The Fed

In the real world, of course, the real danger of credit expansion and the boom-bust cycle comes from fiat money and fractional-reserve banking.

Governments have caused the monetary and economic debacle by taking control of money production.

"There can be no such thing as a Keynesian state on the gold standard, any more then a cocaine addict or compulsive gambler can be on a strict budget."

"Do you think Alan might basically be a social climber?"—Ayn Rand

Bankers who engage in fractional-reserve banking really do create "money out of thin air." Austrian economics is superior to Marxism in every respect.

The argument of sticky wages does not justify the existence of a central bank. Market prices, including wages, are flexible enough to smooth out macroeconomic disturbances.

In the early 1700s, France turned on the taps of paper-money inflation.

Unless Hugo Chavez's government suddenly ends spending and returns to a free market, the most likely conclusion to current events in Venezuela is a crisis of interventionism, as the bolívar collapses and the government finds it more and more difficult to fund itself.

"The Bank of England has been reduced to the position of a part of the machinery for the manufacturing of political money in any quantity that may be required."

"There is a definite sense in which the government plays by a different rulebook, because the central bank waits in the wings to monetize its debts."