The Great Immoderation: How the Fed Is Sowing the Next Recession

The Great Immoderation: How the Fed Is Sowing the Next Recession

By David Stockman of David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

In February 2004, Ben Bernanke famously declared the business cycle had been tamed and took a bow on behalf of enlightened monetary management, claiming it was the principal source of this beneficent development. Exactly 55 months later, of course, he terrorized the congressional leadership and a clueless president with the frightening proposition that a Great Depression 2.0 was just around the corner.

As to why he had been so stupendously wrong, Bernanke did not say. Nor did he explain why the brilliantly “stable” US economy had suddenly stumbled to …

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Limiting the Fed Would Diffuse Derivative “Time Bombs”

Limiting the Fed Would Diffuse Derivative “Time Bombs”

In a 2002 letter to shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett called the trillions of dollars of derivatives held by American banks “time bombs”. The “Oracle of Omaha’s” dire prognostication proved correct in 2008, when the collapse of prices of the assets to which the lion’s share of outstanding derivatives were tied led to a financial crisis that plunged the American economy into a period of economic malaise not seen since the Great Depression.

Derivatives are indeed “ticking time bombs” in this era of Fed-inspired asset …

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Thomas Sowell: Federal Reserve a “Cancer”

Thomas Sowell: Federal Reserve a “Cancer”

The following interview with economist and Hoover Institution fellow Thomas Sowell is one of the more impactful anti-Federal Reserve videos on the web.

Sowell made three salient points in the interview: 1) The federal government allowed the establishment of the Fed at the behest of elite bankers such as J.P. Morgan. 2) The worst economic crises this nation has faced have been on the Fed’s watch. 3) The Fed doesn’t necessarily have to be replaced with any other institution.

The interview also demonstrated the unfortunate ignorance of the …

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