The Fed

Here lie the two key factors that make the current cycle different than the past 2 cycles.

Those were the closing words of Jim Rogers on a lengthy interview

But then finally the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears

Delivered at the Mises Institute’s 25th Anniversary Celebration, 13 October 2007, in New York City.

We suggest that by attempting to counter various shocks that are predominantly the product of Fed's own policies, Bernanke's Fed has likely made things much worse as far as real economic fundamentals are concerned.

The Fed has been creating money at a phenomenal clip all year with the M-3 (that government no longer reports, but economist John Williams does on Shadowstats.com) growing at a 14-percent rate, a 34-year high.

But considering the future — as embodied by a mob of college-age kids willing to spontaneously party to benefit a 72-year-old grandfather who promises them nothing other than to leave them alone — maybe, just maybe, I should have a little more [hope].

Mr Greenspan: Please send a $100 bill to the Hubris in Monetary Policy Award Committee and write Bernanke or Shiller's name on the back. After all, since both men promote the myth that that inflation is only sometimes and only in some places a monetary phenomenon, they have your back as well.

In the Austrian view, the boom-bust cycle is caused by the Fed's maintenance of artificially low interest rates, which causes businesses to expand, hire workers, buy other resources, and so forth, even though these projects are not justified by the true supply of savings in the economy. The greater the "stimulus" the worse the malinvestments.

No doubt, the costs of a return to "sound money" — that is ending the government money-supply monopoly and returning the supply of money to free-market forces — would most likely be substantial. It would most likely entail a severe loss in output and employment, given that inflation has been allowed to have a say in the allocation of scarce resources for decades.