Good morning. Good article, although like most analysts he either pretends not to know or worse, actually doesn’t know. Regarding this:
“Thus, governments and central banks are never going to defend price stability”.
“Price stability” is a red herring, and this is where he gets it wrong, essentially giving the FED a pass for ignoring the law.
The Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977; (see 12 U.S.C. 225a)does not call for ‘price stability’. The words price stability do not appear in the text.
What the Act specifically requires is that the FED pursues and enacts policies that result in “stable prices”.
Stable prices and price stability are not the same. Pretending that they are, or not understanding the difference, let’s the FED off the hook for failure to adhere to the actual law.
But it also lets Congress, and every Administration since 1977 (and actually for decades prior) off the hook for failing to force the FED to follow the law.
In addition, in the US the FED is mandated by statute to target an inflation rate of zero.
See: 92 STAT. 1894: Public Law-95-523 Oct. 27, 1978
So, since 1977 the FED has ignored their statutory mandate of stable prices and has also ignored the statutory mandate of a zero inflation target.
Multiple administrations have never even attempted to bring the FED to heal. Congress has convened 23 times since the Federal Reserve Act was altered in 1977. And in none of those 23 Congressional sessions, has there ever even been an attempt to force the FED to follow the law.
Congress has the authority and the tools. And yet they have never used them. It seems to me it’s at least worth asking why. The FED gets most of the blame for the present circumstances and that blame is well deserved.
But Congress deserves far more blame than they get.
I don't like the way the word 'Socialism' is thrown around--especially by a libertarian who should know better. Socialism is defined as the community or workers owning the means of production and is somewhat similar to the idea of actual communism (not the stalled dictatorial regimes of Russia et al labelled as communism). As in a co-op on a massive scale. We have nothing like this in the US government no matter how much Trumpers mislabel the Democrats as commies or Marxists. Just some companies operating as socialists in a capitalist economy like WinCo (maybe Costco but not sure).
" Interventionist governments never reduce consumer prices because they benefit from inflation, dissolving their political spending commitments in a constantly depreciated currency. Inflation is the perfect hidden tax." Amen
Inflation is the government's friend as long as they run major deficits, it's the only way they will be able to make sense of it. $35T of debt with around $4T of tax receipts. If the US and most countries were a corporation - they would be JUNK status. Only difference is that corporations do not have nuclear weapons and an army to destroy their bond holders.
In short, socialism appeals to children, Dimocrats and other fools with a Kamala IQ. Let Newsom 'nationalise' food supply and watch California starve in a few weeks.
"Open economies" i.e. unfettered free trade, i.e. all business will move to the lowest wage areas thus reducing worker wages to the lowest possible. See: the destruction of manufacturing across the west. This kind of dogmatic approach, e.g. libertarians, is spot on 2/3rds of the time then so horrendously wrong the other third that it makes it suicidal to implement. But they still insist you must follow the recipe 100%.
It requires very little brain substance to understand that inflation is the government's friend. The more they indicate, the more they collect in taxes. They pay their bureaucrats more and keep them on the ship. Meanwhile the rest of us, except for the top one or two percent sink.
Amen! Fiat currency (not "money") is Debt. Hence any additional issuance of the currency by a Central Bank is creation of additional Debt. If the Debt is not used for "productive" purposes but rather to fund "consumption" (welfare checks, F-35 fighters, DC "Blobsters" salaries) it becomes a continuing drain on the still-productive elements of the economy until, in the end, the producers can no longer cover the carrying costs of the accumulated Debt and must cease operations (reference the "Great Inflation" of Weimar Germany in the aftermath of WWI).
Oy Vey! How could Al Gore have invented the internet if it wasn’t for govermint spending. Where do all these free enterprise entrepreneurial genius innovation successes come from? Then they go public and create millions of jobs!
This guy wants to take the magic punch bowl away from the VC sector1 Without all that free money we’d be back to living in caves. And they’d have to get real jobs — like driving trucks.. LOL
Good morning. Good article, although like most analysts he either pretends not to know or worse, actually doesn’t know. Regarding this:
“Thus, governments and central banks are never going to defend price stability”.
“Price stability” is a red herring, and this is where he gets it wrong, essentially giving the FED a pass for ignoring the law.
The Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977; (see 12 U.S.C. 225a)does not call for ‘price stability’. The words price stability do not appear in the text.
What the Act specifically requires is that the FED pursues and enacts policies that result in “stable prices”.
Stable prices and price stability are not the same. Pretending that they are, or not understanding the difference, let’s the FED off the hook for failure to adhere to the actual law.
But it also lets Congress, and every Administration since 1977 (and actually for decades prior) off the hook for failing to force the FED to follow the law.
In addition, in the US the FED is mandated by statute to target an inflation rate of zero.
See: 92 STAT. 1894: Public Law-95-523 Oct. 27, 1978
So, since 1977 the FED has ignored their statutory mandate of stable prices and has also ignored the statutory mandate of a zero inflation target.
Multiple administrations have never even attempted to bring the FED to heal. Congress has convened 23 times since the Federal Reserve Act was altered in 1977. And in none of those 23 Congressional sessions, has there ever even been an attempt to force the FED to follow the law.
Congress has the authority and the tools. And yet they have never used them. It seems to me it’s at least worth asking why. The FED gets most of the blame for the present circumstances and that blame is well deserved.
But Congress deserves far more blame than they get.
I don't like the way the word 'Socialism' is thrown around--especially by a libertarian who should know better. Socialism is defined as the community or workers owning the means of production and is somewhat similar to the idea of actual communism (not the stalled dictatorial regimes of Russia et al labelled as communism). As in a co-op on a massive scale. We have nothing like this in the US government no matter how much Trumpers mislabel the Democrats as commies or Marxists. Just some companies operating as socialists in a capitalist economy like WinCo (maybe Costco but not sure).
" Interventionist governments never reduce consumer prices because they benefit from inflation, dissolving their political spending commitments in a constantly depreciated currency. Inflation is the perfect hidden tax." Amen
Inflation is the government's friend as long as they run major deficits, it's the only way they will be able to make sense of it. $35T of debt with around $4T of tax receipts. If the US and most countries were a corporation - they would be JUNK status. Only difference is that corporations do not have nuclear weapons and an army to destroy their bond holders.
well said
In short, socialism appeals to children, Dimocrats and other fools with a Kamala IQ. Let Newsom 'nationalise' food supply and watch California starve in a few weeks.
"Open economies" i.e. unfettered free trade, i.e. all business will move to the lowest wage areas thus reducing worker wages to the lowest possible. See: the destruction of manufacturing across the west. This kind of dogmatic approach, e.g. libertarians, is spot on 2/3rds of the time then so horrendously wrong the other third that it makes it suicidal to implement. But they still insist you must follow the recipe 100%.
It requires very little brain substance to understand that inflation is the government's friend. The more they indicate, the more they collect in taxes. They pay their bureaucrats more and keep them on the ship. Meanwhile the rest of us, except for the top one or two percent sink.
This guy has been wrong for like 3 years I can’t imagine how much money he has lost being short for 3+ years.
Amen! Fiat currency (not "money") is Debt. Hence any additional issuance of the currency by a Central Bank is creation of additional Debt. If the Debt is not used for "productive" purposes but rather to fund "consumption" (welfare checks, F-35 fighters, DC "Blobsters" salaries) it becomes a continuing drain on the still-productive elements of the economy until, in the end, the producers can no longer cover the carrying costs of the accumulated Debt and must cease operations (reference the "Great Inflation" of Weimar Germany in the aftermath of WWI).
How can it be debt if it’s created out of thin air? Who is this “debt” owed to?
Another great essay. Thank you.
Oy Vey! How could Al Gore have invented the internet if it wasn’t for govermint spending. Where do all these free enterprise entrepreneurial genius innovation successes come from? Then they go public and create millions of jobs!
This guy wants to take the magic punch bowl away from the VC sector1 Without all that free money we’d be back to living in caves. And they’d have to get real jobs — like driving trucks.. LOL