Comments on: An Interview With Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

By: Blode0322

Blode0322 — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:13:40 +0000

M.B. Moon has savaged fractional reserve banking quite effectively. I am curious though. It’s not that I like or trust fractional reserve, but I’m ignorant of two important points:
(A) How do you move from FRB to something Austrian without triggering mass deflation?
(B) Why do advocates of FRB seem to think it is so dang important? (I’m assuming they must think there is some huge advantage to it, to outweigh the undeniable disadvantages….)

By: M. B. Moon

M. B. Moon — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:56:25 +0000

The next best thing to honesty in banking (non-existent under fractional reserve banking) is prudence. Canada gets points for prudence but let's not forget the fractional reserve banking model: 1. Create principal from nothing. This is inflation. The purchasing power of the new money is stolen from all dollar holders for the sake of the banks, borrowers and governments who tax the phony economic growth. 2. Lend the principal out for interest with IOUs as collateral. 3. As the loans are repaid the principal goes back to nothing. This is deflation. The bank pockets the interest. This is the cause of the boom-bust cycle as Mises, Rothbard, and other Austrian Economists have pointed out. Rather than emulate Canada's "prudence" how about we go all the way to honest 100% reserve banking? Or, if we can't have honesty across the board, then how about liberty in money creation in banking?

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:48:49 +0000

Sounds like a relatively sensible politician as opposed to feckless idiotic meglomaniac Bush and Messianic socialistic Obama. On the other hand, keeping a hemoragging, money-losing, auto industry in Canada is dumb. But Harper seems to understand the need for government spending discipline, unlike the Republikeynsians and Obammunists.
If we’d hurry up with some Global Warming, it might be nice to move up North. {{ I wonder whether their socialistic health care is much worse than our largely-socialistic health care down here?? }}

By: John Danforth

John Danforth — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:09:10 +0000

This is most interesting. Who could have guessed that the Fabian Socialist Canada would end up more free-market than the U.S., by virtue of tighter control over its banks?

The world is going insane.