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Monetary Policy

The Dangers of Negative Interest Rates and a Cashless Economy

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The recent gyrations in the stock market and the uncertainties surrounding American trade policies with China and other parts of the world have raised the question of when the next recession will inevitably follow the current economic recovery from the 2008-9 financial crisis. In the face of a future economic downturn, some economic policy analysts are already making the ... [click for more]

Government, Gold, and Separating Money From the State

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How long will the current improvement in employment and output growth continue? Will the Federal Reserve’s recent policy of nudging up market interest rates impede growth and employment, or will it act as a damper on possible future price inflation without slowing down the economy or pushing it into a new recession? The news media and policy pundits have been ... [click for more]

The Myth that Central Banks Assure Economic Stability

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Greek The world has been plagued with periodic bouts of the economic rollercoaster of booms and busts, inflations and recessions, especially during the last one hundred years. The main culprits responsible for these destabilizing and disruptive episodes have been governments and their central banks. They have monopolized the control of their respective nation’s monetary and ... [click for more]

Monetary Fallacies and Inflationary Bubbles

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Looking to the next few years ahead, is America and the world going to continue riding a wave of economic growth, improving standards of living, falling and lower unemployment, and technological changes that will continue to raise the quality and variety of life? Or will this turn out to be, at least partly, an artificial economic boom that will ... [click for more]

Debauching the Currency

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Often people who make gloomy predictions about the economy have an ulterior motive. They want to sell a newsletter, a book, precious metals, or even storage food. In some cases they have no basis for their views other than an opinion. I like to think that what I write originates with the economic thinkers of the Austrian School of ... [click for more]

Austrian Monetary Theory vs. Federal Reserve Inflation Targeting

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One of the leading policy guideposts for central banks and many monetary policy proponents nowadays is the idea of “inflation targeting.” Several major central banks around the world, including the Federal Reserve in the United States, have set a goal of two percent price inflation. The problem is, what central bankers are targeting is a phantom that does not ... [click for more]

Government Monopoly Money vs. Personal Choice in Currency

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For more than two hundred years, practically all of even the most free market advocates have assumed that money and banking were different from other types of goods and markets. From Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, the presumption has been competitive markets and free consumer choice are far better than government control and planning – except in the realm ... [click for more]

The Gold Clause Cases

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The Supreme Court’s decision in the Legal Tender Cases in the late 1800s compelled the acceptance of otherwise worthless Treasury notes for all debts, removing from the individual’s rightful sphere of control a matter of serious financial import. The Gold Clause Cases, decided in 1935, continued to erode the liberal tradition of economic freedom, the further decline of which ... [click for more]