Money and Banks

Is Elon Musk’s DOGE taxpayer dividend proposal inflationary, or is it simply returning savings from government spending cuts?

Much of the world‘s financial system is undergirded by the false claim that US government bonds are “risk-free.” The truth is that all is not well when it comes to banking and finance.

No macroeconomics or monetary theory course is complete without introduction of the Equation of Exchange, or MV = PQ. However, this equation explains nothing, praxeologically speaking. Instead, it clouds our understanding of how money fits into our economy. 

Ryan McMaken and economist Per Bylund discuss the nature of money in our paper-money world. Are Bitcoin and gold money? If not, how do they become money?  

The Federal Reserve‘s reckless policies have created havoc in the housing markets, with the government and monetary authorities helping to create the apartment bubble, which is in the process of bursting. As usual, bad policies bring bad people into the markets.

If President Trump is looking for a federal agency to abolish, he needs to look no further than the misnamed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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.

Pundits have labeled piggy banks small change, irrational and wasteful, “just sitting around doing nothing.” As usual, they are wrong.

Jonathan Newman appears on the show to discuss Bob's recent debate on ZeroHedge, which centered on Austrian economics versus Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).