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Wednesday, December 05, 2012

How the Rich Rule

My article by that name is now online at The American Conservative. One aspect of the article has been criticized by market monetarist Scott Sumner at his blog (and previously here and here). It has set off quite a debate over the Austrian position on "Cantillon effects" from government-created money; this is the idea that when the Fed creates money it enters at particular points in the economy and through the possession of particular individuals. It doesn't get evenly distributed throughout the economy with no real effects.

Another critic, Nick Rowe, weighs in too.

1 comment:

Bob Roddis said...

Excellent piece. I've been ranting for years that libertarians should make theft of purchasing power through Cantillon Effects a central part of their message. It is something the public should be and must be able to understand. I also note that the "market monetarists" (what a garbage Orwellian term) ignored the gist of your argument, theft of purchasing power by the elite from average people. And all to solve a problem that does not exist, the alleged failure of the market.

BTW, Daniel Kuehn inadvertently proved that it was the Fed, not the market, that caused the 1920 depression. There is no antecedent market failure event that supports the Keynesian (or MM) analysis.

http://bobroddis.blogspot.com/search?q=Kuehn