Money and Banks

Recorded at The Mises Circle in Manhattan, on May 22nd, 2010.

The whole entrepreneurial class is in the position of a master builder whose task it is to erect a building out of a limited supply of building mat

It is likely that with the bailout of Greece we have already passed this point of no return.

A government which interferes with banking exposes itself to great danger of error, and such errors cost it popular confidence sooner than any others.

Men are always forced to choose between satisfaction in nearer and remoter periods of the future.

"The essence of 'immediate convertibility' is the difference between what Austrians call a claim transaction or warehouse receipt, like a demand deposit, and a credit transaction, like a time deposit."

Sound money even sounds heavier than unsound money. Gold and silver originated on the market and reigned as the preferred money because the metals were easily portable, homogeneous, highly divisible, highly durable, and naturally scarce. Paper has none of those attributes.

Interest is a homogeneous phenomenon. There are no different sources of interest. 

"We are in a frightening state of affairs, where the government feels the need to commit acts of aggression, through the use of tariffs and quotas, as means of 'economic defense'."

"Class interest led him almost always to the side of the smaller political unit against encroachment by the larger, because the greater the power of local self-government, as a rule, the better for the producer and the worse for the exploiter."