What happened?

The root cause of the current crisis is central banking (the Federal Reserve) and its fiat money system. Whenever any central bank prints money out of thin air, the chickens ultimately come home to roost. Only a few of the "experts" you see on CNN, Fox, etc. actually understand this. So all the meaningless talk is just that, meaningless, unless they discuss the Fed and its policies.

Only the Austrians knew what was coming, and they predicted it years ago. By studying Austrian economics, you'll not only know more economics than almost the entire U.S. population, but you'll also be better able to invest your money and avoid catastrophe.

Simply invest $6.00 and buy The Case Against the Fed by Murray Rothbard. Then you'll also realize that neither Obama nor McCain knows what's going on or how to fix it.

Late 1890's redux

I don't know who said it, but it's a great quote: "The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history." Well, we're not learning, and the ones really not learning are the fascists in Washington.

In the late 1890's, after the Panic of 1893 was over, big business and a new group of "progressives" kicked off what's called the Progressive Era. These groups called for more government regulation because, they claimed, that free- market or laissez-faire capitalism failed. They spun the whole story, making it sound good to an uniformed public that the government was good and that they were here to help.

Now the powers that be (the government and the mainstream media) are spinning the whole story again, and once again are blaming capitalism. As you can read in this article (thanks to prudentbear.com), politicians and pundits alike say that de-regulation is the root cause of our economic woes. Actually, it's the Federal Reserve's reckless behavior of printing almost worthless dollars that is the root cause.

Don't buy into the spin! Instead, read Murray Rothbard's great, short book, The Case Against the Fed. Find out the truth, and don't let the government dupe us once more. Entrepreneurs create wealth; the government, through taxation and regulation, destroys wealth. So let's say no to more government intervention in the economy.

Just click on the title of Murray's book and you can purchase it for only $7.00. And be careful of Wikipedia's entries on the Progressive Era and the Panic of 1893. They may have been written by statists who also blame the free market.

The Great Depression

With a severe recession looming, there is occasional talk about the Great Depression of the 1930's. Gene Smiley has written a short book, Rethinking the Great Depression, that is a good introduction. It's not as good as Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression, but it's a good start and is somewhat easier to follow for the neophyte to history and economics.

In the preface, Smiley correctly sums up what every American should be taught but unfortunately are not: "Government efforts to control and direct the gold standard for national purposes brought on the depression. Once it began, government actions, particularly in the United States, caused it to be much longer and much more severe. When the contraction finally ended, government interference in U.S. markets made the recovery unbearably slow and in 1937-1938 brought on a 'depression within a depression.' The 1930's economic crisis is tragic testimony to government interference in market economies."

Dead on point. Unfortunately, an overwhelming majority of history, government, and economics professors, most of whom have always been in academia and have never held a job in the private sector, blame the "free market" and teach students that the government saved the day. They then teach that government is something we need more of and that surrendering your property (hard-earned income) is something to be applauded.