Federal Reserve

Archive for Federal Reserve

Brad DeLong Convinces Me I’m Not Insane

Remember that famous psychology experiment where the unwitting subject is in a room with ten people, and then the administrators show two lines–one much shorter than the other? If the first nine people (who in reality are all confederates with the experimenters) say the shorter line is longer, then the last guy might go against […]

Inflationists in Wolves’ Clothing

I continue my one-man campaign against the disastrous impact of the quasi-monetarists (aka market monetarists) on the punditry. It took Scott Sumner three years to become the new normal; it will just take a collapse of the currency for my own take. An excerpt: Even though their conclusion strikes me as absurd, these quasi monetarists […]

Starting From Scratch With the Quasi-Monetarists

Scott Sumner popped in to leave a comment on my earlier post. To refresh your memory, I was complaining that Scott (and his quasi-monetarist peers) is so sure that tight monetary policy is to blame for our economic woes, that he’s neglecting the host of other massive interventions into the market economy that have occurred […]

Scott Sumner Caricatures Himself

I’m not sure why I’ve been on the warpath against Scott Sumner lately. Maybe it’s because he was on hiatus for a lot of the summer, so my angst built up. Maybe it’s because I didn’t get accepted into the Chicago doctoral program and he did. Who knows. Anyway, in a recent post Scott continues […]

Danger from the Euro, Malpractice from the Fed

That’s the title of my inaugural piece at the Washington Times. An excerpt: Note the pattern over the last decade: Instead of giving us a painful but standard recession, Alan Greenspan gave us the illusion of a quick recovery in the early 2000s. When the housing bubble burst, it was no longer a mere recession […]

More Sumner Spawn

Matt Yglesias is refining his new idea, after reviewing the list of demands from the Wall Street protestors: My view is that the best demand of all, somewhat in the spirit of item number 1 but more radical, is “free money for the rest of us.” There are a lot of different specific ways this […]

Murphy Twin Spin

On Monday I shared my thoughts on grocery stores, and yesterday I discussed Operation Twist. Some excerpts from the latter: Just the fact that it’s an “operation” is disturbing. Ever since the crisis began, officials have deployed the military metaphor since their only solution to social problems is to start blowing things up. We have […]

Calling Noah Smith’s Bluff on Demand- Versus Supply-Side Recessions

I still intend to give a more thorough response to Karl Smith and Daniel Kuehn in light of their reactions to my “gnome” article. One of their main themes is to be shocked, shocked that we Austrians keep accusing the Keynesians of thinking in aggregate terms. Why, Karl’s middle name is “microdata,” and Daniel argues […]