As the Federal Reserve desperately tries to force down interest rates of long-term US bonds, we should remember that the only way for those rates to effectively drop is for American savers to lower their time preferences.
Monetary authorities are wanting to remove currency and coin from the economy altogether and just have electronic transfers. That would be a mistake that would damage the free market.
Manufacturers can choose the free market. Bankers rarely do.
Despite claims that the Federal Reserve System is a “stabilizing” force in the US economy, the truth is that the Fed is and has been the main engine of inflation for more than a century.
In a recent interview with The Economist, Elon Musk boldly contended that “money won’t matter in 2036.” He doesn’t understand money’s role.
Mainstream economists believe that central banks can “control” inflation, which they believe actually boosts the economy. The only thing inflation boosts is more inflation.
Mainstream economists tend to think of cash balances as the heart of new savings. Actually, real savings involves much more than that.
Willie Sutton was a famous bank robber. The late Alan Greenspan used banks and the monetary system to take infinitely more money from Americans than Sutton ever stole.
Bob uses U.S. economic history, centering on the greenback era, to work through some subtle but important distinctions in Austrian monetary theory.
