Peter's Blog

One criticism of the Austrian School’s theory of recessions is that it doesn’t account for the expectations of entrepreneurs, who can anticipate central bank actions which precipitate economic busts. But, as Austrian economist Joe Salerno argues, this criticism betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how recessions occur. The following article was originally published by the Mises […]

Interventionists see interest rates as a key policy parameter set by central bank bureaucrats, betraying a crucial misunderstanding about the nature of interest. In reality, rates are determined by individual time preference– the willingness to trade off future and present consumption. The following article was originally published by the Mises Institute. The opinions expressed do […]

One of the long-touted goals of central banking is “price stability,” which, in the minds of central bankers, means low and continuous inflation. Even if this goal wasn’t cover for inflationist policy, it’d still be important to note that “price stability” is actually an unachievable goal when properly understood.

In the wake of last week’s FOMC meeting, it’s worth revisiting the economic function of interest rates, which guide economic activity in accordance with societal time preference. In order to suppress the natural rate of interest, central banks must resort to inflation.

Conventional wisdom says that the government can help (or is even required to) stimulate the economy, especially during a recession. As mounting evidence grows for a recession happening right now, it’s worth examining how this conventional wisdom is completely wrong and backwards. The government is typically the primary cause of recessions.

In the wake of the Fed’s juicy 50 bps interest rate cut, the dollar responded immediately by dropping against gold. With more rate cuts on the way, Israel’s war expanding rapidly, and inflation ready to rip higher, new record prices are on the way for the yellow metal.

December saw a resurgence of “degrowth” advocates in the media, with two articles published by Nature garnering special attention on X (formerly Twitter). The fallacies underlying the degrowth movement are not new in economics, but it’s worth revisiting them and their important connections to monetary policy in the age of central banking.

During testimony on Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank may have to raise interest rates higher than previously expected to bring down price inflation. Despite the speed of Fed hiking and the enormous amount of debt in the US economy, most people in the mainstream seem convinced the central bank […]

The central bankers at the Federal Reserve can be pretty clueless. A report issued by the Fed a few weeks ago serves as a prime example.

In the most recent Friday Gold Wrap podcast, Mike Maharrey talked about the fact that the Federal Reserve has increasingly engaged in more and more extraordinary monetary policy. As he put it, extreme has become the norm. Despite what pundits insist is a “great” economy, interest rates are extremely low by historical standards and the […]