Financial Markets

Recorded at the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Supporters Summit; Auburn, Alabama; 9 October 2010.

Recorded at the Ludwig von Mises Institute; Auburn, Alabama; 9 October 2010.

Despite the chorus of praise, the TARP bailout was a terrible idea that will cost taxpayers both directly and indirectly through its perverse incentives. Only the Austrians consistently opposed the Republican and Democrat bailout schemes.

If mainstream analysts continue to disregard the role of regime uncertainty in the major depressions of the modern era, especially in accounting for their extraordinary duration, then they will only demonstrate the poverty of their own mode of analysis.

Some people are saying that all we need is optimism, as if our attitudes alone cause and fix the business cycle, and as if the real world doesn't matter at all. Actually, the "bad attitudes" of consumers and producers are the real fix: they lead to deleveraging and saving.

The Wikipedia entry  on the real-bills doctrine advances the controversial proposition that banks can increase the quantity of money without diminishing the purchasing power of each unit. I will refer to it as the Sproul doctrine.

Just as more and more analysts are worried about the economy imploding again, the NBER announces that the recession ended back in June 2009. The whole episode underscores the crudity of mainstream economics.

The government creates "jobs" that are destructive. Because there is no feedback of profit and loss, the only thing that can eventually end a harmful bureaucracy is a massive public outcry.

The best remedy would be for the government to stop interfering and let the market process work.

For hundreds of years, politicians (like a certain current US president) have pushed the idea that one man’s profit is another man’s lo