It is surely more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have had one. During the great equity bubble of the 1990s Alan Greenspan acquired an illustrious reputation as the world’s greatest central banker and staunch guardian of the U.S. dollar. His admirers in the U.S. Congress never tired of applauding him and Queen Elizabeth of the
In commenting on the ongoing Japanese slump, President Bush made the worst gaffe of his presidency. Bush relayed to a news conference that he and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had discussed the “devaluation issue” in their talks. As the yen sank, the White House quickly clarified that Bush had meant the “deflation issue.” It’s true that
Ready for “Pinkbacks,” that is, for Federal Reserve notes with a pink hue? Yes, the Federal Reserve is continuing to experiment with new, more difficult-to-counterfeit paper money. First it was BIG FACES (along with the introduction of a variety of other counterfeit-proof characteristics into our Federal Reserve notes). Next, maybe, it will be
Due to some incredible competition over the last two weeks, this year’s Hubris in Monetary Policy award will go to someone other than Alan Greenspan. To be sure, it looked like Greenspan would retain his trophy after his now-notorious speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo. It was here that The Chairman pulled out the big guns by arguing that monetary policy
The following extract neatly sums up why monetarists and Keynesians are both wrong in their prescriptions about the need to use easy money and Big Government to boost “effective” demand. From The National Federation of Independent Business April Survey: “The economy is splitting with the services sector improving and the goods sector suffering,”
Corrigan heads Capital Insight , a financial consultancy. He was interviewed at the Mises Institute prior to his lecture on the “What Happened to Recovery?” MISES.ORG : It seems like the Austrian story of the boom is getting out there. CORRIGAN : My sense is that many Austrians have described the process of the boom very well. The literature deals
Somehow, someway, it always comes back to the central bank. With economic anxiety growing, trouble in Latin America , frustration at the length of the recession, suspicions that matters are going to get worse before they are better, and, above all, terror that stock prices could fall ever further, Alan Greenspan is letting it be known that rate
With the mid-term elections barely over, the Federal Reserve, in a move that gives even politics a bad name, has announced yet another cut in its key interest rates. The Federal Funds Rate is down to 1.25 percent, while the discount rate now stands at 0.75 percent. No doubt, economists from all sides will applaud this “long overdue” move by
The historical consensus has long ascribed the authorship of the independent federal treasury to President Martin Van Buren, or implicitly to his advisers, although a few historians have maintained that the idea originated within the Jackson administration. Certainly Van Buren deserves credit, as Jackson does not, for proposing its adoption, which
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.