Writing about the economic tragedy of Argentina, I’ve explained that one major problem is inflation, thanks to that country’s version of “modern monetary theory.” This is not a trivial problem. Here’s a chart, from a recent report by Reuters, showing how prices have been rising for nearly 10 years and skyrocketing for the past three […]
In my previous post, I explained how the real-bills doctrine originally espoused by Adam Smith was later misunderstood and misapplied as a policy guide for central banking, not, as Smith understood it, as a guide for individual fractional-reserve banks. In his recent book on the history of the Federal Reserve, Robert Hetzel recounts how the […]
Inflation rates have come down since their peak in mid-2022. Does the Federal Reserve need to continue its inflation-fighting ways, keeping interest rates high? Anil Ari, Carlos Mulas-Granados, Victor Mylonas, Lev Ratnovski, and WeiZhao of the IMF look to historical and international experience in “One Hundred Inflation Shocks: Seven Stylized Facts” (September 2023, WP/23/190). As…
Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns 592 pages Farrar, Straus and Giroux Published: Nov 2023 Released two weeks ago, Jennifer Burns’s “Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative” is the most significant biography of Friedman ever published. Burns is an associate professor of history at Stanford and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She […]
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode description: Jennifer Burns is a professor history at Stanford who works at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. She’s written two biographies Tyler highly recommends: her 2009 book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and her latest, Milton Friedman: The […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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