Federal Reserve

Archive for Federal Reserve

Potpourri

==> An excerpt from Guido Hulsmann’s introduction to (what we know as) The Theory of Money & Credit. Incidentally, I wrote a Study Guide for this book, and believe me, it’s not as intimidating as it first appears. If you have always wanted to be the type of person to read it, but thought you […]

Potpourri

==> Murray Sabrin has been our man in Cuba. Here’s an article in a series of posts on his visit. ==> Jerry O’Driscoll doesn’t heart Bernanke. ==> John Papola also caught something that I noticed about the Stiglitz/Krugman exchange (on inequality): Stiglitz quite explicitly said that low consumption spending was the reason for our recession, […]

Krugman: Government Spending Surged If It Helps My Case, Otherwise It’s a Dirty Right-Wing Myth

[UPDATE below.] I am really busy with work deadlines, so not much blogging for another two weeks or so. But in the meantime, I wanted to point something out, though I don’t have time to buttress my claims with links. Here is my observation: Paul Krugman will say that government spending has surged under Obama […]

Was Bernanke Able to Create More Money?

Since I usually agree with David R. Henderson, I like to highlight times when I think he is either wrong or (at least) paints a misleading picture for his readers. In this post David was reviewing Alan Blinder’s new book, and wrote (quoting himself from his WSJ review): So once the financial crisis happened, what […]

Waldman Thinks Bernanke Will Go for (Flawed) Exit #1

Way back in March 2011, I had an article at Mises.org critiquing three “exit strategies” people had discussed for the Fed. The first was paying higher interest on excess reserves. Here was my analysis: The option that Bernanke himself frequently mentions is the Fed’s ability to offer higher interest rates on excess reserves. Currently, if […]

Potpourri

==> An interesting inventory at IER of “federal assets above and below ground.” I didn’t do this particular blog post, but I think it draws on some numbers I compiled in the past. This notion that if the feds don’t get to raise the debt ceiling, they have no choice but to cut PBS and […]

While I Was Bogged Down With Keynesians, Sumner Solidifies His Power Grab

Oh man, have you kids been checking in with Scott Sumner lately? ==> Famous monetary economist Frederic Mishkin has now been seduced by the Dark Side. ==> Sumner thinks the trillion dollar coin is bad for the Democrats politically, but if Obama “ignores my advice and mints the coin anyway, I’ll strongly support the move […]

Can Fiscal Austerity Work With Tight Money?

[Disclaimer: Bob Wenzel doesn’t like me using the term “fiscal austerity,” since he thinks the public associates it with jacking up taxes and cutting social programs in order to bail out bankers. He has a point, but it will just get too cumbersome in this post if I try to come up with some alternate […]