Criticisms
Criticisms of fractional-reserve banking and proposals for monetary reform have been discussed from time to time. Critics have included economists such as Irving Fisher and Frank Knight. U.S. Congressman Ron Paul and Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard have identified fractional-reserve banking, central banking, and fiat currency as interdependent and destructive features of modern monetary systems. In Rothbard's analysis, the practice of fractional-reserve banking amounts to a form of fraud, embezzlement or legalized counterfeiting. Rothbard advocated return to a strict 100%-reserve gold standard and abolition of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Mint, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, among other reforms. Rothbard was critical of alternative reforms put forth by economists Arthur Laffer and Friedrich Hayek.
Read more about this topic: Fractional Reserve Banking
Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
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