Inflation

The child-like obsession with buying stuff that American society is often criticized for around Christmas is a sought-after result of our government’s monetary policy.

President-elect Donald Trump has declared that he will raise tariffs his first day in office. Our economy, however, does not need government-created roadblocks to trade. Instead, we need free exchange and sound money.

One of the fallacies pushed by monetary economists is that a growing economy needs a growing supply of money in order to prevent deflation, which they claim is as harmful as inflation. However, as Austrians point out, there is no “optimum” amount of money in the economy, since prices adjust.

It‘s obvious that a new influx of money will not immediately bring about changes in enough prices to significantly alter a price index. Even so, there are immediate effects of the new money.

Mainstream economists define “inflation” as general increases in consumer and producer prices. Yet, such a definition misses why prices increase in the first place and why inflation should be described as an artificial increase in the money supply.

Economist Jonathan Newman joins Ryan to discuss how deficit spending and runaway debt is causing price inflation and higher interest rates. 

In replying to a previous article by Frank Shostak, Douglas French writes that if an increase in the supply of gold ultimately leads to an expansion of bank credit, that is enough to start the boom-and-bust cycles, even if there is no central bank to accelerate the process.

The standard Keynesian line is that the government can shorten recessions by using fiscal and monetary “stimulus.” However, as Austrian economists note, ratcheting up government spending only makes things worse, setting the stage for the next economic downturn.

As people from Generation X move toward retirement, they are starting to understand that Social Security really is in crisis and many public pension plans are underfunded. Furthermore, they find that inflation is eating through their retirement savings. This won‘t end well.

If we are to achieve peace, we must get rid of those entities that create havoc even while strengthening themselves politically. In a word, we need to get rid of the Fed.