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A Monetary Policy Primer, Part 11: Last-Resort Lending
So far, throughout this primer, I ’ve claimed that central banks have one overarching task to perform:  their job, I said, is to “regulate the overall availability of liquid assets, and through it the general course of spending, prices, and employment, in the economies they oversee.” I’ve also shown how, prior to the recent crisis, the Fed pursued this task, sometimes competently, and sometimes ineptly, by means of “open-market operations,” meaning routine purchases (and occasional sales) of short-term Treasury securities.But this picture isn ’t complete, because it says nothing about central banks’ role a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 8, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

Is Bank Deregulation Dangerous?
Among last week ’s news items that had colleagues asking me, “What’s your answer tothis?, ” wasa piece byQuartz’s John Detrixhe, telling its readers that, according to “300 years of financial history,” rolling back bank regulations is a good way to trigger a financial meltdown.Though you may be surprised to hear me say it, there ’s some truth to Mr. Detrixhe’s thesis. While government intervention in banking typically does more harm than good, it’s also true that, unless it’s done carefully, deregulation can itself lead to trouble. As I put it some years ago inaCato Journal article (reprinted recently...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 23, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 224
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 224. Question 1 Which children’s author wrote “The Pocket Book of Boners”? + Reveal the Funtabulous Answer expand(document.getElementById('ddet789838069'));expand(document.getElementById('ddetlink789838069')) Dr Seuss It was one of the bestselling b...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - February 2, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five boners coffee cups Dr Seuss Dr Thomas Neill Cream faecal matter mazzotti reaction onchocerciasis penile injury Zippers Source Type: blogs

The Founding Fathers Favored a Liberal Immigration System
Alex Nowrasteh had  an excellent post yesterday on how the western tradition on immigration and naturalization formed the basis of the Founders’ views on those subjects and resulted in the most liberal policies in the world at the time. The debates at the Constitutional Convention highlight his point, showing just how liberal the Fo unders had become on immigration and naturalization.At one point,Gouverneur Morrisoffered an amendment that would require 14 years of citizenship, rather than four, before a person could serve as a senator, “urging the danger of admitting strangers into our public Councils.” Charles Pin...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 27, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs

Scottish Banks and the Bank Restriction, 1797-1821, Part 2
Inmy opening post about Scottish banks ’ suspension of specie payments, I explained that, although the suspension was technically illegal, it failed to provoke any lawsuits in part because it was no less in the interest of many Scottish citizens, and Scottish bank creditors especially, than it was in that of Scottish bankers themselves. Rather than sue their banks, large numbers of prominent Scotsmen resolved publicly to make and receive payments in notes issued either by the Bank of England or by the Scottish banks themselves.But while many Scots may have been willing, at least grudgingly, to accept bank notes rather th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 31, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

Bernard L. Ginsborg (1925 – 2018). A tribute.
Jump to follow-up If you are not a pharmacologist or physiologist, you may never have heard of Bernard Ginsborg. I first met him in 1960. He was a huge influence on me and a great friend. I’m publishing this here because the Physiological Society has published only a brief obituary. Bernard with his wife, Andy (Andrina). You can download the following documents. Biography written by one of his daughters, Jane Ginsborg. Bernard’s scientific work, written by Donald H. Jenkinson (who knew him from jis time in Bernard Katz’s Department of Biophysics). A tribute by Randall House, who collaborated with Berna...
Source: DC's goodscience - November 2, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Biography Obituary Bernard Ginsborg Source Type: blogs

Warren Mosler and the Great American Banking Myth
ConclusionAlthough I've taken issue with various MMT claims in the past (see, e.g.here andhere), I've grown to respect several Modern Monetary Theorists. Far from being ill-informed, people likeEric Tymoigne andNathan Tankus (the list is by no means exhaustive –these happen to be two whose work I know best) know a lot more than many orthodox economists do about the workings of the U.S. monetary system. Knowing this, I'm not inclined to accuse Modern Monetary Theorists of being ignorant just because I disagree with many of the school's positions and argu ments.But on the subject of bank runs, at least, Warren Mosler shows...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 3, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

Bernard L. Ginsborg (1925 – 2018). A tribute.
Jump to follow-up If you are not a pharmacologist or physiologist, you may never have heard of Bernard Ginsborg. I first met him in 1960. He was a huge influence on me and a great friend. I’m publishing this here because the Physiological Society has published only a brief obituary. Bernard with his wife, Andy (Andrina). You can download the following documents. Biography written by one of his daughters, Jane Ginsborg. Bernard’s scientific work, written by Donald H. Jenkinson (who knew him from his time in Bernard Katz’s Department of Biophysics). A tribute by Randall House, who collaborated with Berna...
Source: DC's goodscience - November 2, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Saturday insanity roundup
A major difficulty with blogging nowadays is that there is just too much to write about. But I did come up with a theme that will let me put a few items together. I ' m not exactly sure what to call it, but it ' s broadly about that river in Egypt.First let ' s consider Brexit and Boris Johnson ' s latest. Leaving the EU was never going to be anything but bad for the UK economy but they did finally make a deal that would have spared the British people the worst. But now the governing Tories have reneged. Their motivation is not entirely clear, but it has to do with the intractable problem of the Ireland-Northern Ireland bo...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 12, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Modeling the Legend, or, the Trouble with Diamond and Dybvig: Part II
George Selgin[This is the last half of a two-part critique of Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig ' s highly influential paper purporting to show that fractional reserve banking systems are inherently unstable. Part I can be foundhere.]Sauce for the Goose …Half a century after the fact, the " aggregate uncertainty " version of the Diamond-Dybvig model appeared at long last to offer solid proof of the inherent instability of ordinary banks, together with an equally solid foundation for government deposit insurance. But no sooner had the inspectors started poking their flashlights around that supposedly solid structure than ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 18, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

An Unnecessary Evil: How Canada Ended up Insuring Bank Deposits
George SelginI ' ve often drawn attention here tothe virtues of the Canadian banking system, especially as it was between the passage of Canada ' s first Bank Act in 1871 and the establishment of the Bank of Canada in 1935. Afterthe Scottish banking system that flourished between 1716 and 1845, it is generally regarded, by myself and other members of theModern Free Banking school, as the next closest thing to a genuinely " free " banking system. We also claim that such systems tended to be more stable than ones in which governments interfered more heavily.In Canada ' s case, this claim inevitably raises several questions. ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 15, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

Making Money Myths
George SelginTwice now,on this forum back in 2013, and on Twitter more recently (seehere andhere), I ' ve takenYale economics professor Gary Gorton ' s publications to task for misrepresenting the historical record of private currency systems. In particular, I ' ve criticized him for claiming, on the basis of evidence drawn exclusively from the United States, that private currency systems suffer from inherent and insoluble shortcomings. Pointing to other, successful private currency episodes, I ' ve said that, had Gorton bothered to consider them, besides having to revise his verdict, he ' d also gain a better understandin...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 9, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs

How Common Has Private Currency Been?
Lawrence H. WhiteRecently, an investment advisor and Bitcoin proponenttweeted the claim that “[f]or most of human history” the “[s]eparation of money and state was the norm, even if the state stamped their ruler’s face on the coin.” Some strong disagreement (and some strong support) followed the tweet. The mostcategorical criticism asserted: “Money is and always has been a creation of government. ” A somewhat milder challenge asserted that “Private moneys have seldom been main media of exchange.”First, let ’s clarify the object of the discussion. If we define “money” the way that economist...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 16, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Lawrence H. White Source Type: blogs

The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
September 15, 2022 Edition-----The death of QE2 has rather dominated the news for the last week or so and will probably pass after the funeral today.Otherwise the war in Ukraine seems to be in a turning phase. I hope that continues into the eventual getting rid of the Russians from Ukrainian territory!In OZ life goes on much as usual just awaiting the mourning period to pass,-----Major Issues.-----https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/what-australia-should-do-about-taiwan-20220904-p5bf7iWhat Australia should do about TaiwanCanberra cannot be silent if US policy on Taiwanese independence changes. Quiet diplomacy is cal...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - September 15, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs