The Sound Money Project was founded in January 2009 to conduct research and promote awareness about monetary stability and financial privacy. The project is comprised of leading academics and practitioners in money, banking, and macroeconomics. It offers regular commentary and in-depth analysis on monetary policy, alternative monetary systems, financial markets regulation, cryptocurrencies, and the history of monetary and macroeconomic thought. For the latest on sound money issues, subscribe to our working paper series and follow along on Twitter or Facebook.
Advisory Board: Steve H. Hanke, Jerry L. Jordan, Lawrence H. White
Director: William J. Luther
Senior Fellows: Nicolás Cachanosky, Gerald P. Dwyer, Joshua R. Hendrickson, Thomas L. Hogan, Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., Alexander W. Salter
Fellows: James L. Caton, J.P. Koning
Inflation and Coronavirus Monetary Policies
Not knowing the relationship between monetary policy and inflation is a risky way to conduct monetary policy. Maybe everything will work out fine; maybe not.
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Beware a Second-Wave Attack on Liberty
To move on, the spread must occur. If we employ smart policy, we will allow the virus to spread among the young and shelter our old. We must encourage those with preexisting conditions – hypertension, heart disease, and so forth – to isolate in order to avoid contracting the virus.
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To Avoid Permanent Leviathan, People Must Reclaim their Rights
There is a risk that whatever justified measures governments are taking because of the pandemic outbreak will remain as unjustified powers once the pandemic crisis is over.
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What Is Essential Is Subjective
Part of the argument for shutting down “inessential” activities is that it is better to have fewer people going to work. This may have been a plausible argument while “flattening the curve.” It misses an important problem beyond that time frame.
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Small Business Lending Is Not the Fed’s Job
During times of economic crisis, should emergency loans to small businesses be made by the Department of Defense, Department of Education, or Department of State? I suspect most Americans would say “No” to all three. If needed, emergency loans to small …
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Why Relief Payments Are So Slow to Arrive
The Federal government has started sending relief funds to Americans. But, according to the New York Times editorial board, it is not doing so quickly enough. “The government has made matters worse by dawdling,” it writes. The editorial board is …
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Soaring Unemployment Benefits Will Delay Recovery
Policymaking is not easy. And policymaking in a pandemic is harder still. The CARES Act is a huge expenditure package. Some of it is likely to promote a speedy recovery. But some of it will drag the recession out unnecessarily.
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A Fate Worse than Hyperinflation
The game played by federal actors and financial markets is for keeps. A lack of awareness of the dangers faced in this game by both the public and by politicians leaves the audience of public opinion in a collective yawn in response to discussion of fiscal responsibility.
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Cash Is King in COVID-19
We’re still early in this crisis, so who knows what patterns in cash demand will emerge. But for now, cash is filling its normal role as alleviator of uncertainty. To cope with the turmoil, people are withdrawing a bit more of the stuff. And that’s fine!
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Burner Cards and Financial Privacy
The growing demand for virtual cards also serves as a good reminder that the ability to exert control over one’s personal information when making transactions isn’t just a feature that drug dealers want. Regular folks operating in the above-ground economy demand a degree of privacy, as well.
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Commercial Habits and Pandemics
Historian William Hutton recounts how country-folk were often too afraid to enter villages filled with potentially sick customers. Instead, they would bring their merchandise to the plague stone, usually set up on the outskirts of a town.
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The Best-laid Plans Often Go Astray, Even for Macroprudential Regulators
The problem with this comment is its failure to be the least bit realistic. It ignores a basic fact: whatever plans regulators have in place for a financial crisis or for a pandemic causing financial distress or some other event causing financial distress–any plan, that is–will be wrong in important ways.
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