Why Rothbard Thought the Fed Eliminated Market Safeguards Against Bank Inflation

In his underappreciated work The Mystery of Banking, Murray Rothbard first explained how a regime of "free banking" would put strict limits on the ability of the private commercial banks to reduce their reserve ratios and inflate the money supply. Then Rothbard showed that the textbook operation of a central bank systematically neutralized the market's safeguards, and paved the way for credit expansion by a cartel of privileged private banks.

• The Mystery of Banking by Murray N. Rothbard: https://mises.org/HAP514a
• "How Private Banks Can Create Money, But Not Like the Fed Can" (Human Action Podcast): https://mises.org/HAP514b

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