For readers who don’t already know this, my new blog is over at Substack:
This will be my final Money Illusion post. The blog began on February 2, 2009. But the events that led to the blog took place in late 2008. Indeed my life can be divided into two segments, before and after September 16, 2008. It was that specific Fed meeting that radicalized me, and which led me to create this blog.
Originally, I planned to go back and review my first few posts, to see how they compare to my current views. I’ve decided to do that on September 16th, over at my new blog. That’s the 16th anniversary of a Fed meeting that Ben Bernanke later described (in his memoir) as a mistake:
At the end of the discussion we modified our planned statement to note market developments but also agreed, unanimously, to leave the federal funds rate unchanged at 2 percent.
In retrospect, that decision was certainly a mistake. Part of the reason for our choice was lack of time—lack of time in the meeting itself, and insufficient time to judge the effects of Lehman’s collapse.
I’m not going to thank all the people that helped me along the way, as I’m so forgetful I’d leave out lots of names. The general categories include the other market monetarists, other bloggers, my commenters, my colleagues at Bentley, and my wife and daughter (who had to sacrifice when I devoted too much time to blogging.)
Special thanks to Joe Weisenthal, Derek Thompson, Matt Yglesias and of course Tyler Cowen, who made September 13, 2012 the high point of my life, at least from a career perspective. And yes, the praise was excessive. (Today, that era seems a bit unreal, like another life.)
And thank God we market monetarists were able to come out ahead in our debate with the Keynesians, who predicted that (due to fiscal austerity) spending would slow sharply in 2013. It accelerated.
I also have regrets; most notably that the blog’s tone has often been too critical of people with whom I disagree, including other bloggers and policymakers like Ben Bernanke.
This blog has obviously deteriorated over time. That’s partly because the world situation has become fairly bleak. My whole adult life, I’ve strongly opposed the twin evils of socialism and nationalism. Unfortunately, the world has seen a modest resurgence in socialism and a big increase in nationalism over the past 15 years. This may have contributed to my more pessimistic tone. Burn out. Note that in some of my early posts, I pointed to the fact that previous NGDP collapses such as 1929-33 had also had this effect.
In my new blog, I hope to make the tone more upbeat and I will try hard to improve the quality. I hope to see you all there.
