(Oct. 29. 2016) My preceding post, “The Fed and Inequality,” observed that populists have historically favored easy money and low interest rates. I mentioned William Jennings Bryan’s campaigns for the presidency in the 1890s as well as the supply-siders in the early 1980s who blamed the failure of Reaganomics to produce sufficient growth on Paul Volcker’s efforts to fight inflation with tight monetary policy.
An interesting dimension concerns gold.
(Oct. 28, 2016) Populist politicians, among others, have claimed in recent years that monetary policy is too easy and that it is hurting ordinary workers. But raising interest rates is not the way to address income inequality.
(Sept. 29, 2016) My preceding blogpost — “A Radical Solution to the Fundamental Flaws in US Politics: Vote!” — received several objections from readers to the effect that I had failed to address the paradox of voting, or “Downs Paradox” (particularly at the Econbrowser site).