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free trade & free markets too much government

X Marks the Mistake

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Take subject X. What if nearly everything we’re told about X — by the most famous experts and by people in government, as well as most folks in the media — is wrong?

Let X be diet. Maybe the whole “anti-fat” idea, dominant for most of my adult life, is wrong. There’s evidence for it.

Let X be AGW, the theory of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming. We’re told that there’s a consensus in favor of it. But there’s less to that alleged consensus than meets the eye — or scientific rigor.

But to really blow your mind, consider central banking.

We’re told that the job of the central bank is to protect us from the fluctuations of boom and bust. The Federal Reserve was established by the federal government just to help us! But . . . what if that was never the actual reason that banks have been centralized?

Economist George Selgin posted, last week, a thorough debunking of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s recent statements about what he’s up to. If you have never heard of free banking before, or the long tradition of central banking criticism among monetary economists, Selgin’s critique may seem outrageous . . . as outrageous as Copernicus and Galileo were back when most folks thought the Earth was the center of the universe.

If Selgin is right (and I think he is), nearly everything we’ve been told by experts and politicians about money, boom and bust, and banking, is wrong.

The central banking school is X.  X is wrong.

So if the Fed doesn’t do what it’s “supposed to,” why do we have it?

It serves big government and some big bankers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

9 replies on “X Marks the Mistake”

Nothing like a flatearther who doesn’t believe in global warming. Looks like you have your head in the sand.

Come out and take a look around.

We need to spread this message around, as Central banking is the root of all evil.
Great writing as always. . .

The central bank creates inflation which acts like a tax without any political repurcussions.

NASA also doesn’t believe in global warming. Perhaps they should be defunded.

Mr. Jacob:
That six billions of persons must have some influence on this spaceship’s environment. After all, we are too numerous to limit our living and workplaces to only the naturally occurring available caves.
The extent of our impact, however, is easy to overestimate, especially if you are prone to humanities’ greatest and primary sin, pride. That some of our population have ulterior motives, such as the the accumulation of power or redistribution of the results of productivity, compounds the problem.
For the environment the correct solution is reasonable and rational stewardship, while avoiding deification. (I am of Celtic heritage, and my ancestors were 1500 years in advance of those who have only recently converted to environmental worship. Many Celts, assisted by St. Patrick, ceased worshiping trees some time ago.)
As for central banks, I posit they are not necessary and commonly harmful. That theory could easily tested by the elimination of the exclusive legal tender laws.
With the market freed, there would be the development of different, more efficient and more stable means of exchange. The advantages are too numerous to the market, and individuals, to be listed here.
The better means of exchange would eventually drive out those which are inferior, including fiat money. In the process the government central banks would loose their utility and disappear, taking with them all of their associated market distortions.
Washington’s elected residents, and many of their ilk the world over, however, will not be pleased with this prospect. They can be expected to strongly resist such a change.
It is irrational to expect privileged political operatives to give up a major advantage over (and grant it to) their subjects. think about it, if the means of exchange was liberated then the political class would have to actually pay, not just print, bills.

The flat-earthers are the same people who don’t believe in evolution and deny global warming. At least they are consistently stupid.

Why would I give any credence to people this stupid?

There may not be a convenient solution to global warming but to believe the charlatans is infantile.

Do you believe in evolution?

[…] Video: Twelve Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs var addthis_product = 'wpp-264'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true,"data_track_addressbar":false};if (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Guy Kawasaki worked for Steve Jobs twice in his career, serving as an “evangelist” for Macintosh computers, among other things. So the lessons he learned from the revolutionary Mr. Jobs are worth thinking about. One of his lessons is skepticism (to put it nicely) about the opinions of “experts.” There are a lot of experts out there, and often they are wrong — or, at any rate, right only for a subset of cases. If you have an exceptional vision, exceptional drive, or simply one exceptional notion, you may want to just ignore the naysayers amongst professional know-it-alls. (This echoes a theme I floated earlier this week.) […]

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