fed independence, alternative currencies, fed, federal reserve, cato monetary conference
Banking Regulation, Commodity Money, Currency Boards, Digital Money, Economic History, Events, Free Banking, Inflation & Deflation, Money & Politics, News, The Fed & Central Banks

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  From President Trump lobbing invectives against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Twitter to progressives clamoring for the Federal Reserve to use monetary policy to finance social projects, our central bank’s independence looks increasingly tenuous. Recently, Chairman Powell called for an internal "strategic review" of how…

Commodity Money, Fiat Money, Inflation & Deflation, News

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Milton Friedman (1951, 1960) provided influential back-of-the-envelope estimates of the costs devoted to extracting gold under what he called a “strict” gold standard. I have criticized those estimates elsewhere (White 1999, pp. 42-48) for exaggerating the volume of gold reserves used by actual gold-standard economies, and thus…

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, conservatorship, homeownership, Joe Nocera, housing, Government Bailouts,
Banking Regulation, Financial Markets, Money & Politics, News

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Yesterday, Joe Nocera penned an extraordinary column expressing his bafflement at the Trump administration’s drive to release Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two firms that purchase and guarantee around half of single-family mortgages in the United States, from government conservatorship. Nocera argues against such a move, writing…

mmt, banking regulation, bank run, bank failure, regulation, free banking
Banking Regulation, Booms & Busts, Economic Thought, Free Banking, Money & Politics, News

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Yesterday morning, a Modern Monetary Theorist tweeted part of a 2017 interview he did with Warren Mosler, one of that school's leading proponents and benefactors. As the clip was titled "Against Free Banking: The Liability Side Isn't The Place For Market Discipline," yours truly couldn't resist a…