Financial Economics

Archive for Financial Economics

Dean Baker Looks at the Fed, and He Likes What He Sees

It’s really funny how economists can look at the same basic facts and reach such different conclusions. For example, I only recently really understood what the deal was with the Fed remitting its excess earnings back to the Treasury. And when I had finally comprehended the scheme, I concluded: The Fed is a giant counterfeiter! […]

Slight Correction to DeLong on the Austrians

Two things about this Brad DeLong post. First, I like the quote from a P.J. Grigg that DeLong disparages[actually I’m not sure if DeLong is for it or agin it] reproduces: I distrust utterly those economists who have with great but deplorable ingenuity taught that it is not only possible but praiseworthy for a whole […]

Why Some of Us Are Really Suspicious of the Banks

No joke, the elusive von Pepe and I literally sent each other the same FRED chart in crossed emails, because we saw different bloggers mentioning it. The chart shows a huge spike in US government securities held by commercial banks. It looked familiar, so I decided to overlay the CPI: Now of course, correlation doesn’t […]

How Many Austrians Does It Take to Understand Fractional Reserve Banking?

(We also would have accepted, “How many bankers does it take to screw over their depositors?”) This is pretty funny. It took several blog comment exchanges before Steve Horwitz and I finally understood where the other guy was coming from. (And in fact, we’re still not in agreement on the basic facts. Ah well.) Let […]

Aptly Named Insana Disses Ron Paul

Bob Wenzel has a good response to CNBC commentator Ron Insana’s putdown of Ron Paul’s economic views. As many of you know, I am often a self-hating Austro-libertarian, and I bend over backwards to understand what motivates those who disagree with me. So on this issue of Ron Paul’s “scandalous” investments in gold-mining stocks, I […]

Bob Wenzel Sounds the Alarm

When you have a little kid you get to watch a bunch of Disney movies that would otherwise classify you as a sissy. (This includes the Little Mermaid, which is a really great movie–I mean, I forced myself to watch it for the little kid.) Anyway, I forget the name of it, but when my […]

I Join the Fractional Reserve Banking Wars

In today’s article at Mises.org I walk through a simple example to show exactly how bankers benefit from fractional reserve banking. Whether you love or hate FRB, I think you should check out the article because I take the analysis one step deeper than I’ve seen it anywhere else. Specifically, I show exactly how the […]

Krugman Has Booted the Hackers From His Blog Account

[UPDATE below.] OK I finally figured it out: Hackers must have left the CRU scene of the crime, and had temporarily gotten control of Krugman’s NYT blog account. But now things are back to normal. Today Krugman writes: So here’s where we are: China has done nothing to change its policy of massive currency manipulation, […]