Archive for Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel is an associate professor of economics at San Jose State University.
The Question of Slavery
Slavery can neither fully explain nor ultimately justify the American Civil War. This realization is unfortunately obscured because most scholars and buffs alike have usually sought a single cause for those four years of soul-wrenching conflict. The early nationalist interpretation, put forward by historian James Ford Rhodes, blamed one factor and one factor only: slavery. [...]
23Mar2011 | Jeffrey Rogers Hummel | 21 comments | ContinuedAmerica’s Turning Point
The Civil War represents the simultaneous culmination and repudiation of the American Revolution. Four successive ideological surges had previously defined American politics: the radical republican movement that had spearheaded the revolution itself; the subsequent Jeffersonian movement that had arisen in reaction to the Federalist State; the Jacksonian movement that followed the War of 1812; and [...]
23Mar2011 | Jeffrey Rogers Hummel | 22 comments | ContinuedGovernment’s Diminishing Benefits from Inflation
For millennia governments have resorted to expanding the money stock, either through coinage debasement or fiat money, to finance their expenditures. This expedient, with its resulting price inflation, has occurred most noticeably during wars. And the Zimbabwe hyperinflation of 2007–08, the second worst in world history, peaking at a rate of 79.6 billion percent per [...]
22Oct2010 | Jeffrey Rogers Hummel | 6 comments | ContinuedThe Rise and Fall of Glass-Steagall
The ongoing financial crisis has pundits, bloggers, academics, and politicians scrambling for explanations. Deregulation gets a major share of their attention, specifically the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Just what was Glass-Steagall and how did it come about? Bank failures were among the most dramatic and devastating aspects of the Great Depression. [...]
22Sep2010 | and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel | 6 comments | ContinuedWas Money Really Easy Under Greenspan?
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has become everyone’s favorite scapegoat. His policies allegedly caused, or at least contributed to, the current financial crisis. He is attacked from the left for lax financial regulation, from the right for loose monetary policy, and from the middle for both. Yet two years ago, on leaving office, Greenspan [...]
2Mar2009 | and David R. Henderson | 7 comments | ContinuedPrivatize Deposit Insurance
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel is Publications Director for the Independent Institute in San Francisco. Amidst all the groping and furor over the savings and loan crisis, no public official has pointed a finger at the ultimate culprit. The Bush Administration admits that the nation’s ailing S & L industry will cost the government at least $90 [...]
1Jul1989 | Jeffrey Rogers Hummel | 3 comments | Continued-
The Latest
Contraception: Insuring the Uninsurable
Update below. Controversy rages over the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers – including... Read More
The Snow Plowers’ Petition
The following might have happened in a small college town in upstate New York… In a cold and snowy... Read More
Super Bowl versus Education?
In the spirit of Super Bowl weekend I’d like to deconstruct a Facebook status update that a friend... Read More
Capitalism, Corporatism, and the Freed Market
When a front-running presidential contender tells the country that thanks to Barack Obama, “[w]e are... Read More
Creating Jobs versus Creating Value
Picking on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is one of the largest participation sports on the Internet.... Read More
