By George Selgin
This talk explores the fiscal origins of currency monopolies and the adverse consequences stemming from their establishment, including their tendency to promote booms and busts; reviews the origins of the doctrine that they should serve as “lenders of last resort”; and explains why last-resort lending tends in practice to generate moral hazard problems that lead to still greater financial instability. Some time is devoted to the special case of the U.S. Federal Reserve System.
This talk was recorded at the Objectivist Summer Conference 2015 in Charlotte, NC.
(MP3 download, 91.30 MB)
