You know more than you think you do

When it comes to the economy, it’s a good bet that you know more than you think you do.

Many Americans are puzzled when they hear of the proposals put forth by big-government politicians and sympathetic economists. Most of these ideas run completely contrary to common sense, yet they are couched in deceptive jargon (“quantitative easing,” anyone?) and delivered in solemn tones by people who “matter.” It’s hard to blame the average person for simply assuming their own ignorance and putting their faith in the powers that be.

Those who do this are not giving themselves nearly enough credit.

Policies such as creating money out of thin air and attempting to spend our way out of debt are just as harebrained and irrational as they appear at first glance. If you can’t see how printing numerous pieces of paper stamped with “Federal Reserve Note” will increase our productive capacity or augment our physical resources, you are not being naïve -- you are absolutely correct.

No amount of spin and fancy terminology can ever replace key economic truths, such as that wealth cannot be willed into existence by a bureaucrat with a printing press (or these days, a computer).

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Accuses Fed Critics of "Four Misconceptions"

In an anti-Fed rant this week, I criticized Ben Bernanke for saying that any criticism of the Federal Reserve is based on misconceptions. What are these misconceptions? Give me an argument; don’t just say I’m wrong and then rest on the laurels of your credentials and prestige. I wrote:

I would like to hear Bernanke elaborate on his claim. I would like to understand just what it is that I don’t understand when I criticize the Federal Reserve Bank. How are my conceptions actually misconceptions?

What do you know– the very next day, The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston posted the text of a speech that Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren gave today, entitled Four Common Misconceptions About the Federal Reserve. Now I’m not seriously suggesting that The Boston Fed was responding to us, but it’s a pretty cool coincidence, especially since we know they’re reading blogs that talk about them and we’ve actually seen the traces of the Boston Federal Reserve IT department in our analytic logs. Cool, huh? Intentionally or not (again, probably not), The Boston Fed president answered my exact question and I’ve got to give him credit for doing that much. Of course I also have to rebut his answers, because they’re pretty weak.

Read my four rebuttals to the Fed president's four "misconceptions" here.

10 Questions with Don Watkins

As liberty activists, we draw from a great number of pro-liberty sources to create our own individualist philosophies. This exposure to different perspectives strengthens us intellectually and helps shape who we are.

In this interview, Slade Mendenhall questions Don Watkins, an analyst for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, about several issues, including the Fed, the financial collapse, entitlement programs and much more.

The Federal Reserve, remember, is in charge of the entire banking and monetary system, which was nationalized a century ago. That’s the lifeblood of the economy. Money is the thread that connects the entire economy, and when you mess with it, you can do incredible damage. In my judgment, that’s exactly what happened last decade to cause the financial crisis. The financial crisis is a complex subject, but as I and many others have argued, the first cause was then-Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s decision in the early 2000s to drive interest rates extremely low–lower than even the rate of inflation. It was those low interest rates that enticed and enabled people to take on huge amounts of debt to buy and invest in homes. You could not have had a housing bubble without the Fed.

Click here for the full interview.

Video from Occupy Boston: Police Threatening to Arrest Protesters

I decided to attend the Occupy Boston student march yesterday to learn more about what was going on and support the notion that banks and the Federal Reserve are some of the most corrupt institutions in this country.  

I have footage of the police threatening to arrest protesters at the Charlestown Bridge. This represented a turning point in the days event, whereas there had been no conflicts with the police before that. Around 1:30 AM, about one hundred protesters were arrested and the campsite destroyed by the police. Regardless of what you think, this is extremely interesting to witness firsthand.

Also coming up: A blog post on Northeastern's Constitution Week and our free speech struggles on campus!