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In the next Two Years, Congress
should:
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Long-term
Goals:
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- uphold its constitutional duty to
maintain the purchasing power of the dollar by enacting
legislation that makes long-run
price stability the primary
objective of Federal Reserve monetary policy;
- recognize that the Fed cannot
fine-tune the real economy but can achieve monetary stability by
following a rule that confines nominal growth of gross domestic
product to a noninflationary path;
- recognize that all prices
should naturally be going down, and hold the Fed accountable
for achieving zero expected inflation over a reasonable time
frame;
- pass the Honest
Money Act.
- abolish the Exchange Stabilization
Fund, since the Fed’s role is to achieve zero inflation, not
to stabilize the foreign exchange value of the dollar by
intervening in the foreign exchange market; and
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- offer no resistance to the emergence
of digital currency and other substitutes for Federal Reserve
notes, so that free-market forces can help shape the future of
monetary institutions.
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- A Guide to
Digital Cash Articles
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The
Limits of Monetary Policy
An Overview
- The
Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul, ch. 6 (audiobook)
- Gold,
Peace, and Prosperity (.pdf) by Ron Paul; also available
in mp3
audio
- "Money,
Banking, and the Federal Reserve" (documentary, via
Google Video)
- What Has
Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard
- The Case
for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar by Murray N. Rothbard; a new
edition of What Has Government Done to Our Money containing
this work can be purchased here.
(The two are also available on mp3 audio here.)
- The
Case for Gold by Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman
- The
Gold Standard: Perspectives in the Austrian School, ed.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. (online in .pdf here)
- A
History of Money and Banking in the United States from the Colonial
Period to World War II by Murray N. Rothbard;
online here
(.pdf)
- The
Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
by G. Edward Griffin
- "The
Myth of the 'Independent' Fed" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
- "Did
Greenspan Deserve Support for Another Term?" (.pdf) by
Joseph T. Salerno (mp3
audio)
- "The
Path to Sound Money" (mp3 audio) by George Reisman
- "The
Economics of Inflation" (mp3 audio) by George Reisman
- The
Case Against the Fed by Murray N. Rothbard (online here;
free audiobook here)
The Business Cycle
What makes the economy experience periodic booms and busts? Contrary to
what Karl Marx claimed, these are not an inevitable feature of a market
economy. Economist F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in economics for
showing how central banking (the Federal Reserve System in the American
case) and its manipulation of the interest rate initiates unsustainable
booms that lead inevitably to a bust. This is known as the Austrian
theory of the business (or trade) cycle, and it's the subject of this
section.
- The
Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays
(online here;
free audiobook here).
The ideal place to start on this subject.
This short book consists of short essays
on Austrian business cycle theory. No prior knowledge is necessary.
- "Business
Cycle Primer" by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
- "Sound
Money and the Business Cycle" by John P. Cochran
- "Who
Predicted the Bubble? Who Predicted the Crash?" (.pdf) by
Mark Thornton
- "Mises
vs. Fisher on Money, Method, and Prediction: The Case of the Great
Depression" (.pdf) by Mark Thornton
- "Predicting
Booms and Busts" (mp3 audio) by Mark Thornton
- Banking
and the Business Cycle (mp3 audio) by Joseph T. Salerno
- America's
Great Depression, 5th ed. (online in here,
and in .pdf here)
by Murray N. Rothbard
What About Deflation?
Because the possibility of "deflation" is so often raised as
an objection to a commodity standard, we include a separate section of
articles and lectures refuting this specific claim. Much of the material
in this section is for the advanced student.
- Articles:
- "Deflation
and Depression: Where's the Link?" by Joseph T. Salerno
- "Apoplithorismosphobia"
(.pdf) by Mark Thornton. (Thornton coined the term to refer to
the fear of deflation.) Thornton speaks on this
topic in this
mp3 file
- "An
Austrian Taxonomy of Deflation — With Applications to the U.S."
(.pdf) by Joseph T. Salerno
- "Deflation
and Japan Revisited" (.pdf) by Richard C.B. Johnsson
- Audio (in mp3 audio):
- "On
Deflation" by Joseph T. Salerno
- "The
Economics of Deflation" by Jörg Guido Hülsmann
- "Deflation
and Liberty" by Jörg Guido Hülsmann
- "The
Gold Standard in Theory and in Myth" by Joseph T. Salerno
next: Financial Deregulation
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