Category Archives: Inflation

UPDATE IV: A National Reviewnik Thinks He’s "Contrarian"

Debt, Inflation, Journalism, Media, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans

He’s trillions of dollars and a decade too late, but Kevin D. Williamson of National Review can assure himself he’s “contrarian” for advocating an about face in the Federal Reserve Bank’s fiddling.

Williamson may be reading Austrian economics. By that I mean the reality based thinking of Ludwig von Mises (taught at the Mises Institute); preached by Ron Paul (whom the neoconery mocked during the Bush years), practiced by financier Peter Schiff, written about by Tom Woods in Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse; as well as by Vox Day, and in this writer’s columns and blogs over the past decade.

Being of the establishment, however, Williamson can just put his hands over his ears and tell himself over and over again “I’m contrarian,” and this will be so.

“So here’s a contrarian take,” Williamson assures himself: “The Fed should stop trying to drive down interest rates. It should instead work to raise them. Why? Our economy needs savings and investment. …”

As I said, trillions of dollars and a decades too later … (“PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!”)

Your host, writing in “Those Invisible Jobs,” did not anoint herself a “contrarian” for advocating that Fed supremo Ben Bernanke raise interest rates.” Not then, and not in 2000 (“The Central Bank’s Game is the Same, Whoever’s the Name”), and on all those occasions in-between.

Why? Because in the Austrian community, represented by some very prominent people, this is common wisdom.

Bloody annoying…

UPDATE I: I’ll be honest: it’s hard to know from Mr. Williamson’s wishy-washy articles exactly where he stands on matters of political philosophy (or if he is a neoconservative or not). However, this post’s point was pretty clear. It expressed annoyance that someone can call himself contrarian for proposing less quantitative easing. Granted, it’s a prickly post, but Mr. Williamson can understand, surely, why writers like myself get a tad testy? We’ve been marginalized for being right on foreign policy and fiscal matters our entire careers, such as they are. Then, when the rest catch up with us, a decade down the line, they pretend that truth began with them.

If I’ve learned anything about the American Mind it is this: Truth doesn’t exist until someone in the establishment pronounces it, usually a decade or so after it has been in circulation. I guess, better late than never, but why not acknowledge those who went before?

I saw Mr. Williamson go up against one or the other left-liberals on TV, and I remember thinking: much better than Rich. Still, I do not believe there is a sufficient amount of information to conclude that “better than Rich” is a meaningful statement.

Mr. Williamson is young (and presentable). He has plenty of time to correct any mistaken impressions I might have formed, not least of which is his sharing that horrible habit common among the Republican establishment of never admitting to being Johnny-come-latelies on Iraq, Bush, economy, QE, etc.

UPDATE II: Mr. Glisson, first, why don’t you provide hyperlinks and particular quotes in substantiation of your position that Mr. Williamson is never a neoconservative? Second, why misconstrue the point of this writer’s post, encapsulated again in the last two sentences of “UPDATE I”? Moreover, from a parenthetic statement about the neoconservatives’ attitude toward Ron Paul, Mr. Williamson concluded that I had called him a neoconservative. You do the same, for some reason.

Again, Mr. Williamson is better than Rich; way better. I am still unsure as to what kind of badge of honor this really is; or if Mr. Williamson is or is not a neoconservative. Isn’t that a condition of employment at National Review? John Derbyshire is NRO’s only paleoconservative (sort of). I’d love to see John thrust into the spotlight, but they keep him in the basement, so to speak.

UPDATE III (Oct. 17): We thank Kevin D. Williamson for responding to the intrigue he has generated on Barely A Blog. He remains a man of mystery, and that is not half bad. In the age of too much information (and letting it all hang loose), mystery is a good thing. We agree that Mr. Williamson ain’t Rich. Has Rich employed a non-neoconservative in the hope of generating some oscillation in the static National Review? Or because the readership has little patience with that old guard? Who knows? We also understand that a man has to make a living. To do so, he must often walk an ideological tightrope.

Nevertheless, those who went before—and remain permanently frozen out of mainstream—deserve mention. It gets terribly cold out here. Mr. Glisson seems to think I’m some kind of intellectual missionary, spreading the good word, pleased to turn the other cheek just so long as the new guard can adopt the gospel, even if they falsely pretend to be pioneers.

Rubbish. Nonsense on stilts. I’m all about justice. Intellectual justice included.

UPDATE IV (3/5/2016):

“NRO Writer’s ‘UnFollow’ Leads To Musing About The Manners-Morals Connection.”

QE2: That Ship Has Sailed

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, The State

I’m not talking about “The Queen Elizabeth 2” cruise ship, but of “‘Quantitative Easing,’ which is state-speak for the government’s monkeying with the money supply.” That ship has indeed sailed a long time ago. At the end of September, we reported here on a $1 trillion Fed infusion of paper into our hot-air balloon of an economy.

How many pinpricks away from runaway hyperinflation are we?

Now you know why a stock market rally does not a recovery predict. In fact, stocks will be buoyed after a funny-money injection. “But as usual,” concedes Larry Kudlow, ignored are “the plunging dollar and soaring commodity prices, which will lead to an inflation tax on consumers and businesses, something that is not good for profits or economic growth.”

UPDATED: They Call It “Quantitative Easing”

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, The West

“Quantitative Easing” is state-speak for the government monkeying with the money supply. “Fed head Ben Bernanke,” who tinkers all the time, has announced that inflation is too low, no less. “The solution?” writes Larry Kudlow, is to “punch up the money supply and punch down the dollar.” By another $1 trillion, I believe.

The increase in the money supply is in fact inflation. This legalized counterfeiting raises prices; the new money generates price hikes throughout the economy. However, it reaches the politically connected first. They get fat checks well before the general price increases caused by all the new money affect their purchasing power. Depreciation of the dollar spells higher prices and hardship for those of us who are removed from power and from the new money.

Then there’s hyperinflation.

“In a system with fractional reserve requirements, an increase in bank reserves can support a multiple expansion of deposits,” explains economist Anna J. Schwartz. “An increase in the supply of money works both through lowering interest rates, which spurs investment, and through putting more money in the hands of consumers, making them feel wealthier, and thus stimulating spending.”

They feel wealthier, but they are not, Schwartz ought to have added. Yes, and the outcome of “easing” is “malinvestment,” never sustainable investment. Any “recovery” invariably reported by the polls is a result of this “easing,” which further serves to mask economic reality.

UPDATE (Sept. 29): Such artificial expansions of the money supply cannot but result in a massive misallocation of scarce resources, enormous waste, and, eventually, a drastic lowering of the standards of living for all.

As is argued in the July 2010 issue of The Free Market, a publication of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, the current, unprecedented expansion, will impact our very civilization, throwing us backwards to more atavistic times.

UPDATED: They Call It "Quantitative Easing"

Debt, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, The West

“Quantitative Easing” is state-speak for the government monkeying with the money supply. “Fed head Ben Bernanke,” who tinkers all the time, has announced that inflation is too low, no less. “The solution?” writes Larry Kudlow, is to “punch up the money supply and punch down the dollar.” By another $1 trillion, I believe.

The increase in the money supply is in fact inflation. This legalized counterfeiting raises prices; the new money generates price hikes throughout the economy. However, it reaches the politically connected first. They get fat checks well before the general price increases caused by all the new money affect their purchasing power. Depreciation of the dollar spells higher prices and hardship for those of us who are removed from power and from the new money.

Then there’s hyperinflation.

“In a system with fractional reserve requirements, an increase in bank reserves can support a multiple expansion of deposits,” explains economist Anna J. Schwartz. “An increase in the supply of money works both through lowering interest rates, which spurs investment, and through putting more money in the hands of consumers, making them feel wealthier, and thus stimulating spending.”

They feel wealthier, but they are not, Schwartz ought to have added. Yes, and the outcome of “easing” is “malinvestment,” never sustainable investment. Any “recovery” invariably reported by the polls is a result of this “easing,” which further serves to mask economic reality.

UPDATE (Sept. 29): Such artificial expansions of the money supply cannot but result in a massive misallocation of scarce resources, enormous waste, and, eventually, a drastic lowering of the standards of living for all.

As is argued in the July 2010 issue of The Free Market, a publication of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, the current, unprecedented expansion, will impact our very civilization, throwing us backwards to more atavistic times.