Ep. 438 Bob Murphy on Why Christians Should Care About the Fed
Alex Bernardo hosts the Protestant Libertarian podcast. He recently had Bob on, to explain why American Christians should care about the Federal Reserve.
Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:
- The YouTube version of this conversation.
- This episode’s sponsor, PersistSEO.com.
- The homepage of the Protestant Libertarian podcast.
- Help support the Bob Murphy Show.
About the author, Robert
Christian and economist, Chief Economist at infineo, and Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute.
When asked about what Christians should think about the Fed, Bob grabs all his words and theory bundled-up into his arms and makes a beeline running away from the word USURY: ‘look at this! marginal interest rates!’ ‘look at this! lender of last resort look reserve ratios look look!’
And I’m standing here, with the other Christians, by the giant letters chiseled out of stone that spell out USURY, casting that long evening shadow reaching out and touching Bob’s dwindling form.
I turn to my brethren and ask, “what was that?”
Bob’s usually great at careful framing and establishing context so this is weird.
In a discussion set in the Christian context, you kind of have to begin with at least acknowledging the elephant in the room – the conflict between scripture and modern lending at interest.
You left a lot of people scratching their heads wondering “Why is he talking all this wordy stuff about banks and didn’t mention usury yet?”
Now as an Austrian Economist™ I know it is legitimate to not address usury in the context of a central banking discussion but it kinda demands an explanation for your poor listener.
You could briefly establish that in the beginning:
“Perhaps surprisingly, the Christian objection to central banking is against counterfeiting and not usury.”