End the Fed, Or Celebrate Its Existence? Reflections on Our Central Bank's 100th Anniversary | James A. Dorn | Cato Institute

End the Fed, Or Celebrate Its Existence? Reflections on Our Central Bank's 100th Anniversary | James A. Dorn | Cato Institute: "The Fed’s failure to anticipate or prevent either the Great Recession or the Great Depression, the continuous rise in the price level since President Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, and the Fed’s use of financial repression to penalize conservative savers while encouraging risk and creating asset bubbles should give pause to celebrating the Fed’s anniversary."

"since the establishment of the Federal Reserve there have been “more, rather than fewer, symptoms of monetary and macroeconomic instability.” "

"It is also well known that long-run price stability was achieved under commodity standards but never under pure fiat money. In 1900, when the U.S. was still on the gold standard, the wholesale price index was about where it was 150 years earlier, although it varied throughout the period."

“What induced one major Western country after another to run a more-or-less balanced budget in the 19th century and early 20th century before World War I was their decision to adhere to the gold standard.”