Listening to a new report on the just-released GDP numbers while reading Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression ( AGD ) made me realize how relevant and important this work is relative to today’s poorly performing economy. The book briefly summarizes Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) and applies the theory to the period of the Great Depression
On Tuesday July 2, 2013 US central bank policy makers voted in favor of the US version of the global bank rules known as the Basel 3 accord. The cornerstone of the new rules is a requirement that banks maintain high quality capital, such as stock or retained earnings, equal to 7 percent of their loans and assets. The bigger banks may be required
According to the popular way of thinking, bubbles are an important cause of economic recessions. The main question posed by experts is how one knows when a bubble is forming. It is held that if the central bankers knew the answer to this question they might be able to prevent bubble formations and thus prevent recessions. On this, at the World
Mises.org readers were alerted to the housing bubble in Norway in January 2013 . It now appears that the bubble is starting to crash. Brokers have had to recalibrate after more than five years of a booming market where homes sold for as much as 50 percent above the asking price. During the peak, DNB Eiendom’s Dahl said she sold a property outside
The Free Market 31, no. 7 (July 2013) David Stockman discusses his new book, the gold standard, bailouts, and the problems the American economy faces today. The Free Market: In the book, you oppose Bernanke’s view of the Great Depression, which you point out relies heavily on the views of Milton Friedman. David Stockman: Bernanke has cultivated
It now appears that Housing Bubble II is cooling. After the Fed drove mortgage rates down to around 3.35% in May for a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage, home prices started climbing. In the sand states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, among the hardest hit areas, home prices increased by an average of about 25%. Bloomberg reports that
I have been talking about the Housing Bubble in Norway for a while and about one year ago I wrote an article here . The story was picked up in by a variety of publications including here . It turns out that the bubble has spread over the entire Nortic region. It caused quite a stir in Norway and was reported on in the leading business publications
The Wall Street Journal ran a very optimistic article on the rising prices for Skyscrapers and new construction in New York. This is my letter to the editor in response. Dear Editor, Wall Street Journal : So what does “Skyscraper Prices Head North” C1, 6/10 tell us? Have perhaps Dr. Bernanke’s “green shoots” from 2008-9 finally taken root?
For years we have been told that Japan is a fallen giant that was crippled by the stock market crash of 1989 and has yet to recover. The new Japanese political leadership has used this story to argue for higher inflation targets that would double the money supply and national debt to get Japan out of its malaise. This article from the New York
Murray Rothbard argued that the cause of the Great Depression was the result of Herbert Hoover’s New Deal policies which sought to keep wages and profits high. Robert Higgs, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway extended this thesis to FDR’s New Deal policies which created artificially high prices and profits and prevented the normal market
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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.