If the Fed had been tracking repos in 2007–2008, what they would have seen was the unfolding of the financial crisis one full year before it went critical. Instead, Bernanke stopped collecting the data because he decided to abolish M3.
Why is unemployment stuck at 10 percent in the narrowest measure and as high as 30 percent for some demographics? The usual answer is that the broad economy is not recovering. That's true but superficial; it explains nothing. We have a problem of a specific kind with the job market.
Beginning in 2007 and culminating in 2008, the home-ownership myth was smashed, as values all over the country plummeted, wiping out a primary means of savings and instilling shock and awe all across the country. The thing that was never supposed to happen had happened.
The fundamental question is, who is the owner of the funds paid in taxes? Is it the citizens, who have earned the funds and who turn them over under threat of being fined or imprisoned — or even killed — or is it the government?
Plans are already in the works to put the initiative back on the ballot for 2012, which is expected to have higher turnout from young people. But in order for the ballot initiative to succeed, we must first understand why it failed.
Recorded at the Mises Circle at Furman University on November 13th, 2010.
Bernanke — with Paul Krugman looking over his shoulder and telling him where to put the paddles and how many volts to shock the patient with — thinks he can crunch the data, make a diagnosis, concoct the right monetary witch's brew, and inject lots of it to make us all employed and living happily ever after.
Central bankers cannot be trusted with the printing press, especially when there is no formal check on their inflationary policies. It is no coincidence that gold is hitting such heights as investors the world over hunker down for what may very well be a collapse of the dollar system.
The voters of Washington State crushed an attempt to levy new income taxes on the rich. The viewers of <i>60 Minutes</i>, however, were just told that such taxes are a great idea. Who is right? Robert Murphy explains the economic rationale behind the voters' choice.
