While President Joe Biden's White House continues to give happy talk about the economy, some major economic storm clouds are brewing. The future does not look good.
Poplular history says that massive government spending—made possible by ending the gold standard—ended the Great Depression. As usual, popular history is wrong.
Keynesian economists fantasize that a market economy cannot "gain traction" without "stimulus" schemes from the government. In the end, the only thing stimulated are inflation and recession.
By all measures, the economic downturn that began in 1920 was worse than what occurred in 1930, yet the economy recovered quickly in 1921. Why the difference?
For nearly two decades, business, academic, and political elites have spread the fiction that central banks can engineer prosperity by printing more money. Markets now are discrediting that fairy tale.