Central Banks

Two days before Christmas, 1913, the infamous “creature from Jekyll Island,” the Federal Reserve System, was birthed into our body politic. It has been devouring the economy ever since.

Instead of market competition, inflation forces young and old into rivalrous competition for housing.

Instead of market competition, inflation forces young and old into rivalrous competition for housing.

The so-called K-shaped economy—where some experience positive growth and others negative growth—is perfectly explained by Austrian business cycle theory and the Cantillon effect.

This week, Bob walks through two related debates: Hoppe’s criticism of Argentina's President Milei for not immediately closing Argentina’s central bank, and the follow-up exchange between Guido Hülsmann and Philipp Bagus over dollarization and the peso.

Dr. Hülsmann offers his concluding thoughts on his debate with Philipp Bagus regarding the monetary consequences of closing the central bank of Argentina. 

It is an article of faith in mainstream economics that an economy cannot grow without a growing money supply. Yet, that is a false narrative, as increasing the supply of money over time ultimately sparks inflation and triggers business cycles.

While the NBER collects economic data ostensibly to aid policymakers, the data it acquires is useless without proper economic theory to correctly interpret the numbers.

Prominent central bankers have given conflicting statements concerning gold. What soaring gold prices might indicate is that the world is now turning to gold.

Keynesian orthodoxy claims that the cause of recessions is a decline in so-called aggregate demand. Besides confusing cause-and-effect, Keynesians don't understand that downturns are the result of malinvestments made during the boom because of central bank interference in the economy.