Anarchist Finance, or What Price Ancapistan?
by Mark Gillespie
"A mutual savings and credit association (MSCA) is the perfect solution on many
levels. For one, they are mostly unregulated. They are not banks. Secondly,
they can operate using whatever currency they wish. Thirdly, because of the
mutual aspect of the association, there is an emphasis upon shared responsibility
and shared profits."
Banking for Free: Banking in a Free Society
by Bobby Yates Emory
There will be more banking options in a free society.
"Market forces will select the solution that provides the best
combination of safety and efficiency."
Banking on Aggression
by Mary J. Ruwart
"We established the "money monopoly" in the hopes of creating economic stability. By
using aggression as our means, we created boom-and-bust cycles instead."
Banking Without Regulation
October 1993
by Lawrence H. White
"How well would the banking system work if there were no government regulation? One way
to begin answering this question is to examine the historical record. In the nineteenth
century many countries had relatively unregulated banking systems with few or none of the
restrictions that face American banks today: legal barriers to new entry, deposit
insurance, geographic and activity restrictions, reserve requirements, and protection of
favored banks from failure. Because these systems were so different from today’s, they
throw valuable light on the possible consequences of completely deregulating banking in
the future."
Banking Without the Too-Big-to-Fail Doctrine
by Richard M. Salsman
"In conclusion, I want to stress that the “too-big-to-fail” doctrine is part and parcel
of a wider system of central banking that undermines the financial condition of the
banking system. The sooner we phase out this system in favor of free banking and the
rule of law, the better off we will be. In other words, repealing the “too-big-to-fail”
doctrine will be a good start, but it won’t go far enough in curing what really ails
the banks."
Bank privacy hypocrisy
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"One of many pastimes of government bureaucrats is forcing foreign banks to cough up
tax information on U.S. citizens. This is a disaster for the cause of privacy, the
right of contract and freedom itself."
Banks Cannot Create Money
by Jörg Guido Hülsmann
"Central banking and related institutions were not created de novo but as responses
(however misguided) to prior problems caused by fractional-reserve banking. Contrary
to Selgin, the only permanent beneficiaries of fractional-reserve banking are the
bankers themselves."
The Case Against the Fed
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Murray N. Rothbard's manifesto against the federal counterfeiters."
Case Against the Fed and Fractional Reserve Lending
by Mike "Mish" Shedlock
"Fractional Reserve Lending (FRL) is fraudulent. Indeed, FRL in conjunction with
micro-mismanagement of interest rates by the Fed is the root cause of the financial
crisis we are in."
Commercial Banking in a Free Society
by Steven Horowitz
"Banks in a free society will be literally nothing special. ... If they
are fraudulent or use force, they need to face the consequences. ... The
result will not only be a more free banking system, but a more efficient,
safe, and productive one."
The Dynamics of Disintervention
June 2009
by Sanford Ikeda
"People as different as Paul Krugman and Alan Greenspan blame deregulation for the
mess Wall Street got itself into. Supporters of the free market respond, correctly,
that the primary culprits are the incentives and pressures government created in the
housing and finance industries that precipitated the housing bubble. But in the context
of the theory of intervention outlined here, the grain of truth in what the market
critics say is that partial deregulation, not deregulation per se, is to blame. The
problem was not too much but too little deregulation."
Ending the Federal Reserve
by Mary Ruwart
"Libertarians object to the Federal Reserve and other central banks because they
ultimately steal the wealth of the citizenry through a mechanism that causes price
inflation. Central banks expand the money supply at will, thereby diluting the purchasing
power of the average person's salary and savings."
End the Fed
September 3, 2009
by Ron Paul
"Chapter 2 of End the Fed by Ron Paul (Grand Central Publishing, 2009),
pp. 12–31. The publisher controls reprint permissions for this chapter, and has given
permission to Mises.org to run this."
THE FEDERAL RESERVE MUST DIE
August 25, 2009
by James Quinn
"Ron Paul’s scathing assessment of the Federal Reserve’s primary role in creating the
financial crisis and his raking of Chairman Bernanke over the coals is so accurate,
truthful and sane that it should blow your mind. Mr. Bernanke must have felt like his
head was spinning like a top while Ron Paul gave him a tutorial in basic economics.
Mr. Paul’s noble efforts to Audit the Fed (HR 1207) and eventually to rid the country
of its insidious control over our lives will bring the pillars of the Federal Reserve
building crashing down upon Mr. Bernanke in his mahogany paneled, gold plated boardroom
with ornate chandeliers."
The Forgotten Private Banker
April 1995
by Richard Sylla
"What is a private banker? Or rather, since the species has more or less disappeared,
what was a private banker? Private bankers, to American banking historians, were
individuals and organizations that engaged in the business of banking without first
obtaining a permit to do so from governmental authorities."
Fractional Reserve Banking
by Murray N. Rothbard
"The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution
(fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart
whenever the public finally understands the swindle?"
Fractional-Reserve Banking, Contracts of Deposit, and the Title-Transfer Theory
of Contract
August 13, 2009
by Stephan Kinsella
"Someone asked me the proper way to view deposit contracts, in the context of a
discussion about fractional-reserve banking (FRB)."
Fractional Reserve Banking Is Indeed Fraudulent
by Laura Davidson
"Posner criticizes Block for not understanding the difference between property rights
and contract rights. Block has responded in an article called "Is Fractional Reserve
Banking Fraudulent?" in which he rightly likens the FRB contract to selling a "square
circle." Let us examine further where Posner's argument fails, and why the alleged FRB
contract does indeed involve a logical contradiction."
Fractional versus 100% Reserve Banking
by Morris J. Markovitz
"As the fractional reservers point out, there’s nothing wrong with loan-brokering.
What’s wrong is forcing people to deposit into a loan-brokering scheme by forbidding
the alternative, while simultaneously falsely advertising the loan-broker outfit as
a safe warehouse. That’s what today’s banking system does and both sides would agree
that it’s wrong."
Government, Fiscal Responsibility, and Free Banking
by Richard Ebeling
"If the belief in and desire for personal and economic liberty gains hold and grows,
monetary and fiscal reform will eventually come by logical necessity."
The Impossible Task of the Fed
February 1981
by Ernest G. Ross
"Privatized monetary functions do act as a natural check on the power of government. But
the alternative to privatizing the U.S. monetary system, tinkering and fiddling with
the derelict government system we have, means keeping a form of tyranny intact. There
is only one way to prevent the damages to human liberty which a tyranny inflicts—take
away the tyranny. The Fed is such a tyranny. There is no place for it in the future of
a free America."
Is Fractional Reserve Banking Fraudulent?
by Walter Block
Prof. Eric Posner comments on the Block-Caplan debate on fractional reserve banking, and
Walter Block answers Posner.
Lessons from the Financial Crisis: A Libertarian Perspective
by Kevin Dowd
"My topic this evening is the current financial crisis. My theme is that the
Classical Liberal perspective can help us both to understand the crisis and to
find a way of out it."
Liberty, Ethics, and 100% Reserve Banking
by Michael S. Rozeff
"I will argue a simple proposition about fractional-reserve banking. Suppose that,
in a free market situation, depositors in a bank agree to make deposits in the bank,
knowing full well that the bank intends to lend out some of these deposits. Depositors
may also know full well that they may lose some of their deposits. An analogous case
is that of making any risky loan in which there is a chance that the loan will not be
paid off in full. My proposition is that, in this free market characterized by willing
and voluntary behavior by both depositor and banker, with all actions being known and
above-board, the actions of the fractional-reserve banker are not inherently criminal."
Market Money and Free Banking
by Bettina Bien Greaves
"The monetary problem that the advocates of free banking are trying to solve, as
described by modern monetary economists, is very complex. But this complexity is
not a consequence of the economics of money. Rather it is caused by governmental,
not economic, factors—especially the designation of government’s notes as legal
tender for the payment of debts. The complexity of the monetary situation is the
outcome of many regulations and controls."
The Mystery of Banking
by Murray N. Rothbard
This book explains and critiques fractional-reserve banking.
A Note on Credit Institutions in a Free Nation
by Roderick Long
Corrects and clarifies Roy Halliday's article
Money, Banking
and the Gambling-Stakes Paradign for Loan Collateral and Labor Contracts.
The revised version of Roy Halliday's article is The
Gambling-Stakes Paradigm for Loans and Labor Contracts.
Origins of the Federal Reserve
by Murray N. Rothbard
This article originally appeared in Quarterly Journal of Austrian
Economics, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Fall 1999), pp. 3–51. It is also reprinted in
A History of Money and Banking in the United States and as a monograph.
Privatize Deposit Insurance
by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
"Only one solution can overcome moral hazards in the banking and thrift
industries: private deposit insurance. The government must dissolve the FDIC and FSLIC
and remove all remaining regulations upon depository institutions. The first step would
permit the competitive forces of the market to arrange actuarially sound insurance that
protects depositors without subsidizing insolvency. The second step would help
depository institutions gain the geographical and asset diversity necessary to shore up
liquidity during runs."
Ron Paul Q&A: Audit the Fed, Then End It
September 16, 2009
by Sudeep Reddy
"For three decades, Rep. Ron Paul has waged a lonely battle in Congress to abolish the
Federal Reserve. But he has more foot soldiers across the nation today, particularly
after the financial crisis, who are leading the drive for wider congressional audits of
the central bank."
Should We Let Banks Create Money?
by George Selgin
"Some economists of the Austrian school oppose fractional-reserve banking on the grounds
that it is inherently fraudulent, pro-cyclical and unstable. These critics should focus
their wrath on repressive financial legislation and central-bank mischief, not on a
legitimate practice that encourages savings and investment."
State-Tamperings with Money and Banks
1858
by Herbert spencer
"If Government will promptly execute the law against all defaulters, the self-interest
of bankers and traders will do the rest: such evils as would still result from mercantile
dishonesties and imprudences, being evils which legal regulation may augment but cannot
prevent."
Swiss Bank Secrecy Lives
July 27, 2003
by Rob Vrijhof
"The Swiss government and its people will continue to stand up for
financial freedom, self-determination and our long standing tradition
and legal principal of bank secrecy. That's one important reason why
more than one third of the world's offshore funds are entrusted to Swiss management."
Toward Free Banking
July 1986
by Donald R. Wells and L.S. Scruggs
"Most economists consider money to be a special good that should be controlled by the
national government. But advocates of free banking consider money a private good which,
as any other good, must meet the market test of acceptability. Let us consider the
advantages of free banking, and see how such a system might be implemented in the
United States."
Victimological Banking
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Banks should be prudent rather than indiscriminate.
Walter Block versus Bryan Caplan on Fractional Reserve Banking
by Walter Block
"The present debate got started when I read that Caplan had characterized Rothbard’s
position on fractional reserve banking (frb) as "crazy." Further adding insult to
injury, he denotes this position as too easy of a target to hit out against. Now, I
suppose, I think of Milton Friedman roughly in the way that Caplan regards Rothbard.
Yet, I never characterized Friedman’s views as "crazy" nor as a "too easy" target. That
really got in my craw, and led me to write to Caplan."
What’s Wrong with the IMF? What Would Be Better?
by Allan H. Meltzer
"Created in 1944 to help stabilize debtor countries, the International Monetary Fund
today is a source of instability, chiefly through its subsidies of risky bank loans
and penalties on sound ones. The time has come to rely more on bank capital and
market-based incentives to strengthen the international financial system."
Why Private Banks and Not Central Banks Should Issue Currency, Especially
in Less Developed Countries
April 19, 2000
by Lawrence H. White and George Selgin
"What would a private currency system look like? As in Scotland and Northern Ireland
today, domestic banks would issue circulating notes denominated in and directly
redeemable for foreign-currency assets (there, Bank of England notes). Each note would
clearly carry the name of the issuing bank whose liability it is. Any bank that tried
to issue too many notes would find them being deposited into other banks, and returning
via the clearing system for redemption in reserve money. "
Why Not Monetary Freedom?
by Richard M. Ebeling
"In all of the commentaries that have appeared since President George W. Bush nominated
Dr. Ben S. Bernanke as Alan Greenspan’s successor at the Federal Reserve, there has been
one crucial question that has remained virtually unasked: Why do we need a central bank
and therefore a new chairman for the Fed?"
Your Privacy again in danger:
FATF Strikes Again.
July 18, 2003
by Bob Bauman
"Sovereign Society suggests a way to counter FATF and
protect your financial privacy."
A Ramble 'Round Old Birmingham
by George A. Selgin
"This "missing chapter" is excerpted from an early draft of Professor Selgin's new book,
Good Money, the true and remarkable story of private coinage and banking in Britain
in the early years of the Industrial Revolution (1775–1850)."
The Rise of the State and the Decline of Coins
by Jacob Halbrooks
"Coins were once valuable because of their contents, the artwork on them, and the fact
that they were minted into specific weights; now they are valuable because the government
tells us they are."
Constitution or Competition? Alternative Views on Monetary Reform
by Pamela J. Brown
"Money, for practically as long as it has existed, has been employed to realize two
fundamentally different sorts of goals: production or plunder. In a market economy,
private individuals routinely use monetary institutions in a cooperative way to achieve
voluntary exchanges of goods and services. Political authorities, by contrast, use
monetary institutions in a non-cooperative way to achieve involuntary transfers of
wealth."
Dialogue #1 On the American Gold Standard
by Gary North
"This dialogue is between two vocal advocates of limited civil government: Private
Money Guy (PMG) and State Money Guy (SMG)."
Dialogue #2 on the American Gold Standard
by Gary North
"The Private Money Guy (PMG) and the State Money Guy (SMG) are still going at it."
Dialogue #3 on the American Gold Standard:
Science Is as Science Does
by Gary North
"The gold standard has advocates, but the problem is, there are competing versions. The
government-enforced gold standard is the one that gets all the space in the history
textbooks. This is because it is the only version governments allow."
Dialogue #4 on the American Gold Standard:
Trust and Distrust in Banking
by Gary North
"The private money guy and the state money guy go at it again."
Dialogue #5 On the American Gold Standard:
Winners and Losers
by Gary North
"The Private Money Guy and the State Money Guy do not seem to be communicating. Like
ships in the night, they pass each other, each flying a flag called 'Gold Standard.'"
The Failure of State Money and the Case for Monetary Individualism
by Simon McIlwaine
The Fed Is Lifeblood to the Root of Evil
by Alexander Baker
"Central banking makes possible the expansion of government power in all forms,
most particularly the wicked godfather of all government programs: war. Without
central banking, it is doubtful that any of the great wars of the 20th century,
or the current debacle in Iraq , would have ever taken place, certainly not on
the scale we have seen."
Fiat Money: The Fuel of Government
by Richard Hoste
"According to Paul, the best case against the Fed is simply that it’s immoral. When
government prints a new dollar, the value of each one in circulation goes down. The
government shouldn’t be allowed to print money for the same reason you or I aren’t
allowed to counterfeit."
Fractional Reserve Banking
by Murray N. Rothbard
"The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution
(fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart
whenever the public finally understands the swindle?"
From the US to Zimbabwe
June 27, 2009
by The Mogambo Guru
"I notice that I am still using exclamation points to express my profound stupefaction
that the damned Federal Reserve is creating so much money, which means that the value
of the dollar will go down, and we are on the same path as the morons running Zimbabwe
who, I guess you heard, finally created so much money - which created so much inflation
in prices as the oversupply of new money completely diluted the existing stock of
money - that the Zimbabwe dollar is now officially worthless. Worthless!"
How To Create a New World Reserve Currency
by Gary North
"The reason why the BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia India, and China – do not want to see
their currencies replace the dollar is because central bankers and politicians are
Keynesians. They believe in salvation by inflation. The few Chicago School economists
in the staffs are convinced that the central bank can and should inflate to forestall
a recession. That was Milton Friedman's main legacy to the modern world as far as the
modern world's leaders are concerned. He blamed the Federal Reserve System for not
inflating, 1930–33.
This is why we see no candidates to replace the U.S. dollar. Any of the BRIC nations
could establish policies that would elevate its currency to number-one status. But the
price is too high. It is as high as adopting the gold coin standard. It would mean the
end of monetary intervention.
The modern world believes in salvation by inflation. So has every civilization except
one: the Byzantines, who had a stable gold currency for a thousand years after 325 A.D."
Money for Nothing
by Jacob Halbrooks
"Austrian economists have demonstrated that there is no benefit for an increasing
money supply. No benefit, of course, to the majority of people who use the money,
but much benefit to those who create the money. Money is the medium of exchange for
nearly all trades, and it is the very lifeblood of the economy. The government that
controls the money supply therefore has great influence on the economy, and the result,
aside from a continuously devalued dollar and wealth confiscation, is a cycle of booms
and recessions. If the country operated on a sound currency, it is likely that prices
for goods would actually decrease over time, and there would be no way for any entity
to silently steal from the people. Interest rates, which reflect the time-preference
of capital formation versus consumption, would be dictated by the natural forces of the
economy, and the business cycle would die out. Instead, we are saddled with a system
that distorts the true wishes of millions of people voluntarily interacting and enriches
a few privileged bankers and politicians at the expense of the people. The Federal
Reserve must be abolished."
Money, the State and Modern Mercantilism
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Of all the economic problems, money is possibly the most tangled, and perhaps where
we most need perspective. Money, moreover, is the economic area most encrusted and
entangled with centuries of government meddling."
The Moral Issue of Honest Money
by Gary North
"The appeal of specie metals is not the lure of magical talismans, as some critics of
gold seem to imply. Gold is not a barbarous relic. Gold is a metal which, over millennia,
has become acceptable as a means of payment in a highly complex institutional
arrangement: the monetary system. Gold is part of civilization’s most important economic
institution, the division-of-labor-based monetary system. Without this division of labor,
which monetary calculation has made possible, most of the world’s population would be
dead within a year, and probably within a few weeks. The alternative to the free market
social order is government tyranny, some military- based centralized allocation system.
Any attempt by the state to alter men’s voluntary decisions in the area of exchange,
including their choice of exchange units, represents the true relic of barbarism, namely,
the use of force to determine the outcome of men’s decisions."
Not Good as Gold
by David Gordon
"The case against global currency schemes, whether Chinese or American"
Of Paper 'Money' and 'Paper' Terrorism
by William Norman Grigg
"'Terrorism,' as the term is commonly used, refers to the privatization of the lethal
political violence carried out by way of government monopoly.
Those accused of "paper terrorism" are following that logic in bureaucratic fashion. They
emulate the behavior of the Federal Reserve and its seraglio of fractional reserve banks
by creating worthless but official-looking financial paper, and they mimic the behavior
of the banking system's enforcement mechanism by filing legal documents intended to
punish those who don't play along in the scheme by exchanging valuable goods and services
for worthless paper."
Paper Money and Tyranny
September 30, 2003
by Ron Paul
"Liberty is virtually impossible to protect when the people allow their government to
print money at will. Inevitably, the left will demand more economic interventionism,
the right more militarism and empire building.
Both sides, either inadvertently or deliberately, will foster corporatism."
The Solution
by Murray N. Rothbard
"To save our economy from destruction and from the eventual holocaust of run away
inflation, we the people must take the money-supply function back from the government.
Money is far too important to be left in the hands of bankers and of Establishment
economists and financiers. To accomplish this goal, money must be returned to the market
economy, with all monetary functions performed within the structure of the rights of
private property and of the free-market economy."
Taking Money Back
by Murray N. Rothbard
"There is no aspect of the free-market economy that has suffered more scorn and contempt
from "modern" economists, whether frankly statist Keynesians or allegedly
"free market" Chicagoites, than has gold. Gold, not long ago hailed as the basic staple
and groundwork of any sound monetary system, is now regularly denounced as a "fetish" or,
as in the case of Keynes, as a "barbarous relic." Well, gold is indeed a "relic" of
barbarism in one sense; no "barbarian" worth his salt would ever have accepted the phony
paper and bank credit that we modern sophisticates have been bamboozled into using as
money."
Taking Money Back: Part I
Part II: Fractional Reserve Banking
Part III: The Solution
by Murray N. Rothbard
"To save our economy from destruction and from the eventual holocaust of run away
inflation, we the people must take the money-supply function back from the government.
Money is far too important to be left in the hands of bankers and of Establishment
economists and financiers. To accomplish this goal, money must be returned to the
market economy, with all monetary functions performed within the structure of the
rights of private property and of the free-market economy."
What has government done to our money?
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Historically, money was one of the first things controlled by government, and the
free market "revolution" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made very little
dent in the monetary sphere. So it is high time that we turn fundamental attention to
the life-blood of our economy - money."
Why the Business Cycle Happens
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Mises’ theory shows the complete workings of the boom-bust cycle: the inflationary
injection of bank credit, fostered by government; a boom marked by malinvestments caused
by inflation’s tampering with the signals of the free market; the end of inflation
revealing these unfortunate malinvestments; and finally, the depression as the correction
by the free market of the wastes and distortions of the boom."
The Case for Natural Money
by George F. Smith
"Studying Jörg Guido Hülsmann's latest book, The Ethics of Money Production,
is a vastly enriching experience. After building his case for natural money on the
inviolability of an individual's right to his own property, he then shows us how the
state has spent the last 400 years usurping this right for the benefit of a privileged
few through its protection of fractional-reserve banking."
Digital Cash and Monetary Freedom
by Jon W. Matonis
Ending the Monetary Fiasco — Returning to Sound Money
by Thorsten Polleit
"This talk was given as the Ludwig von Mises Lecture at the Austrian Scholars
Conference on March 14, 2009."
A Free-Market Monetary System
by F. A. Hayek
"A lecture delivered at the Gold and Monetary Conference, New Orleans, November 10, 1977."
Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace
January 2008
by Steven Horwitz
"For hundreds of years governments have intervened in monetary institutions in order
to use them to raise revenue through the manipulation of money and credit, and most
often that revenue has been used to make war."
Free Money Is Sound Money
June 1975
by Hans F. Sennholz
"The history of the gold standard heralds the principles and achievements of free
and honest money. The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary
follies and inflations."
Gold-Exchange Standard, Gold, and Monetary Freedom
by Michael S. Rozeff
"Monetary freedom and its possible use of gold as money are not the same as the gold
standard courtesy of a State-run system. Defects in the latter say nothing at all about
the merits or demerits of the former."
"Hard Money" in the Voluntaryist Tradition
by Carl Watner
"In the Southeast during the Civil War it became customary to specify the settlement
of monetary obligations in "Becthler gold" rather than Union coin or Confederate or
state currencies. A similar preference manifested itself in Colorado, where Clark,
Gruber & Co. coins were the preffered media of exchange during the same era."
Market Money and Free Banking
by Bettina Bien Greaves
"The monetary problem that the advocates of free banking are trying to solve, as
described by modern monetary economists, is very complex. But this complexity is
not a consequence of the economics of money. Rather it is caused by governmental,
not economic, factors—especially the designation of government’s notes as legal
tender for the payment of debts. The complexity of the monetary situation is the
outcome of many regulations and controls."
Metal-backed currency vs. violence-backed currency
by Patri Friedman
"The people behind the Liberty Dollar have been arrested for competing with government
issued paper currency, by issuing their own commodity-backed currency. Fiat currency is
essentially backed by violence, in that if you don't accept it for payments (as a
merchant) or try to compete with it, you will get tossed in jail. It is not used because
it is superior, it is used because people with guns will stop you if you try to offer
an alternative."
The Micropolitics of Free Market Money: A Proposal
by Antoine Clarke
Money And Freedom by Hans F. Sennholz
reviewed by Richard A. White
"Books which espouse sound economic analysis are essential if the present monetary
system is to be reformed. Sennholz’s Money and Freedom is such a book. It
provides explanations of past mistakes and solutions to present problems. The clarity
with which Sennholz expresses his ideas makes complicated economic ideas understandable
to the reader, and even those who disagree with Sennholz will benefit from his analysis.
The government money monopoly has failed. Only when freedom is restored to money will
a sound currency be established."
Money and How to Privatise It: An Introduction
by Roderick Moore
Money and the Individual
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Ludwig von Mises's The Theory of Money and Credit is, quite simply, one of the
outstanding contributions to economic thought in the twentieth century. It came as the
culmination and fulfillment of the "Austrian School" of economics, and yet, in so doing,
founded a new school of thought of its own."
Money in a Free Nation
by Joanna Parker
Presents a good case for hard money and e-gold.
On Money, Inflation and Government
by Ron Paul
"The Federal Reserve, a quasi-government entity, should not be creating money or
determining interest rates, as this causes malinvestment and excessive debt to accumulate.
Centrally planned, government-manipulated economies always fail eventually. The collapse
of communism and the failure of socialism should have made this apparent. Even the most
educated, well-intentioned central planners cannot plan the market better than the
market itself."
What Is Money?
by Gary North
"Through the influence of the FED among foreign central banks, and through the influence
of the top dozen American graduate schools, the confusion over what money is has spread
to the entire world."
What Is Money?
Part 2: Precious Metal Coinage
by Gary North
"The case for precious metal coinage as the best form of money arises from two
things: first, an understanding of how money developed in the past; second, an
understanding of economic theory."
What Is Money?
Part 3: Schizophrenic Economists
by Gary North
"Monetary policy today is set by banks that are not governed by the same theory of
contracts that binds individuals."
What Is Money?
Part 4: Bait and Switch
by Gary North
"Bait and switch is at the heart of all fractional reserve banking. It is not
illegal. It is the heart of the modern economy."
What Is Money?
Part 5: Fractional Reserve Banking
by Gary North
"The heart of the modern monetary system is fractional reserve banking. This system is
based on fraud. At the very heart of the modern economy is fraud – fraud on a gigantic
scale."
What Is Money?
Part 6: What Makes Money Different?
by Gary North
"An increase in the money supply conveys no verifiable social benefit. Early owners and
early users gain benefits. Late-users experience losses. There is no way of knowing
whether there are net gains or losses from an addition of money. But in times of mass
inflation and then hyperinflation, the losses become obvious. The increased money supply
forces a society back to barter, which is inefficient compared to a money economy where
the money supply is stable. Zimbabwe has experienced this. That nation has been
impoverished."
What Is Money?
Part 7: Gresham's Law
by Gary North
"A correct version of Gresham's Law is this:
"In an economy with a government-legislated fixed price between two currency units,
the artificially overvalued currency drives out of circulation the artificially
undervalued currency."
This does not have quite the same ring to it as the more familiar version."
What Is Money?
Part 8: Why Gold Has No Intrinsic Value
by Gary North
"Whenever you hear someone speak of gold's having intrinsic value, you can be sure that
he has a confused theory of economics in general and monetary theory in particular. There
is no such thing as a free lunch. There is also no such thing as intrinsic value."
What Is Money?
Part 9: Monetary Reform
by Gary North
"Central banking is the most brilliant device of profit-seeking monopolists and
oligopolists in human history. Nothing else comes close. Hardly anyone understands it
so there is no organized opposition."
What Is Money?
Part 10: When Money Dies
by Gary North
"Hyperinflation in a modern urban nation would kill people. I think it would kill a
lot of people."
What Is Money?
Part 11: The Great Default
by Gary North
"The governments of every major nation are going to default on their debts."
What Is Money?
Part 12: Why Central Banking Persists
by Gary North
"Mises and the Austrian School economists present their monetary policy in terms of the
general laws of the free market. In contrast their opponents – whose name is
legion – argue that monetary policy must be consciously developed and enforced by
national governments and government-owned or protected central banks."
What Is Money?
Part 13: Exported Inflation
by Gary North
"Bank-created inflation is not exported. It is merely copied. When foreign prices rise
alongside America's rising prices, this is because foreign central banks are matching
the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve. Domestic digital inflation is always a
domestic bank–inflicted wound. Central banks compete with each other to debauch their
domestic currencies. This is not free market competition. It is competitive plunder by
government-licensed counterfeiters."
What Is Money?
Part 14: Money and Uncertainty
by Gary North
"The free market lets us buy and sell uncertainty. Buyers of uncertainty spend money, buy
capital goods, and restructure production."
What Is Money?
Part 15: Hoarding, Old and New
by Gary North
"Keynesian economists hate Uncle Scrooge and everything he stands for. He knows how
to make lots of money. He stores up gold. He is the essence of the non-consumer. He
is an anti-Keynesian – in thought, word, and deed."
What Is Money?
Part 16: Inflation and the Savior State
by Gary North
"The savior state always becomes the inflating state. It promises more healing than
it can deliver. It taxes. Then it inflates. Then it defaults. Its default creates hard
times for court prophets."
Combine the Power of the Internet and the Gold Standard
by Wayne Dawson
The e-gold system, which already exists, would be a suitable medium
of exchange for a libertarian nation.
Defend the Gold Standard
by Bob Murphy
"It's true that the government can always renege on its pledge to maintain a fixed peg
to gold, but at least everybody would know exactly when the government cheated."
The Gold Standard
by Ludwig von Mises
"Men have chosen the precious metals gold and silver for the money service on account
of their mineralogical, physical, and chemical features. The use of money in a market
economy is a praxeologically necessary fact. That gold--and not something else--is used
as money is merely a historical fact and as such cannot be conceived by catallactics. In
monetary history too, as in all other branches of history, one must resort to historical
understanding. If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic,"
one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined
institution. Then the fact that the British speak English--and not Danish, German, or
French--is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of
Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax
rapturous about the plans for a managed currency."
Gold vs Paper
July 13, 1953
by Ludwig von Mises
"The excellence of the gold standard is to be seen in the fact that it makes the
monetary unit's purchasing power independent of the arbitrary and vacillating policies
of governments, political parties, and pressure groups. Historical experience, especially
in the last decades, has clearly shown the evils inherent in a national currency system
that lacks this independence."
How Gold Was Money--How Gold Could Be Money Again
by Richard H. Timberlake
"The only way to ensure that gold becomes a viable money is first to separate the
gold from the state and the state from any further role in the operation of a gold
money. Indeed, the separation of gold and the state would begin as an economizing
measure--a form of privatization. Here are all those thousands of tons of gold lying
idle and useless. Give them back to the people from whom the gold was unconstitutionally
snatched in 1934."
How to Return to the Gold Standard
by Bettina Bien Greaves
"Let's consider possible ways for transforming our present paper and credit monetary
system, based on fractional reserve banking, into a gold standard. There may be better
ways and worse ways. Unfortunately the science of economics cannot prescribe a correct,
scientific or “right” way. It can only help us choose among alternatives by analyzing
their various consequences. A review of monetary history will also be helpful."
Is Gold Money?
by William Rees-Mogg
"We need also to have permanent money, which can be relied upon to survive, even though
its value may decline over time. The historic value of gold has been astonishingly stable
over centuries."
A Private-Enterprise Gold Standard?
by W. J. Brogdon, Jr.
"With all the debate about establishing a gold standard and multinational fiat money,
why can’t businesses simply quote the prices of their products in gold? Why indeed
can’t they establish a de facto gold standard? One tiny company is betting that it
can be a start."
Back to the list of topics
This page was last updated on November 20, 2009.