To speak about average prices is like talking about average precipitation to a golfer, writes Chris Mayer. It either rains during a specific time period or it doesn't. There is no average that is anyway useful for an acting human being on a golf course. The only information that counts is what it is doing right now while he is teeing off. It is the same with prices.
For a few billion dollars, you might expect to be able to bribe some small third world country into cleaning up its act, to defend the property rights of its citizens, to provide a stable currency, and to establish a non-interventionist economic and foreign policy. Not so, writes Mark Thornton.
No one can contend that the Federal Reserve System has brought economic stability or conquered the trade cycle, writes Hans Sennholz. On the contrary, its critics are convinced that a politically conceived and administered money monopoly, such as the Federal Reserve System, is the worst of all money systems. It will breed business cycles as long as it lives.
The best thing Greenspan can do, other than to close down the fraudulent entity known as the Federal Reserve System, is to sit back and do absolutely nothing. A sedentary Alan Greenspan harms no one. When he is active, however, watch out, says William Anderson. The man is dangerous.
What we see in Japan has nothing to do with the mythical liquidity trap, writes Frank Shostak, and everything to do with an explosion in debt, a reckless monetary policy, and tight government controls of businesses via the ministry of trade and industry. To put it bluntly, the Japanese have been depriving themselves of real funding in return for American government promises to repay the debt.
In the midst of a recession, and with the credibility of central banking itself being called into question, what is a central banker to do? Why, blame executive pay, of course, and impugn the morality of anyone who might believe that Fed governors are a greater threat to economic stability than shareholders that make wage decisions.
The idea of resorting to work and entrepreneurialism as a means to material well-being has historically become a poor second to the idea of acquiring resources through theft. This robbery is always most effectively perpetrated when disguised and when legally underwritten by the threat of political violence–-i.e., when it is committed by the State.
There is something about monetary phenomena that make them a particularly misunderstood aspect of economic life. Deflation is no exception. There seems to be little understanding as to what it is, what causes it, and whether or not it is something that should be prevented. The effects of deflation, like the quality of drinking water, cannot be considered without regard to its source.
So long greenbacks; hello pinkbacks. So says the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which promises to start changing the color of money next fall, beginning with the $20 bill.
With the average American spending more to fund government than to buy food, clothing, and shelter combined, the greatest impact the government has on those of us for whom it "cares so much" is through the huge gap it creates between the value of our productive contribution to others in the workplace and what we actually take home.
