Money and Banking

Presented in Vienna, Austria, on 21 September 2011. Includes an introduction by Douglas E. French.

There were firms and hierarchies before there were markets — and before there was money.

Banks can and do make clients shift from short-term deposits.

Unemployment, stagnant growth, and financial market convulsions can all be traced to a single decision.

Increases in money aren't sprinkled from the sky or distributed randomly throughout the population. They occur through the commercial banking system and the Federal Reserve. Those who receive the money first benefit at the expense of those receiving the money last.

The situation has become serious. Eurozone currencies will dissolve back into regional currencies.

Starting with President Bush, and continuing into President Obama’s term, the US government has paid out more than $11 trillion in stimulus money.

Forty years ago today, on the morning of Sunday, August 15, 1971, the US president, Richard Nixon, declared the inconvertibility of the dollar into gold. It was to be the great liberation that Keynesians and governments had dreamed of for decades. The results, however, have been catastrophic.

Every student in a money-and-banking course should read this book at least twice.

Recorded at Mises University 2011.