Booms and Busts

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Robert Higgs

Franklin Roosevelt "did bring us out of the Depression," Newt Gingrich told a group of Republicans after the recent election, and that makes FDR "the greatest figure of the 20th century." As political rhetoric, the statement is likely to come from someone who does not support a market economy. The New Deal, after all, was the largest peacetime expansion of federal government power in this century. Moreover, Gingrich's view that FDR saved us from the Depression is indefensible; Roosevelt's policies prolonged and deepened it.

James Grant

The banking dilemma seems eternal, like the monetary dilemma, the tax dilemma, and the marital dilemma. The essence of the banking dilemma, however, is that the depositors' money is not in the vault awaiting the depositors' decision to withdraw it. Instead it is out on loan or invested in the money market or in mortgage-backed securities.