Since the role of the Federal Reserve and its impact on the economy is becoming an issue in the GOP campaign, I encourage people to take in this lecture by George Selgin. He is a sharp, dispassionate economist, and he gives a tight overview of its record (40 minutes).

[T]he Fed is not just a failure in our terms [Austrian economists], but a failure in its own terms and in those of the mainstream economics profession… this is so despite the fact that your average mainstream economist continues to have a very complacent attitude about the Fed and if pressed on the subject will insist that the Fed has, after all and despite the recent challenges it has faced, that the Fed has been a factor that has contributed to the well-being of the American economy, and that the statistics available will show that…

That position is, in fact, completely unsound, and it is unsound in terms of the best available statistics that these very mainstream economists have provided us with.

The embedded version doesn’t seem to be working, but here is the link to the video. If you prefer audio:

[audio: http://media.mises.org/mp3/misescircle-furman10/02_FurmanMC_2010_Selgin.mp3]

I attended this event in late 2010 at Furman University in South Carolina, and it is coming up again on February 25. This year, however, the theme is “War: Big Government’s Best Friend.”