It was reported last week that the M3 money supply has increased at a breathtaking 20% annual rate in the last 4 weeks, going up $155 billion. Coincidently (or not), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) held another of its semi-annual land auctions in Las Vegas.
The Fed is always claiming to come up with new ways to make monetary policy less damaging to the economy. But Frank Shostak argues that this isn't possible.
Deflation was the great threat that never materialized, writes Gardner Goldsmith. The dollar still sinks in value.
Christopher Mayer explains why an Austrian analysis starts by examining the preceding boom phase of the business cycle.
Industry concentration is not usually a problem in the free market, writes Christopher Mayer. But the banking industry is hardly free.
So Greenspan says that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are so big and so out of control that they represent a threat to the whole financial system. Well, asks Frank Shostak, just how does Greenspan think they got to be that way? Might it have something to do with a central bank that guarantees the life of not only these two institutions but every bank in the US?
In a recent testimony, Greenspan argued that we must be grateful to the Fed for its loose interest rate policy since January 2001. Without this policy, he suggested, we would probably be suffering a terrible economic slump by now. Shostak's analysis, however, shows that instead of strengthening in financial conditions, the Fed's policy produce the exact opposite. The data show an unsustainable recovery and deteriorating underlying conditions.
