Several questions:
1. On a scale of 0-10, how accurate is the following statement: "the states that mandated usually low specie reserve ratios gave the pro-Fed people an excuse to start the Fed"? If you believe it has high accuracy, then what should be added to the statement to make it more precise?
2. How likely do you think it is that the Fed would never have come into existence if all the states (or most of them) had consistently kept specie reserve ratios high during the time from when Jackson killed the SBUS up until 1913?
3, What are the best sources, if any exist, that explain what states prospered and which ones didn't do as well during the "free banking" era? Is there any good revisionist history about the panic during Martin Van Buren's presidency in Thomas DiLorenzo's "How Capitalism Saved America"?
I'll be most grateful for any replies: )