printPearls before swine? Probably. Still, the freedom movement is gaining momentum. First came Randy Barnett’s powerful testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (read “Turning Citizens Into Subjects: Why The Health Insurance Mandate Is Unconstitutional”). My good friend Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor of Economics at Loyola University in Maryland, followed. Tom tried to explain to members of the Committee on Financial Services (Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology) that the “Fed’s monetary policies tend to create temporary and unsustainable increases in employment while being the very engine of recession and depression that creates a much greater degree of job destruction and unemployment.”
Here’s an excerpt from “How the Fed Fuels Unemployment”:
When the Fed expands the money supply excessively it not only is prone to creating price inflation, but it also sows the seeds of recession or depression by artificially lowering interest rates, which can ignite a false or unsustainable “boom” period. Lower interest rates induce people to consume more and save less. But increased savings and the subsequent business investment that it finances is what fuels economic growth and job creation.
Lowered interest rates and wider availability of credit caused by the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy causes businesses to invest more in (mostly long-term) capital projects (primarily real estate in the latest boom-and-bust cycle), and there is an accompanying expansion of employment in those industries. But since the lower interest rates are caused by the Fed’s expansion of the money supply and not an increase in savings by the public (i.e., by the free market), businesses that have invested in long-term capital projects eventually discover that there is not enough consumer demand to justify their investments. (The reduced savings in the past means consumer demand is weaker in the future). This is when the “bust” occurs.
The economic damage done by the boom-and-bust policies of the Fed occur in the boom period when resources are misallocated in the ways described here. The “bust” period is actually a necessary cure for the economic miscalculations that have occurred, as businesses liquidate their unsound investments and begin to make decisions on realistic, market-based interest rates. Prices and wages must return to reality as well.
Government policies that bail out businesses that have made these bad investment decisions will only delay or prohibit economic recovery while encouraging more of such behavior in the future (the “moral hazard problem”). This is how short recessions can be turned into seemingly endless ones. Worse yet is for the Fed to create even more monetary inflation, rather than allowing the necessary economic adjustments to take place, which will eventually set off another boom-and-bust cycle.
The challenge that Representative Paul faces in educating his fellow congressmen about economics is astounding to anyone who watches the online hearing. Not just the attack on T. DiLorenzo by Clay ( coincidence?) but the way the committee really shows no interest in actually asking the panel intelligent questions about policy but rather making political statements “at” the panel.
I wish we could have fruitful debate between Austrians and Quasi-monetarists (like Scott Sumner, Bill Woolsey).
I guess its happening across the blogosphere these days.
Cheersto Thomas Dilorenzo for clearly explaining economic cause-and-effect to an assemblage of congressional (“Me Too!”) leaders. I hope one or two Congressmen listened intelligently. Professor Dilorenzo is certainly the right man for this job.