I was wondering if there were any mainstream (or semi-mainstream) reviews of Rothbard's Man, Economy and State, or maybe Kirzner's works on price theory?
No, I don't think so, but some regulars here can comment. I did read btw the best seller "Meltdown" (2009) by Mises scholar T. E. Wood, Jr. It was a good introduction to Mises thought, though I do have a major quibble with one section of his book that I reproduce below.
On page 120 of the hardcover it is stated by Wood: "Although people use the phrase 'printing of money' as a kind of shorthand for what the Fed does, the Fed increases the money supply not by printing cash and putting it into circulation, but what are called 'open-market operations', which involve the purchase and sale of assets".
This is not strictly speaking true. Most of the time this is true, but, as evidenced by the Thursday pronoucement by the US Fed this week, the Fed can and does simply print money and give it to member banks (of course I'm sure there's a IOU involved, or a bond note that is also printed and exchanged at the same time, in order to keep track of what member bank got what money from the Fed). Also the Fed can give this newly printed money to the Treasury, with no strings attached. In fact, half the money created by the Fed since December 2007 is said to be newly printed money (as opposed to open-market operations. This is called "monetizing the debt" and is clearly inflationary.
RL
"NO"???
How the suck could that be possible???
It's not fascism when the government does it.
“We must spend now as an investment for the future.” - President Obama
RayLopez: No, I don't think so, but some regulars here can comment. I did read btw the best seller "Meltdown" (2009) by Mises scholar T. E. Wood, Jr. It was a good introduction to Mises thought, though I do have a major quibble with one section of his book that I reproduce below. On page 120 of the hardcover it is stated by Wood: "Although people use the phrase 'printing of money' as a kind of shorthand for what the Fed does, the Fed increases the money supply not by printing cash and putting it into circulation, but what are called 'open-market operations', which involve the purchase and sale of assets". This is not strictly speaking true. Most of the time this is true, but, as evidenced by the Thursday pronoucement by the US Fed this week, the Fed can and does simply print money and give it to member banks (of course I'm sure there's a IOU involved, or a bond note that is also printed and exchanged at the same time, in order to keep track of what member bank got what money from the Fed). Also the Fed can give this newly printed money to the Treasury, with no strings attached. In fact, half the money created by the Fed since December 2007 is said to be newly printed money (as opposed to open-market operations. This is called "monetizing the debt" and is clearly inflationary. RL
What he says is mostly true. I think he just wants to give the "general" view of how the Fed does things. Although we are doing some pretty freaky stuff right now, I don't think he just wanted to go on an attack and say "Ahhh the Fed is churning away all the money supply and thats how blablahah..." and make it seem like what the Fed does now is what it always has done. The Fed doesn't normally monetize debt by directly buying government debt, I believe it could only do that in WWII, the Fed normally just buys old bonds in order to allow the banks to buy the new bonds.