Comments on: Only at GMU

By: T Rich

T Rich — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

You guys need to be careful that you are not caught!

By: Speedmaster

Speedmaster — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

LOL, well-done!

By: Warren Miller

Warren Miller — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

The artist missed a nice rhyming opportunity: "Shred the Fed." Still, it shows that good education is alive and well at at least one institution! Keep up the good work, guys.

By: Daniel Kuehn

Daniel Kuehn — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

So… I always find the Paulite approach to the Fed problematic and naive…

But you've gotta appreciate this

How much campus chalk graffiti is announcing sorority events or wishing happy birthdays. Not that that stuff is unimportant, but this is a step up

By: Rafi

Rafi — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Sweet. If only I saw that on the walls when I was at college…

By: J Cortez

J Cortez — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

I don't like graffitti, chalk or otherwise, but I definitely agree with the sentiment.

By: Ben Struck

Ben Struck — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

I live in Phoenix Arizona, and I have seen that same slogan interspersed amongst the graffiti several places downtown.

By: Gil

Gil — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Chalk isn't exactly hardcore.

By: Lawrence Snead

Lawrence Snead — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

That graffiti has actually been up since at least the end up May. It would make me smile every morning as I walked to my summer class.

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Graffiti I saw in my childhood got me thinking about economics and politics.

Wondering why someone would scrawl, "Die Kapitalist Pigs" on a building inspired me to look under the hoods of the various systems of decision-making power amongst us humans.

By: MnM

MnM — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

I guess this is what happens when an econ honor society turns into street thugs.

Maybe it was signed "Omicron Delta Epsilon 4 LIFE, biznitch!"

;o)

By: John

John — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Graffito in a MIT lavatory… Heisenberg might have been here

By: dg lesvic

dg lesvic — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

There was an interesting discussion of the Fed at ThinkMarkets, under Keynes vs Hayek, that I got involved in, and is cropping up again, under Bubbles or Growth.

By: dg lesvic

dg lesvic — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

And our friend here, Lee Kelly, was also very much involved in those discussions.

By: Curious

Curious — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

It's not the fed that is the problem, it's the amount of government's spending. Does anybody believe that the government will stop spending without the fed?

By: John Papola

John Papola — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Rock on!

@dg lesvic,

True, the government spending is the problem. But if the government were constrained by the need to borrow and ultimately tax for all of its spending, instead using the hidden tax of inflating, there would be dramatically more popular push-back.

The relationship between current borrowing and future taxation is much easier to understand than the relationship between monetary expansion and the jagged rise of prices and assets bubbles. Those things, as we've seen, can be blamed on other factors in ways that the public believes (or ignores). $145/barrel oil gets blamed on "greedy oil companies" instead of currency depreciation, for example.

Bush couldn't take the country to war, propose Medicare part D all while cutting taxes without interest rates going through the roof as bond issuance soared to cover the shortfalls. Obama couldn't propose government takeover of education, healthcare, finance, auto and energy while expanding the military without the same.

So indeed, END THE FED.

By: Pingry

Pingry — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

End the Fed?

How amateurish.......

Aside from graffiti, which is destruction of property, and anti-libertarian, let's not forget that the Fed is what is shielding innocent people from the externalities which could be far worse.

If they hadn't acted as a lender of last resort by trying to unclog credit markets, and increasing the monetary base because of the massive reduction in velocity, then we would be sitting in the next Great Depression right now

--Pingry

By: Daniil

Daniil — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Pingry, you forget that money supply does not end with a central bank. In a free market for money, excess demand for it would be recognized by free banks and satisfied. Read Larry White on free banking.

By: dave smith

dave smith — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

Pingry, you're really fun at parties, aren't you?

Also, you might have your facts wrong. At every University I've been a student or faculty, chaulking is OK.

By: S Andrews

S Andrews — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 07:00:00 +0000

If they hadn't acted as a lender of last resort by trying to unclog credit markets, and increasing the monetary base because of the massive reduction in velocity, then we would be sitting in the next Great Depression right now

And yet, the only peace time great depression ever in the history of the United States happened on Fed's watch.

BTW, Great depression didn't become great in the first year. Until 1931, the depression that started in 1929, was only a "normal" business cycle. While no one can say if this current downturn will come close the Great one from the past, it is too early to rule out such a possibility.