I once studied economics - you will stop that hysterical laughter NOW or you'll be banned! I also studied philosophy and, yes, I know that's even funnier especially as it was not at some prestigious university but on an adult education course which, if memory serves, was two evenings a week for twenty weeks. Mind you, the lecturers were university profs, presumably they needed the money! This was back in the early '80s when I was young - oh alright, middle-aged but compared to now it seems like young! It was the time of the 'Maggie' revolution and suddenly economics and philosophy were all the rage. I was deep into Friedman and Hayek, and Rawls and Nozick - well, by 'deep' I mean that I did my best to scratch the surface.
Thus, with my, er, 'Austrian School' credentials(!) in my back pocket, so to speak, I viewed the recent orgy of quantitative easing by US and UK central banks with deep suspicion. Increase the money supply and the result is inflation, I thought, but I seem to have been wrong - I know, I know, difficult to believe, isn't it? And now, albeit in the sort of tip-toe way one might use to cross a German minefield, the European Central Bank (ECB) has followed suit. Even so, and search as I might, I still cannot spot any signs of inflation. What has gone wrong, or perhaps, what has gone right?
Fortunately we have Mr. Roger Bootle at hand to explain it all in terms which even an economic dummy like me can understand. I am not going to attempt to paraphrase his article in The Telegraph - why should I do your hard work for you? Just click the link, Baby, and all will be made clear because he does have that knack of clear exposition. The main thing is that he confirms that as far as the euro currency experiment is concerned, it is only a matter of time before it crashes and burns - unless, of course, the United States of Europe is formed. Read Mr. Bootle, he is easy to follow and his analysis is superb.
