CRISISBOOM

wealthcycles

One of the precious few things that politicians, historians, and economists can all agree on is that policy makers blew it in the Great Depression. During the singular moment when they should have most allowed free markets to take care of things—they compounded them with protectionism, isolationism, taxes, and tariffs.

In this video, James Grant, of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, and Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Lords of Finance discuss the legacy being left behind by the central bankers of today.

James Grant has been called a wingnut, but you can immediately sense that he has studied cycles and monetary history. Last year, in the New York Times, he wrote an article in which he criticized the Fed, and longed for the classical gold standard of yesteryear: