The Fed

Without invoking the name, the Journal leader did more to educate the American public about Austrian economic theory than anything published in rec

So when is the manure going to hit the fan? Schiff doesn't know, but "when the bubble is this big, there are just so many potential pins that it is impossible to guess which one it will find first."

It follows that liquidity could come under severe pressure if the Fed decides to cling to the current fed funds rate target whilst the economy is weakening.

I recommend the book to anyone who wants an analysis of current economic trends from an Austrian viewpoint along with some appropriate investment ideas; it is one of the best examples of sound economic writing among investment books.

The present glut in the money markets, with excessively cheap money and its attendant evils and dangers to the credit structure of the country, is due to the concurrence of three main causes.

Though some comic fans will be quick to put the blame at the foot of Marvel for price increases, they would be more correct to blame the Federal Reserve, the "publisher" responsible for the creation of our supply of dollars. Though society has come to accept the general rise in prices as a normal part of our lives, before the founding of the Federal Reserve and the removal of the US dollar from the gold standard, prices held relatively steady.

A bailout is nothing less than a wealth transfer to those who made ill-advised credit decisions.

Rather, the real dream has always been to protect wealth from the evils of inflation, and the middle-class housing market generally served that purpose. Housing was the middle class's best hedge against a growing government intent on expanding its scope and power by inflating the money supply. Today, housing looks like a relatively weaker hedge, and if this trend continues, middle-class wage earners will have to find better assets in which to store the brunt of their wealth.

Wealth cannot be created by means of loose monetary policy.

Being fully aware of the dark side of the credit boom — that is its socially destructive ramifications — Mises argued for returning to free-market money, which he saw as the only monetary regime that would allow preserving the ideal of the free society.