Entries by Keith Weiner

In a Gold Standard, How Are Interest Rates Set?

Today, short-term interest rates are set by the diktats of the central bank. And long-term interest rates are set in a “market” in which the central bank is obliged to keep coming back to buy ever more bonds, and speculators front-run the central banks to buy ahead of them. The result has been that, for […]

In Defense of the Corporation

© April 28, 2012 by Keith Weiner Today, the government of the USA is in an accelerating transition. For the first 100 years (with a few exceptions) the government of the USA existed to set man free from men. The rights of the people were respected by the law and by the courts. And it […]

Open Letter to Steve Keen

26/04/12 Keith Weiner Dear Professor Keen, I am a monetary scientist and a fan of some of your work. I admire the courage it took for you to call the Australian housing crisis as early as you did, and to make a bet that you would be right. But I came across this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aqY_DYtp60s#), […]

Irredeemable Paper Money, Feature #451

I am writing this, having just returned from the fourth course at the New Austrian School of Economics, in Munich. The single biggest theme was the rate of interest and its linkage to prices. Kondratieff, among several others, have observed that rising prices lead to rising interest rates and vice versa. And the opposite case […]

The Loan: An Exchange of Wealth for Income

As the title of this essay suggests, a loan is an exchange of wealth for income. Like everything else in a free market (imagine happier days of yore), it is a voluntary trade. Contrary to the endemic language of victimization, both parties regard themselves as gaining thereby, or else they would not enter into the […]

A Politically Incorrect Look at Marginal Tax Rates

In my last piece, The Laffer Curve and Austrian Economics, I argued that the “Laffer Maxima” moves depending on where the economy is in the boom-bust credit cycle. I used an example of a marginal restaurant business in the bust phase, which fails when the income tax rate on the people who live nearby rises […]

Inflation: An Expansion of Counterfeit Credit

To listen to the audio version of this article click here. The Monetary Sleight of Hand The Keynesians and Monetarists have fooled people with a clever sleight of hand. They have convinced people to look at prices (especially consumer prices) to understand what’s happening in the monetary system. Anyone who has ever been at a […]

The Laffer Curve And Austrian School Economics

Jude Wanniski, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, coined the term “Laffer Curve” after a concept promoted by economist Art Laffer.Laffer himself says the idea goes back to the 14th century The idea is that if one wants to maximize the government’s tax revenue, there is an optimal tax rate. (Ignore for the moment […]

Broken Hedges

Peter Tchir wrote a piece yesterday describing yet another hole in the banks’ balance sheets: I am not sure I fully understand it, but to me it looks something like this: A bank has a duration mismatch. Its funding is short-term, which means it must be rolled over frequently. This subjects the bank to the […]