26 November 2010 – 26 March 2011
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen – but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.
William Lloyd Garrison
The Liberator (1831)
The Evil Princes of Martin Place
The Evil Princes of Martin Place: The Reserve Bank of Australia, the Global Financial Crisis and the Threat to Australians’ Liberty and Prosperity by Chris Leithner is now available online through Amazon Australia, Amazon Canada and Amazon U.S. As its title – which refers to the physical location of the Reserve Bank of Australia, at Martin Place, Sydney – suggests, the book has been written with an Australian audience in mind. But only two of its chapters (see the table of contents below) refer primarily to The Complacent Country; accordingly, I hope that people in Britain and Ireland, Europe, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere will also find it useful and rewarding.
The book has been written for an audience of intelligent and interested laypeople: that is, people with no background or training in economics and finance, but with an interest in these fields – and a desire to make sense of the monetary distemper of our times. At the same time, bankers, mainstream economists and investors may find it rewarding (and possibly eye-opening): my experience is that very few of them are truly cognisant of the history and “logic” (if that’s the word) of central and commercial banking.
Abstract
This book answers two questions. What caused the “Global Financial Crisis” (GFC) that erupted in mid-2007 (and whose associated worldwide economic downturn, I believe, is still in its early innings)? What will be the consequences of the actions undertaken by governments to combat it? Chris shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same: the GFC is merely the latest in a long series of economic and financial crises that have punctuated the history of the past 250 or so years. Like its predecessors, three of which (namely the Panic of 1907, Depression of 1920-1921 and Great Depression of 1929-1946) he analyses in detail, poor policies – in particular, legal tender laws, fractional reserve banking and central banking – are the GFC’s ultimate causes.
The logic and evidence is inescapable: in no financial and economic crisis have the same non-monetary phenomena been present; and in no crisis have these monetary phenomena been absent. Scientists, it seems, stand on the shoulders of giants; in sharp contrast, bankers, mainstream economists, investors and politicians continuously repeat the errors of their pygmy forebears. In other words, the intervention of government – and not the free market – causes the financial crises in Wall Street that become economic crises in Main Street. The GFC’s eruption demonstrates that “capitalism” (a term of abuse coined by Karl Marx to smear his opponents) hasn’t failed; socialism has. It wasn’t extreme capitalism (a term of abuse coined by ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to smear his opponents) that caused the panic and bust: it was the partial, corrupted and bastardised capitalism of the “mixed economy” that he and the mainstream champions.
Accordingly, the eradication of crises necessitates the repeal of pernicious laws (such as the Reserve Bank Act) and the abolition of damaging practices (such as fractional reserve banking).
Introduction
Part I: Global Financial Crises and Their Cause
Chapter 1 A Failure of Government – Not of Liberty
Chapter 2 Plus Ça Change: the Panics of 1907 and 2007
Chapter 3 Deposits ≠ Loans
Chapter 4 The History of Banking Is the History of Bank Failures
Chapter 5 How Banks Misappropriate Deposits and Counterfeit Money
Part II: Counterfeit Money, the Central Bank and the Welfare-Warfare State
Chapter 6 Fractional Reserve Banking Is Utterly Fraudulent
Chapter 7 The Central Bank and the Welfare State of Credit
Chapter 8 Monetary Central Planning Inevitably Fails
Chapter 9 The Monetary Roots of Democratic Pathologies
Part III: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are and Where We’re Headed
Chapter 10 Minimal Intervention Means a “Good” Depression (1919-21)
Chapter 11 The Central Bank Inflates the Boom (1922-29)
Chapter 12 Massive Intervention Means a “Great” Depression (1929-46)
Chapter 13 The RBA Helps to Stoke the Artificial Boom (2002-2007)
Chapter 14 The RBA Delays the Genuine Bust (2007-2010)
Part IV: Where We Should Go
Chapter 15 Conclusions for Liberty and Prosperity
Chapter 16 Suggestions for Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Index
How to Order
The Evil Princes of Martin Place is available through Amazon.com. Just click on the appropriate link in the navigation bar near the top of this page, and then order The Evil Princes and any other books on your wish-list and proceed to the check-out.