquisition of Bank One, America can claim to be the home of two banks with assets in excess of $1 trillion each (the other being Citigroup). On a list traditionally dominated by foreign banks, US banks will now claim two of the top three spots. The US banking system is also becoming more concentrated, according to Minneapolis Fed
Athanasios Orphanides’ recent Fed paper touches on aspects of Japan’s extended economic slump (his basic thesis: the BOJ should have done more). This paper served as a reminder of the inadequacies and limitations of mainstream analysis in explaining Japan’s long economic winter. Fortunately, though long unrecognized and unappreciated by the
The Free Market 20, no. 2 (February 2002) With Greenspan’s widely reported “rate cuts” this fall, most people would probably be surprised to find out that the federal funds rate is not set by Greenspan. It would also probably surprise these same people to learn that only weeks after short-term rates hit rock bottom, longer-term rates rose
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.