Money and Banks

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 21 July 2015.

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 21 July 2015.

The Fed often uses the "natural rate" of unemployment to determine whether or not it should raise interest rates. But as with so many metrics the Fed uses, this one is based on arbitrary measures that can be manipulated to suit Fed policy.

Has the ECB failed as miserably in creating price stability?

Debt isn't the only problem Greece faces. Thanks to years of government spending and easy money, the Greek economy long ago turned away from true wealth generating activities and embraced a bubble economy instead.

Surprisingly, Marx and Lenin were occasionally insightful when it came to the problems and consequences of fiat money in the economy. In principle, they opposed unbacked currency. But of course, once communists seized political power, those principles went right out the window.

The Greek government has spent freely for many years to enrich itself and its special interests at the expense of taxpayers. And now, it is not the Greek politicians who will suffer, but the taxpayers who face a future of unending debt payments.

Despite massive policy stimulus in the United States, the US economy is now growing far more slowly than in past periods of monetary inaction from the central bank. Meanwhile, fragile economic bubbles are being inflated from China to Europe.

As usual, the former Fed chairman, author of many of our current economic ills, is confused.