So far, throughout this primer, I've claimed that central banks have one overarching task to perform: their job, I said, is to "regulate the overall availability of liquid assets, and through it the general course of spending, prices, and employment, in the economies they oversee." I've also…
CMFA Director George Selgin recently appeared on EconTalk, the weekly podcast from the Library for Economics and Liberty hosted by Russ Roberts. He and Russ discussed the causes of the 2007–08 financial crisis and the Fed's response to it, with George drawing on his Alt-M reviews (see…
[A well-known consequence of the Fed's rescue efforts consists of the "moral hazard" they pose–that is, their tendency to encourage extra risk-taking by persons who suppose that they, too, will be rescued if their wagers don't pay. Yet one particularly dangerous sort of moral hazard hasn't gotten…