Booms and Busts

Central banks, and especially the Federal Reserve System, continue to churn up inflation and the boom-and-bust cycles—in the name of "stabilizing" the economy.

While the usual characters praise central banks for supposedly bringing economic stability, Dr. Shostak explains that their presence makes things unstable because they break the relationship between saving and lending.

Jeff and Bob discuss the dynamics of the housing market in the context of a recent talk by Alex Pollock.

Keynesian orthodoxy claims government can successfully counter recession through "expansionary" policies. To the contrary, these policies increase the danger to the economy.

The success of Japan after WWII was due entirely to low taxes, an appreciating currency, and a very high personal savings rate. That all changed when the bubble was born in the late 1980s.

For nearly a hundred years, economists have been groping for an explanation for the business cycle, writes Murray Rothbard, while overlooking the Austrian explanation.

Contractionary monetary policy may be necessary to slow the rise of inflation, but the recessionary results of this remind us why the Fed's inflationary policy is so dangerous.

Economic depressions are not caused by a strong decline in the money stock, but by a depleted stock of real savings.

Contractionary monetary policy may be necessary to slow the rise of inflation, but the recessionary results of this remind us why the Fed's inflationary policy is so dangerous.

Tulipmania—the famous bubble in tulip prices in the Dutch Republic—cannot be explained by studying the "fundamentals of the tulip market." The answer lies in manipulation of the financial sector.