Money and Banking

Central banks can only distort and mask real interest rates with monetary policy. Interest rates are really set by each individual's time preference.

The true lesson from Japan is that central planners prefer to gradually nationalize the economy before even considering a moderate reduction in government size and control.

When governments devalue the currency to push more exports, the country is getting rich in terms of foreign currency, but it is getting poor in terms of real wealth.

Suppose that a convincing orator should go on TV tomorrow, and urge the public: "The banking system of this country is insolvent."

The psychological impact of a lifetime within a fiat money economy cannot be underestimated. With more wealth seemingly available at the click of a computer button, refusal to spend more on government programs must stem only from cruelty and greed.

Inflationary monetary policy is driving markets toward ever larger and more monopolistic firms that dominate the marketplace.

The fewer non-productive bubble activities we have, the better it is for those activities that actually crate wealth. But attempts to reverse deflation with new money creation only create new bubbles.

Abenomics, Japanese Keynesianism on steroids, has made the rich richer, and all others poorer. 

It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.

Politicians, who claim that a week in politics is the long term, fail to see any problem.