The Free Market 14, no. ( 1996) The Federal Reserve is the most powerful yet least questioned of all Washington institutions. It can make or break elections, bail out entire governments, send the stock market to the stratosphere, or bankrupt whole industries. Yet it operates with less oversight than the CIA. In the past, politicians have only
The Free Market 14, no. 11 (November 1996) It’s a myth that the Federal Reserve is independent of politics. It’s a lie so brazen, in fact, that it’s fit only for Fed press releases. Every administration, to take just one example, tries to get the Fed chairman to time monetary policy so as to insure its reelection. Fed chairmen will play along,
The Free Market 15, no. 2 (February 1997) If members of the congressional classes of 1994 and 1996 are serious about curbing government, they should rally around Ron Paul, the newly elected congressman from Texas’s 14th district. For Ron, a longtime friend of the Mises Institute, is the outstanding political opponent of the main engine of
The Free Market 16, no. 12 (December 1998) The phrase of the day is “moral hazard.” It’s something everyone seems to think is a bad thing, but few are willing to do anything about, certainly not Alan Greenspan. So far, he’s on record backing the Mexican bailout, the Asian bailout, the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management, and more IMF
The Free Market 18, no. 5 (May 2000) Like a man who douses a large pile of rags with gasoline and then warns of a fire hazard, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has begun issuing dire warnings of impending inflation after orchestrating several years of explosive monetary growth. To some observers this behavior is just the result of the difficulties
The Free Market 32, no. 12 (December 2014) Throughout the existence of the Fed, its officers and intellectual supporters understandably asserted that the government’s movement toward central banking was a most beneficial evolution. In a 1948 issue of The Federal Reserve Bulletin , for example, Fed Chairman Thomas B. McCabe asserted that money
The Free Market 27, no. 4 (April 2009) In a March 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan tried to exonerate himself from the housing boom and bust. Even though more and more analysts are realizing that Greenspan’s low interest rates fueled the bubble, the ex-maestro himself uses statistics to defend his
The Free Market 30, no. 6 (June 2012) The following is a testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Monetary Policy (Chairman: Ron Paul). Dr. Salerno was able to give this testimony thanks to the generous support of Mises Institute donors. Chairman Paul and members of the Subcommittee, I am deeply honored to
The Free Market 20, no. 12 (December 2002) The Federal Reserve System may have run out of room to maneuver. Facing a looming recession, it resolutely lowered its discount rate and frantically expanded its credits. Eager to stimulate the sagging economy, it enabled and encouraged businessmen to invest more and consumers to go ever deeper into
The Free Market 20, no. 12 (December 2002) There are many characteristics that Alan Greenspan shares with Benjamin Strong, the New York Fed president during the 1920s. Both decided US monetary policies during eras of massive, unsustainable growth in the business cycle. Both played major roles in creating asset bubbles that eventually resulted in
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.