Booms and Busts

As long as there is still room for pushing the market interest rate down even further, the chances are reasonably good that the boom continues, and that the bust will be postponed into the future.

Suppose that a convincing orator should go on TV tomorrow, and urge the public: "The banking system of this country is insolvent."

The boom produces impoverishment. But still more disastrous are its moral ravages. It makes people despondent and dispirited. The more optimistic they were under the illusory prosperity of the boom, the greater is their despair and their feeling of frustration.

One of the characteristic features of this age is the general attack launched by all governments and pressure groups against the rights of creditors.

State intervention and a crushing fiscal policy made the whole empire groan under the yoke; more than once, both poor men and rich prayed that the barbarians would deliver them from it.

Richard Vague's new book on financial crises repeats many old myths about economic booms, while failing to understand the role of malinvestment and central banks.

Business owners have always made errors, and external factors can lead to economic crises of various sorts. But the cyclical pattern of booms and busts we now see are a result of government interventions not seen in a free marketplace.

Whiskey production depends on investment in highly specific capital, and it requires a long time horizon. It's a textbook case of the sort of industry that's likely to suffer most in case of an economic bust.

While much of the media remains focused on Trump and trade, the greatest threat to the Chinese economy may be reckoning with a massive financial bubble from within.

The main indicators of the economic cycle point to a possible crisis and recession in the US economy. and maybe also in Europe.