1 thought on “Origins of the financial crisis, in two minutes”
LOL! That was funny, but seriously, I find it interesting that none of the (current) presidential candidates and almost no members of congress are talking about fixing the underlying problem, which is that the US government can expand the money supply without restraint via the Federal Reserve.
Consider that with all the attention focused on “punishing Wall Street,” we are diverted from the fact that the US entered into a war it couldn’t afford, so it ‘created’ money by lowering the Discount Rate and Federal Funds Rate dramatically post 9-11-2001.
Should we have expected anything other than an atmosphere of speculation and short-selling to ensue?
Have we forgotten the lesson of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, when (mostly) Jewish bankers speculated on collapse of the plummeting Mark thus causing its downward spiral?–a crisis not unlike America’s current one…not exactly the same, but similar in the sense that both involve financial repercussions of ill-fated wars.
Given that we have plenty of supporting historical data at our disposal, why is there no serious movement to take power away from war-happy politicians by overhauling the Federal Reserve Act to make ‘inflation targeting’ the Fed’s primary (only!) mission?
The Maastricht Treaty, which governs activity of the European Central Bank, defines ‘inflation targeting’ as the bank’s primary mission. And guess what? Surprise: almost no inflation in the EU! At least not compared to the US. I was in the US over the summer, and I have to say that prices there don’t look so good anymore (when compared with US salaries).
So why are there no serious calls for the inception of competing currencies? These have worked extremely well in the past, but why is almost nobody talking about, e.g., commodities-backed savings accounts? http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CompetingMoneySupplies.html
Instead, America seems intent on repeating the same mistakes, with nothing more than band-aid solutions to offer…until government needs money to fund the next war. But yeah, in the meantime, let’s “punish the bankers” who did exactly what was expected of them given the monetary policy set by government.
LOL! That was funny, but seriously, I find it interesting that none of the (current) presidential candidates and almost no members of congress are talking about fixing the underlying problem, which is that the US government can expand the money supply without restraint via the Federal Reserve.
Consider that with all the attention focused on “punishing Wall Street,” we are diverted from the fact that the US entered into a war it couldn’t afford, so it ‘created’ money by lowering the Discount Rate and Federal Funds Rate dramatically post 9-11-2001.
Should we have expected anything other than an atmosphere of speculation and short-selling to ensue?
Have we forgotten the lesson of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, when (mostly) Jewish bankers speculated on collapse of the plummeting Mark thus causing its downward spiral?–a crisis not unlike America’s current one…not exactly the same, but similar in the sense that both involve financial repercussions of ill-fated wars.
Given that we have plenty of supporting historical data at our disposal, why is there no serious movement to take power away from war-happy politicians by overhauling the Federal Reserve Act to make ‘inflation targeting’ the Fed’s primary (only!) mission?
The Maastricht Treaty, which governs activity of the European Central Bank, defines ‘inflation targeting’ as the bank’s primary mission. And guess what? Surprise: almost no inflation in the EU! At least not compared to the US. I was in the US over the summer, and I have to say that prices there don’t look so good anymore (when compared with US salaries).
So why are there no serious calls for the inception of competing currencies? These have worked extremely well in the past, but why is almost nobody talking about, e.g., commodities-backed savings accounts?
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CompetingMoneySupplies.html
Instead, America seems intent on repeating the same mistakes, with nothing more than band-aid solutions to offer…until government needs money to fund the next war. But yeah, in the meantime, let’s “punish the bankers” who did exactly what was expected of them given the monetary policy set by government.