Federal Reserve

Archive for Federal Reserve

War and the Fed

I’m going to be on Scott Horton’s radio program in a few minutes to talk about the connection between central banking and war. Here are two charts to supplement the interview. The first shows year/year percentage increases in the Consumer Price Index, while the second shows year/year percentage increases in the monetary base. I think […]

The Japanese Experiment

“Tyler Durden” at ZeroHedge is as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve, thinking that the Bank of Japan has finally “lost control” because of the breakout of 10 YR Japanese government bond yields (doubling in 4 hours and triggering circuit breakers). Let me make a falsifiable prediction of which I am certain: No matter […]

Sumner Responds

[UPDATE below.] It’s getting late and I’m working on a deadline, so perhaps this is foolish of me. I feel like when I’m playing the computer in chess and it makes what seems to be a really dumb move. Do I pounce, or should I be cautious and assume I’m missing something subtle? Anyway, here’s […]

Market Monetarists, Like Ogres, Have Many Layers

(In the title I’m referring to this.) You know, I really have tried over the last few years to make sense of a guy who says the fundamental explanation for our economic malaise, is that Ben Bernanke has implemented the tightest monetary policy since the Hoover Administration. But it’s tough. In a recent article in […]

Lara and Murphy Presentation in Nashville

Tonight, April 2, 2013, my co-author Carlos Lara and I will be giving a talk in the Brentwood Public Library on our view of the US economy (it’s bleak) and what households can do. Much of what we will discuss comes from our book, if you are curious but want to get a sense of […]

Potpourri

==> Jack Hunter argues that even though he’s in favor of gay marriage personally (thinking it should be decided legally at the state level), he strongly objects to the rhetoric of saying it is akin to the Civil Rights movement for blacks. I still think Gene Callahan has the best observation on this whole issue […]

Tucker Interviews Murphy on Illusion of Wealth

Laissez-Faire Books has released a new volume with excerpts of Mises talking about the business cycle. (Specifically, we went through Human Action and grabbed what the reader would need to fully understand the Austrian business cycle theory.) Here’s the interview about it. My son video-bombs us around 8:15.

A Different Explanation of the “Productivity” and Wage Divergence

I have not read a single word from the EPI paper claiming that if the minimum wage had followed “productivity growth” it would now be $22/hour, so everything I am writing in this blog post is predicated on Daniel Kuehn’s interpretation being sound. Having said that, consider the following fable: In 1968, a nation of […]