Inflationist, Heal Thyself

I was reading Scott Sumner and came across this: Benjamin Strong was President of the New York Fed during the 1920s, which effectively made him the Ben Bernanke of his time. According to Liaquat Ahamed (p. 293-94), Strong favored a policy that attempted to stabilize the economy by looking at “the trend in prices and […]

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Scott Sumner Writes My Hatchet Job For Me

Prodded by an exchange (which I can’t find right now…) in the comments with Silas Barta, I sent the following email to Scott Sumner: Hi Scott, I am thinking of doing a Mises Daily article explaining what would actually happen if you were made Fed chairman. Obviously I don’t think we would get out of […]

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More Post-Modern Financial Analysis From Scott Sumner

Why do I keep torturing myself by going back to Scott’s blog? (Actually I have an answer: because I have a paper due tonight, that’s why.) Here’s Scott on those nutty goldbugs: I learned an important lesson by reading newspapers from 1933 showing Wall Street’s reactions to FDR’s New Deal policies.  They were sort of […]

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More Sniping at Sumner (and Cochrane)

[UPDATE below.] As longtime readers know, I initially loved Scott Sumner but then came to regret my early praise. Yes, he is the smart, consistent, logical, and funny blogger that I identified early on. But unfortunately, he uses his gifts to promote the idea that Bernanke just needs to start writing more checks, and everything […]

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