I have already set up the mission of this blog in my original post along with some recent papers. I would like to go back in time to when and how my true education developed. The foundation of that education is built up the principles of Austrian Economics with the Mises Institute at the forefront. As my interests evolved from investing, i.e. gambling, to a more sophisticated understanding of money and credit, government influences, and entrepreneurship, I naturally moved towards the writings of Mises, Hazlitt, Rothbard and so many other modern day Austrian writers. Perhaps the most influential book was Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” with his lesson simply stated.
“The art of economics consists of looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
Hazlitt’s lesson is as relevant today as ever before. For each near term bailout, deficit spending, tax cut, saving disincentive and bubble creation will bring great pains to so many others in the not too distant future. While the bankers, businessmen and other elites are the immediate benefactors of the government and Federal Reserve’s bailouts and policies, there are many groups that will suffer like the working middle class. If you think that the governments and central banker actions are not fair, then you are right. But as my great father has told me repeatedly…..life’s not fair. This Hazlitt book is a great starting point for those interested in understanding money, business, investing and the great influence of governments and central banks.
The Mises Institute also promotes individual freedom and libertarianism, as compared to the oppressive alternative of government control and distortions of the natural economic and business cycles. If you refer back to my 1st blog that explains the GPR mission of empowering people with ways to secure more FREEDOM in your lives, then the Mises Institute and its history making publications, seminars, and classroom studies are essential. The Austrian economists views are in direct opposition to today’s modern Keynesian economists that intentionally deceive the masses. The long line of Federal Reserve’s “inflationist” central bankers since the institution’s inception in 1913 has grown increasingly more dangerous to our great nation. The interventions in the free markets that accelerated in the 1980s with the creation of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, aka the Plunge Protection Team, have grown increasingly more active, powerful and destructive. Of course, Helicopter Ben Bernanke, and his infamous speech “Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here” has launched a new era in central banking interventions and their desperate intentions for a “wealth effect” in an attempt to fuel infinite growth and consumption. As the modern day economic and financial bubbles continue to be chronically expanded with central banking and government interference, we must always seek to find the direct cause of those bubbles and the responsible parties. You will find that the cause of these bubbles is almost always a significant expansion of credit, i.e. debt, fueled by aggressive and chronic monetary easing policy in combination with deficit spending fiscal policy. If you want to understand what caused the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent depression, you only need to look at the preceding “Roaring 20s” built on the extravagant excesses that were fueled by low interest rates. The bust to this boom was inevitable. Ben Bernanke argues to the contrary in his doctorate thesis paper and life long writings. If you want to learn a much deeper understanding of precisely what causes inflation, bubbles and depressions, then read “The Causes of the Economic Crisis” by Ludwig von Mises.
The Austrian economists, Mises Institute and Libertarians offer an insightful and priceless bedrock foundation for understanding much of the world today. Their offerings of sound money (gold not fiat green paper), peace, limited government, entrepreneurial decision making and inflation insights are needed today more than ever to counter the deception, bribery and intimidation that occurs daily on our unintended path to ruin. The current trends must be stopped immediately, similar to stopping a heroin addict from taking their next stronger hit, which may ultimately prove to be a fatal dose.
Is peace not preferred over war?
Are falling or stable prices not preferred over rapid inflation?
Is self-reliance not preferred over the nanny state?
Is gold money not preferred over the fiat green paper that chronically loses its value?
Are free markets not preferred over government interventions?
Is reasonable growth not preferred over repeated “boom and bust” cycles?
Is sustainable debt not preferred over unpayable and continuously expanding debts?
Is freedom not preferred over slavery?
Is the truth not preferred over deceit?