Federal Reserve

Archive for Federal Reserve

Sumner Believes in Government-Created Bubbles and Ticking Time Bombs

This is kind of an inside baseball post, so if you don’t “get it,” just move on with your life. Anyway, those who read Scott Sumner closely, especially his incredulous responses to Austrian critics of the Fed, should be puzzled by his latest post in which Scott writes: Back in the early 1990s lots of […]

The Fed’s New and Improved (!) Exit Plan

This Bloomberg article on the Fed’s possible need for a new “exit plan” is eerie; it is the financial analog of reading the NYT calmly discuss the Administration’s “secret kill list” (their headline). When I read this, I was perplexed: ““They have to find ways of unwinding the balance sheet without dumping all of it […]

So Simple! We Just Need to Create Two Platinum Coins Worth $1 Trillion Each

This is a real news article: If President Obama wants to avoid an economic calamity next year, he could always show up at a news conference bearing two shiny platinum coins, each worth … $1 trillion. That sounds wacky, but some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way […]

One More on Cantillon for 2012

[UPDATE below.] Last post this year from me on Cantillon, with the usual disclaimer that if Paul Krugman jumps in, all options are back on the table… In another comment Bill Woolsey says: In my view, Richmond’s short quotation and your short quotation about Wall Street restaurants were very much wrong and focus on from […]

Bill Woolsey Replies on Cantillon Effects

Bill Woolsey opened a long comment in my last post by writing, “Suppose the government decides to increase tank production. It might fund this by printing currency, by borrowing money, or by raising taxes. The tank manufacturers benefit the same amount regarless of this choice.” Hang on a second, fellas. You are changing the question. […]

Clarification on Cantillon Effects

Steve Horwitz’s thoughts reinforced my own inkling that I should spell out what I had always filed away as “the Austrian point about Cantillon effects.” So the following is what I would have said, had you asked me a month ago. Note that I speak for myself, and I’m not even saying this is what […]

Potpourri

==> Tyler Cowen jumps in on the side (?) of Sumner and Rowe (HT2 Max R.), regarding Cantillon effects. (Here Sumner is much clearer–to Austrian readers–about what his position has been all along.) Gene Callahan makes what seems to be a modest point, but it actually is the equivalent of Luke Skywalker’s shot into the […]

You Might Be Talkin to a Market Monetarist If…

…you ask this clarifying question on his blog and you genuinely don’t know what answer to expect: Thanks Nick. One more from me please. (And I’m not asking these to trap you, I’m asking so I fairly recapitulate what your position is.) If the Fed were to suddenly dump its mortgage-backed securities and replace them […]