The New Deal and Recovery, Part 12: Fear Itself
"This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. …[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself." —FDR, in his first inaugural address. "There is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain."—Thomas Hobbes, on the state of…
Fiscal Dominance and Fed Complacency
In his first speech as a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, Christopher Waller defended Fed independence and reassured his audience that “deficit financing and debt servicing issues play no role in our policy decisions and never will.” His goal was to dispel the “narrative”…
Joshua Greenberg on Antebellum Paper Money
Alerted by a tweet by him, I recently listened to a December 2020 C-SPAN talk, on "Paper Money in Antebellum America," by historian Joshua Greenberg, the author of Bank Notes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic. I haven't yet read his book….
Lawrence White on Private Gold Mints
Every hoary myth about the private market's unfitness to supply means of exchange has roots that trace back to the hoariest monetary platitude of all, namely, the claim that governments alone, whether republican or absolutist or otherwise, are fit to coin money. That commonplace credendum dates from…