Link
I was surprised I did not see this on LRC.com
Dumbest defense of counterfeiting ever?
Under his theory, hyperinflation isn't bad, and is actually good.
Who gets the money first, Mr Andolfatto???
I love when liberals/lefties criticize Libertarians, they always start by saying something like "see, I like some of their ideas, but...", and now their mental diarrhea starts.
These fools don't understand that libertarians are against things like drug prohibition and corporate welfare not because they want to take drugs and have some irrational hatred of corporations, but because that's part of a set of coherent ethical principles that libertarians adhere to, not because that would suit them better.
I'm just saying that because this article is pure rubbish and I think that everybody here will, at best, get a laugh out of so much ignorance regarding basic economics, so it was a good place to talk about lefties 'sympathy' towards Libertarians.
There is so much of this Anti-Economics out there that there is no way for the bloggers at the Mises Institute to get all of it.
As for the incorrectness of the article you are right on the philosophy side. That is: Central Banking and Fractional Reserve Banking are simply violations of private property and are therefore aggressions against any individual holding currency.
On the economic theory side the author is also completely incorrect. He states that although prices have gone up, so have incomes, ergo everything is a wash. He is completely wrong in that the new money created by the Fed amplified by fractional reserve banks appears to entrepreneurs as savings. These entrepreneurs use REAL resources and REAL labor (The most valuable part of which is their own.) to start activities that the market will not demand in the long term. These real resources and labor are always at some point lost. The loss of these real resources means that consumers are stiffed in not getting the products they want and labor gets stiffed in having to find other work. And then because the money from the banks is first lent to the government, the government grows and becomes more intrusive thus destroying more wealth.
Guys, you are all pointing out short term consequences. But is he right that in the long run, wages and prices rise together?
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Wages are prices... but if prices of goods in general rise, wages can rise, but purchasing power hasn't risen.
I see Bob Wenzel has a piece on this: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/03/senior-fed-economist-calls-ron-paul.html
Pretty much says the same as people here.
There are interesting comments, too.
What does together mean? Wages vs Prices, how about wages vs gold and/or silver, or a gallon of gasoline.
But the negative effects of stealing property through inflation by a central bank or other money producer has one huge negative effect. That is the economy grows slower as the USA has seen, much slower than it would have otherwise. The distortions caused by inflation draw real resources from those in areas where entrepreneurs in their endless game of trying to attract fickle consumers would have made investments. The result is that the long term growth is lessened.