Voodoojock reviews RGD on Amazon:
The first thing that stands out about this book is the delivery. It’s fluid, conversational, and devoid of economic jargon that permeates most books on the subject. The book also exhibits none of the haughty arrogance displayed in books more suited for overworked graduate students of economics than public consumption. The graphs illustrate and illuminate rather than confound and confuse. There are ample anecdotes used to illustrate Day’s points. Having read von Mises’ “Theory of Money and Credit”, “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality”, “Socialism”, and Rothbard’s “America’s Great Depression”, “Return of the Great Depression” is about as easy to read and understand as Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson”.
As far as the book’s content goes, it’s thoroughly researched and uses cites numerous sources to illustrate his points. Though Day is a student of the Austrian School of economics, the manner in which he methodically examines the historical events and the personalities involved displays no trace of any personal bias.
In tangentially related news, Ben Bernanke decides that perhaps it is possible for a central bank to do what his predecessor declared impossible after all by detecting a financial bubble in the process of expanding.
“On the heels of a burst housing-and-credit bubble, Mr. Bernanke now calls financial booms “perhaps the most difficult problem for monetary policy this decade.” With Asian property prices soaring and gold prices busting records almost daily, the debate comes at a critical time. Mr. Bernanke wants to use his powers as a bank regulator to stamp out bubbles, but the Senate Banking Committee, which will grill him later this week, is considering stripping the Fed of its regulatory power.”
This is extraordinarily disingenuous rhetoric from the Fed chairman. Mr. Bernanke can stamp out the bubbles without having any regulatory power over the banks at all. Raise interest rates, reduce the money supply and the bubbles will pop in minutes, if not seconds.