Monetary Policy

The Hubris of the Central Banker and the Ghosts of Deflation Past, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 Nearly 75 years after the great stock-market crash of 1929, monetary policy is still haunted by the ghost of the Great Depression. The severity of the American stock-market decline during the last three years has again awakened fears among some policymakers that the economic downturn might bring about a deflationary period of collapsing output ...

Postmodern Government Budgets

by Sheldon Richman January 17, 2003

If President Bush’s bureaucracy were as capable as the bureaucracy in George Orwell’s great novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Lawrence Lindsey, the president’s former economic advisor, would have been airbrushed out of every photograph he appeared in while holding that post, and every reference to his estimate of the cost of the ...

What Is Seen and Not Seen in the Federal Budget Deficits

by Richard M. Ebeling January 17, 2003

President Bush’s budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., has now admitted what most people have been expecting — that the era of federal budget deficits has returned for the foreseeable future. In the current fiscal year, the deficit will most probably be greater than $200 billion and will very ...

A Rare Moment of Candor

by Sheldon Richman November 9, 2002

President Bush says he’s got the economy under control. That’s supposed to comfort us. I’d feel better if he said he had the federal government under control. It’s spending wildly — and it can’t blame the “war on terrorism” for it all. That’s just the latest spending. ...

Book Review: Should We Have Faith in Central Banks?

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 2002

Should We Have Faith in Central Banks? by Otmar Issing (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2002); 53 pages; $12. One of the momentous events of the new century has been the establishment of a single, common currency for many of the member nations of the European Union. The German mark, the French franc, the Austrian schilling, the Italian lira, the Irish ...

The Disunited States of Europe: The Politics of Power and Privilege, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 FOR SIX DAYS, during December 6-12, 2000, the 15 member-nations of the European Union (EU) met in Nice, France, for a conference that was meant to set the direction and structure for the organization well into the 21st century. On the EU’s agenda were: (a) plans for expanding the European Union to include many of the ...

The Disunited States of Europe: The Politics of Power and Privilege, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 The corrosive effects that may occur from a spirit of political and economic nationalism were understood long before the disastrous consequences experienced as a result of them in the 20th century. In 1759, in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith warned against the danger residing within any strongly held nationalist ...

Legal Tender and the Civil War

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2000

FACED WITH A LACK of Northern enthusiasm for his war against the South, President Lincoln resorted to drastic means to finance his war effort. If Lincoln had resorted to a traditional method of government finance — taxation — he knew that he might be faced with tax riots among the people of the North. And he knew that if ...

Alan Greenspan’s Inflation Problem

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2000

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has informed the American people that they can expect to see higher interest rates for the rest of the year. In his recent testimony before the Congressional Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Greenspan stated that the unprecedented growth in production and employment in ...

The World Bank Wants to Give All of Us an Education

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2000

If the president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, has his way, you can expect to see tens of millions of your tax dollars sent oversees for a another global scheme in government central planning. This time the goal is to fund the education of every man, woman, and child in ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 40: Towards a System of Monetary and Banking Freedom

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 39: Free Banking and the Benefits of Market Competition

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...