Re: Skepticism Prevails on Preventing Crisis
Dear Sirs:
Mr. Binyamin Appelbaum’s report of the Fed’s conference in Boston over the weekend perfectly illustrates our central bankers’ incompetence. They wring their hands over what they do not know and beg the public to forgive them when the next financial crisis strikes, which surely it must. If the Fed wishes to prevent financial crises, it only needs to stop initiating them. The Fed’s hubris that it can fathom the proper interest rate for our vast and complex economy must rank among the greatest fallacies of all time. The Fed sees the world through the completely discredited Keynesian lens which posits that aggregate demand–what the rest of us know simply as spending–is the path to prosperity. Anyone who believes this nonsense need ask himself why he has not liquidated his own savings on frivolous consumption and why the citizens of countries like Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and others are not as rich as Midas. Please allow me to answer Mr. Luc Laeven’s question, posed to the conference attendees, to wit, “Do we have other policies?” Yes, Mr. Laeven, I do. Liquidate your central bank (the European Central Bank) and recommend similar action by the Fed. Scrap legal tender laws that prevent the market from choosing the best medium of indirect exchange. Outlaw fractional reserve banking as the fraud that it is. Subject banks to the same commercial code as all other businesses. There–problem solved! Now send everyone at the conference home to look for a real job.
Patrick Barron
