Federal Reserve

Archive for Federal Reserve

“What Model Is Ben Bernanke Using?!”

The bitter von Pepe sends this John Taylor blog post from early July: In a recent speech at Stanford (video here) former Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO Dick Kovacevich told the full story of how he was forced to take TARP funds even though Wells Fargo did not need or want the funds. The forcing event […]

Life Insurance, the Forgotten Savings Vehicle

Most Americans today know precious little of their country’s history, besides things like certain U.S. presidents and big wars. For example, most Americans don’t know that because of Constitutional concerns, the Eisenhower Administration had to cite the need to quickly move tanks and troops around to fend off an invasion, as a national security justification […]

Yet More on Rules vs. Discretion in Monetary Policy

==> Steve Horwitz weighs in. ==> This was actually one of the few things I thought was cool in macro class in grad school. So let me reproduce the patronizing comment I left at Daniel Kuehn’s blog where he and I have taken the battle: DK [Daniel Kuehn] wrote: I suppose I was reading “do […]

Two Views of Krugman

[UPDATE at end.] Daniel Kuehn is upset that Don Boudreaux leads his readers to believe that Milton Friedman and people like him have a monopoly on rule-based monetary policy. Daniel writes: Don, I think, is trying to pull the wool over his readers eyes here. The consensus for a long time now has been that […]

Updated Yield Curve Chart

For my Anatomy of the Fed class, I showed how the Austrian theory of the business cycle actually has a very natural explanation of the yield curve’s ability to “predict” recessions. (Details in my paper here.) Some people asked me to update the charts. Here ya go:

The Dangers of the Modern Greenbacker Movement

Uh oh, I ask for a comeuppance by the MMTers in this new piece at The American Conservative: Lately there has been growing interest in what might be called the modern Greenbacker movement, in homage to the historical political party. The new movement deplores the current system under which the government issues interest-bearing debt to commercial […]

Reminder: Anatomy of the Fed Starts Tonight

A quick reminder, my Mises Academy online class “Anatomy of the Fed” starts tonight. Special summer pricing: $79 for an 8-week course. Krugman is right, deflation is here.

Was Hayek Really a Sumnerian?

I know that some people use the term “Sumnerite” to refer to disciples of Scott Sumner, but I think Sumnerian sounds like something Indiana Jones would study. Now when trying to convince free-market economists of the wisdom of his views, one of Scott’s arguments has been to claim Friedrich Hayek as one of his own. […]