Money and Banks

The fact that gold can be used for, say, industrial purposes does not mean it has "real value" while more intangible goods and services have none.

Fekete was one of the few old Europeans to recognize the central role of money: on the positive side as a means of amicable division of labor, on the negative side as a casualty and lever of political intervention.

If we look beyond the mere tax revenue totals, we begin to understand that the cost of taxation to society is far higher than the tax revenue raised and that the costs to society of taxation grow faster than the size of government.

Could new gold discoveries cause a (small) boom-bust cycle if the gold hit the loan market before other sectors? Bill Barnett and Walter Block join Bob Murphy to discuss. 

Negative rates are a huge transfer of the wealth of savers and real wages to the government and the indebted. A tax on caution. The destruction of the perception of risk that always benefits the most reckless.

An unheralded work on the Austrian business cycle that rivals the work of the greats is Jesús Huerta de Soto’s Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, which outlines a multistate process of boom and bust. 

Reinstating the mark, a peaceful act by a sovereign country, would create a cascade of monetary reform throughout the world. Europe's trading partners would find the cost of necessary imports rising in terms of their local currencies, forcing them to adopt fiscal and monetary responsibility.

An unheralded work on the Austrian business cycle that rivals the work of the greats is Jesús Huerta de Soto’s Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, which outlines a multistate process of boom and bust. 

From the dollar to bitcoin to Facebook's Diem, private monies and quasi monies are making the monetary landscape a lot more complicated.

Americans have benefited mightily by holding and trading with the world’s reserve currency, though most people haven’t given it a thought. No one remembers when the pound sterling held this distinction a hundred years ago.