The Fed fails to grasp that an interest rate is a price, the price of time. Attempting to manipulate that price is as destructive as any other government price control. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...?mod=WSJ_article_comments#articleTabs=article
It seems that one of the questionable aspects of the Austrian school is the assumption that free, unfettered market forces will result in resources being allocated efficiently with minimal price distortions. This is certainly debatable, and may not be true. Paradoxically, in a complex market and society it would seem nearly impossible to achieve and maintain a completely free and unfettered market without government regulation and intervention. It is refreshing, in any case, to have at least one legislator who thinks about these issues in detail. Or for that matter, who thinks. I may not agree with Paul on many matters, but I do appreciate him.
They do not believe this per se. I would rather think they believe the negative outcome of wrongly allocated resources would be less felt by the majority of the population if there were no intervention in contrast to propping everything up indefinitly untill the bubble has to pop and everyone without exception get's crushed.
It's not exactly like we have an efficient allocation of resources currently. But ya, even under a free market there are certain factors that will cause misallocations and dislocations. It's a question of which is preferable. Not a paradox, a contradiction. The latter is a cause, the former an effect. A free-market by definition is the absense of intervening action outside of maintaining/protecting negative rights.
IMO he is wrong. The seeds of this were planted when Reagan abandoned the drive for energy self-sufficiency started by Nixon and continued by Carter. That was the defining moment for America's "leverage forever" gambit, and it's been a one-way trip to the present problems ever since. The Fed has virtually no power in the face of an electorate that keeps demanding unsustainable economic policies.
No worried BUBBLE ben bernanke is doing a fine job of creating the continuation of this financial crisis that isnt going away for many, many, many years! They are talking up QE3, who is ready for more Inflation? Nothing like more asset bubbles because thats the only thing that can grow a worthless economy is more asset bubbles.