Against Politics

Toward a depoliticized society

Understanding business cycles

In his book Recessions and Depressions: Understanding Business Cycles, Todd A. Knoop correctly points out that a Rational Expectations perspective does not necessarily require that all segments of society are rational or use all available information: Those who are rational will take advantage of the profit opportunities created by those who are consistently making mistakes. [...]

The holiest of holy cows

The February 09, 2009 Issue of the American Conservative features a number of heterodox articles on monetary policy. In his article Fed Up: The Popular Uprising Against Central Banking, Thomas Woods writes about the holiest of holy cows of conservative and libertarian leaning think tanks: The libertarian and conservative think tanks that liberally invoke the [...]

Puzzled by Robert Lucas

Some people are puzzled by Robert Lucas’ recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he advocates monetary growth policies as a form of economic stimulus. On the positive side, Lucas concludes that: There is no other way that so much cash could have been put into the system as fast as this [...]

Classical economics and deflation

A 2004 research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on Classical Deflation Theory concludes as follows: Of course, deflation under certain circumstances might not be a bad thing, that is, might have no adverse real effects. If so, policymakers could ignore it or implement it with impunity. Such would be the case for [...]