The Fed

Pundits often blame tight money for economic downturns. But what about the loose money policies that created the unsustainable boom in the first place? John Cochran explains.

He has succeeded in misleading almost everyone into accepting a bizarre and idiosyncratic view of the business cycle, writes Joseph Salerno.

What causes an economic downturn? The business press keeps getting it painfully wrong, writes Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Woodward reports that Greenspan himself was willing, on occasion, to do things that weren't strictly legal.

Earlier last year (February 17) in testimony before the House Banking Committee, Alan Greenspan argued that increases in productivity tend to create greater increases in aggregate demand than in potential aggregate supply. His reasoning was that productivity increases stimulate optimistic corporate earnings forecasts, which stimulate stock price increases, which lead consumers to assume increased personal wealth, which increases consumption (and thus aggregate) expenditure.

 If a corporation were to engage in the deceit that is the government's daily business, the SEC would intervene with severity, says Hans Sennholz

Some economists say measuring inflation is as easy as checking a thermometer. Gene Callahan debunks this view.

The Austrian Theory has come under fire; Gene Callahan responds in defense.

Neither the Fed nor Wall Street can undo the ill effects of past monetary expansions, says Frank Shostak.

With its latest move to boost interest rates, the Fed is again clouding its role as the sole source of economy-wide price increases.