The Forgotten Depression: A Study in Laissez-faire
The year is 1921. America is little more than two years removed from triumph on the Western Front. Warren Gamaliel Harding is its czar. And it is sunk in depression…
The year is 1921. America is little more than two years removed from triumph on the Western Front. Warren Gamaliel Harding is its czar. And it is sunk in depression…
This scheme makes money a hot potato burning the hands of anyone holding it more than three seconds. It destroys savers. And it destroys the formation of capital that is the seed corn of future growth. It turns every principle of sound economics on its ear. It is not economics, in fact. It is anti-economics. Any economist proposing it should be stripped of his title.
In a 2009 article, the Huffington Post went into considerable detail about the number of people with PhD degrees in economics employed by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. This is the government’s branch of the Federal Reserve. It is not one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, all of which …
The U.S. dollar is the dominant global reserve currency. All markets, including stocks, bonds, commodities, and foreign exchange are affected by the value of the dollar. The value of the dollar, in effect, its “price” is determined by interest rates. When the Federal Reserve manipulates interest rates, it is manipulating, and therefore distorting, every market …
The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. – Jesse Livermore, How to Trade in Stocks The trouble with capitalism’s guardians is that they …
“As the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the Congress of the United States. It is considered an independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government, it does not receive funding …
The Keynesian disaster recovery plan has been to lower rates, force people to take more risk in search of yield, and entice others to borrow and spend and, magically, more jobs will be created. If people won’t buy stocks, central banks will. Back in 2011, Ben Bernanke, when asked if QE2 was driving up stock …
The experts will tell you the recession is over, but they’re only torturing the data to hide the truth. The economy never recovered from the downturn it experienced. But the downturn happened in 2000, not 2008. The country’s been in the middle of a 14 year recession and hardly anyone knows the truth.
Politicians love inflation. It’s a way to pay for the government’s debts without upsetting the public by raising taxes, or their special interests by cutting government. So they’ll flood the economy with easy money and eat away at your savings. But that’s only part of the story…
“So we have, indeed, had a disappointingly slow recovery, and our consistent expectations for a pickup in growth have been dashed over a number of years… And the labor market is behaving in some perplexing ways and showing patterns that are novel.” –Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen in a speech to the Economic Club of …