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The Myth: We tried free banking and the result was constant bank runs and panics. The Federal Reserve was created to make the system stable and it succeeded. The Reality: America’s recurrent panics were the product of financial control, and there is no evidence the Federal Reserve has made things better.
Now that Trump is in office there is talk that his administration will support repealing or revising Dodd-Frank — the government’s regulatory response to the financial crisis of 2008. The bill was sold as a way to protect ourselves from future crises by making the financial system more stable.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Salman v. United States, a case that illustrates the vague, arbitrary, and capricious nature of insider trading “laws.” Insider trading laws restrict people’s ability to buy and sell securities based on “material nonpublic information.” But what the government considers insider trading is often so nebulous that it amounts to ex post facto law: in many cases, it is impossible to know whether you’ve committed a crime until the government says you committed one.
In this episode of The Yaron Brook Show, Don Watkins interviews George Selgin, senior fellow and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia. Together they discuss the ethics and economics of fractional reserve banking, the cause of inflation and instability, pre-Fed “panics” and the Fed’s role in the financial crisis of 2008.
Tomorrow, September 24, Don Watkins is sitting in for Yaron Brook to discuss the virtues of free banking and monetary freedom with George Selgin, senior fellow and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia. Join Don Watkins tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. Eastern to learn about the ethics and economics of fractional reserve banking, the Fed as the cause of inflation and instability, the cause of pre-Fed financial panics, the origin of the Fed and the Fed’s role in the financial crisis of 2008.
Don’t miss an all-new episode of The Yaron Brook show this Saturday, in which Yaron will take up the myriad attacks against the financial industry. Among other topics, he will explain why bankers are reviled in today’s culture, describe the enormous value they create and argue why we should ardently defend the business of finance.
The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, the third of a three-part interview, I talk to ARI’s executive director, Yaron Brook, about the financial industry — one of the chief targets of the attacks on economic inequality. Topics include: the myth of financial deregulation, why the Federal Reserve should be abolished and the vital need for a moral defense of finance.
