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Herbert Hoover or Barack Obama: “the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the…
I think these two quotes sound pretty similar. They both blame Europe for the world’s economic problems. The inference is that all would be well if it weren’t for those Europeans.
What can we learn from the policies that spurred the Industrial Revolution?
Some of the dominant policy issues of today – immigration, energy, the emergence of China – have their analogues in the great Industrial Revolution. The key government policies that laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution in…
Crisis and Instability – Searching for Terra Firma
It was not immediately clear to many when the current crisis began that it was going to be this kind of event. The G7 and IMF understand how the cash register works and have vast experience in tweaking the cash register from time to time.…
Long-term interest rates are a series of future short-term rates
On how the expectations theory of interest rates explains why debt-induced depressions are fundamentally deflationary in nature.
How the Federal Reserve came into being
The question after the frightful period in 1907 was what to do to prevent another panic from causing a severe depression. Benjamin Strong, a senior executive at Bankers Trust and later the first President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New…
Herbert Hoover: 1931 Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union
Last week I excerpted from Herbert Hoover’s 1930 State of the Union address. This time I wanted to excerpt from the 1931 SOTU because the Credit Anstalt event had already happened, triggering retail deposit runs. Bank runs is something…
Total Private Market Debt’s Decline Should be a Glaring Warning Sign
The earnings estimates on the S&P must go down significantly. With the problems in Europe, and then the potential slow-down in China (after building more residential and commercial construction than presently needed) we would have to…
Franklin Roosevelt on Social Security
Below are two messages from Franklin Roosevelt, proposing the Social Security program and signing it into law. The main points to note in the text deal with the purpose and funding of Social Security and unemployment insurance i.e. the why…
Herbert Hoover: 1930 Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union
Hoover: "In the larger view the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States, and our recuperation has been retarded by the unwarranted degree of fear and apprehension created by these outside forces."