The multiplier’s significance to monetary policy is, or used to be, straightforward: it indicated the quantity of additional bank deposits that monetary authorities could expect to see banks produce in response to any increment of new bank reserves supplied them by means of either open-market operations or direct central bank loans.
MARKETS
Big Policies, Bigger Failures
Economics is far simpler than most in academics or government would have you believe. To make accurate predictions all you really need is an honest appreciation of the self-interest that is at the heart of free market transactions and an ability to understand how...
The Myth of the Myth of Barter
There is, after all, at least one impulse among humans that’s more deep-seated than their “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange.” I mean, of course, their propensity to let themselves be thoroughly bamboozled.
Central Banks Are Choking Productivity
If the Economy were a car, productivity would be the engine. Heated seats, on-demand 4-wheel drive and light-sensitive tinted windshields, are all very nice. But they mean little if the engine doesn’t turn and the car just sits in the driveway. The latest productivity...
Free Market Money: On The Separation of Banking and State
Government has been the cause of monetary disorder in our society. A free market in money and banking would be the solution to our “age of inflation.” Government central-planning of money has been tried and it has failed. It is now time for monetary freedom to be given a chance.
UK’s Prime Minister Commits to Successful Brexit
On June 23rd, despite months of fear mongering by former Prime Minister David Cameron and his allies, doomsday global economic forecasts offered by the International Monetary Fund and the Obama Administration, and a steady drumbeat of anti-Brexit news stories by the...
On Free Banking, Monetary Rules, and Crusades
Free banking and monetary rules were rival ideas for guarding against abuses of discretionary monetary policy, today they are properly seen as complementary schemes, one for improving the performance of the banking system, the other for reforming the base-money regime.
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 5: The Supply of Money
On the Fed’s “instruments of monetary control,” which include devices for regulating the total quantity of bank reserves and circulating Federal Reserve notes, and also for regulating the quantity of bank deposits and other forms of privately-created money that will be supported by any given quantity of bank reserves.
Speak Loudly and Carry No Stick
Theodore Roosevelt’s famous mantra “speak softly and carry a big stick” suggested that the United States should seek to avoid creating controversies and expectations through loose or rash pronouncements, but be prepared to act decisively, with the most powerful...
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 4: Stable Prices or Stable Spending?
A better alternative, if only it can somehow be achieved, or at least approximated, is a monetary system that adjusts the stock of money in response to changes in the demand for money balances, thereby reducing the need for changes in the general level of prices.
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 3: The Price Level
What sort of monetary policy or regime best avoids the costs of having too much or too little money?
Businesses Makes the World a Better Place
Every day, businesses make the world a better place to live, profitably, by creating and trading material values, by mutual consent and for mutual benefit. It’s time we’d recognize it and appreciate business people for what they do. Such a cultural change would, in time, create business heroes also in Hollywood movies and spiritual fuel for all of us.
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 2: The Demand for Money
How can a central bank manage a quantity without being certain just how to define, let alone measure, that quantity? How is it possible for the quantity of money supplied to differ from the quantity demanded? When those things do differ, how can one tell? Finally, just what does “the demand for money” mean?
A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 1: Money
What, exactly, is “monetary policy” about? Why is there such a thing at all? What should we want to accomplish by it — and what should we not try to accomplish?
A Brexit in Name Only?
The BREXIT vote on June 23rd was part of a growing global trend in which ordinary people are expressing a desire to retain national sovereignty regardless of the cost and suffering that may be involved. The result is rightly seen as a repudiation of the political and...
The Truth About Free Trade, Free Markets and Capitalism
Americans will most gain from whatever trading opportunities that may offer themselves around the globe if the U.S. government follows a strict and principled policy of unrestrained and unrestricted free trade with any and all nations of the world.
Brexit is Just What the Dr. Ordered
Janet Yellen should send a note of congratulations to Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, the British politicians most responsible for pushing the Brexit campaign to a successful conclusion. While she’s at it she should also send them some fruit baskets, flowers,...
Donald Trump the Corrupt Creation of America’s Bankrupt Politics
The Democrats and the Republicans, the progressives on the “left” and the go-along to get-along conservatives on the “right, are the ones who made Donald Trump.
Brexit Fears are Deliberately Overblown
As the June 23rd BREXIT (the UK-wide referendum to leave the EU) vote draws near, the polls indicate a close result. Those urging a vote for the UK to remain inside the EU are suggesting increasingly dire economic consequences that would follow a yes vote by the...
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A Fed official walks into a bar and says the economy is improving and rate hikes are appropriate. The patrons order another round to celebrate. Then disappointing data comes out, the high fives stop, and the Fed official ducks...
How the FED Causes Booms and Busts
The result of the Federal Reserve’s increase in the money supply, which pushes interest rates below that market-balancing point, is an emerging price inflation and an initial investment boom, both of which are unsustainable in the long run.
The Purpose of a Business: Creating Value (Goods and Services) For Value (Profit)
Business is for producing and trading material values, driven by the profit motive.
Lying in Business
In my years of teaching ethics to business students, I must have heard it all when it comes to justifying deception and lying in business.
Karl Marx’s Communist Theory of the “Injustice” of Capitalism
Nothing that Lenin or Stalin implemented in Soviet Russia or Mao in China, for example, was not called for or implied in Marx’s own writings and arguments.
Ayn Rand, Ludwig Von Mises and the Austrians: How I Became an Economist for Capitalism
When I was about seventeen, and living in Hollywood, I met two men who introduced me to the works of Ayn Rand.
King of Debt Seeks Presidency
During a lengthy interview on CNBC the week before last, Donald Trump, fresh from becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, came as close as any major presidential contender ever has to saying that America is not capable of repaying her debts in full, and that our...
Price Inflation and The Consumer Price Index
The CPI vs. the Diversity of Real People’s Choices
Protectionism No Better than Socialism
“The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.”
Make America Great Again
Donald Trump’s critics have heaped scorn on his calls for protective tariffs to deal with America’s widening trade imbalance and the resulting loss of higher–paying blue collar jobs. Some have accused him of trying to turn back the clock in pursuit of a cheap populist...
Negative Rates May Be Positive for Gold
As 2015 came to a close, most investors believed that 2016 would be a year dominated by a series of Fed rate hikes. That conviction solidified in mid-October when comments from multiple Fed officials convinced many that prior hints that the Fed would stay at zero...
Negative Rates Will Kill Growth
For years I have argued that ultra-low interest rates act more as an economic sedative than a stimulant. This idea has elicited laughter from the economic establishment. But it is becoming clearer that rates set by central banks that are far below the levels that free...
The Winter of Discontent
The Winter of 2015-2016, which came to an end a few weeks ago, has been officially designated as the mildest in the U.S. in 121 years according to NOAA. While this fact will certainly add a major talking point in the global warming debate, it should also be front and...
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