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The Cato Institute has some bones to pick with the Federal Reserve.

The Washington libertarian think tank this week will launch a new Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Its goal: challenge the central banks policies and explore alternative ways to manage the U.S. money supply, including but not limited to a return to the gold standard.

I think we can do better than the Federal Reserve, said George Selgin, the centers director and a former economics professor at the University of Georgia. We should be exploring how to do better. We should be exploring alternatives that could do better, instead of dismissing that entire inquiry as something that should be only of interest to people on the fringe.

The new center is the latest manifestation of growing public and academic attention on the Fed and central banking after the 2008 financial crisis. Another Washington think tank, the Brookings Institution, last December launched the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, where former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is a distinguished fellow in residence.

(Journal contributor David Wessel is the director of the Hutchins Center, and former Journal editor George Melloan is on the new Cato centers executive advisory council.)

The Feds extraordinary actions in recent years helping rescue large financial firms, pinning interest rates at zero for nearly six years and counting, three rounds of bond-buying aimed at stimulating economic recovery remain controversial.

Critics have variously accused the Fed of bailing out fat-cat Wall Street bankers, harming Americans who rely on interest from their savings, distorting the flows of the free market, failing to generate sustainable economic growth and flirting with out-of-control inflation and a debased currency. Defenders say the Feds policies prevented the crisis from escalating into a financial catastrophe, helped stabilize the financial system and helped nurture a fitful recovery, and they note inflation remains low and the dollar strong.

Criticism of the Fed, Mr. Selgin acknowledged, has come not just from serious economists but also conspiracy theorists with outlandish and often-distasteful ideas.

One of my goals, as the director of the center, is to be in charge of damage control. That consists of making sure our work isnt tainted by this kind of amateur stuff, Mr. Selgin said. We need to keep ourselves pure in terms of our writing being as scholarly as it can be. If we do that, we can make a strong case against holding the Federal Reserve to be the best of all possible monetary systems.

The center boasts some heavy hitters in the economics world. Its academic advisers include two Nobel laureates, New York Universitys Thomas J. Sargentand Chapman Universitys Vernon L. Smith, as well as Stanford University economist John B. Taylorand others.

Continue reading here:
Libertarian Think Tank is Spoiling for a Fight with the Fed

Eric Cables bid to become North Carolinas first Libertarian legislator pits him against Republican Dan Bishop in a GOP-dominated district.

One will succeed Rep. Ruth Samuelson, who opted not to run for a fifth term representing House District 104 in south Charlotte. Democrats didnt run a challenger.

Bishop, a lawyer specializing in business litigation, served as a Mecklenburg County commissioner from 2004 to 2008. He says those experiences, and a lifetime in Charlotte, give him a deep understanding of local issues that utopian politics cant match.

Im conservative, but I believe you have to temper ideology with practical experience, he said.

His Libertarian opponent, who lost a run for Charlotte City Council last year, says voters are eager for a new political approach.

People are pulling away from both sides, but more from the Republicans, Cable said. There are people who are getting fed up with extremism from both sides.

The districts profile suggests a steep uphill battle for Cable, whos counting on Democrats and independent voters to turn out. Nearly 40 percent Republican, the district has only 235 registered Libertarians.

Bishop, 50, says Republicans in charge of North Carolinas legislature since 2011 have rightly started rebuilding the states economy with limited government, lower tax rates and fewer regulations.

The big challenge over the coming years will be that the changes that have been made need to be able to play out, he said. You have to let that have the effect of drawing businesses in to the state and incentivizing businesses to grow.

He supports the teacher pay raises legislators granted this year but says the teacher career ladder needs reform. He says legislators were right not to expand Medicaid amid the Obamacare disaster and prescribes market competition to improve health care and lower costs.

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Former commissioner, Libertarian battle for south Charlotte seat

Libertarian Senate Candidate discusses social, economic policy by Will Marshall | Oct 02 2014 | 10/02/14 1:52am

Libertarian Virginia Senate candidate Robert Sarvis spoke at a Students for Individual Liberty event at Clark Hall Wednesday, outlining his platform in the upcoming midterm election.

The Annandale native broke into the spotlight when he ran as a third-party candidate in last years Virginia gubernatorial election, defining his brand of libertarianism as a best of both worlds, striking a balance between what he considers the Republican and Democratic parties best policies.

Generally speaking, Sarvis said he identifies with the rights fiscal policies and the lefts social policies.

Sarvis began his political career as a GOP candidate running for state Senate, eventually dropping his Republican affiliation and taking up the Libertarian mantle.

After I ran in 2012 as a libertarian Republican, I learned that the GOP is not a good vehicle for liberty candidates, Sarvis said. They are hypocritical on economic issues and strident on social issues. I feel like the two-party system is broken. I could have run as an independant, but thats not leaving behind something that outlasts you.

Sarvis emphasized what he considers the most urgent issues libertarian candidates need to address the dwelling on the long, costly drug war, which he blames for saddling the nation with excess expenditures in the last 50 years.

Thanks to the drug war, we have millions in prison the highest incarceration rate in the world, Sarvis said. A third of those are for nonviolent crimes, which, a) costs money, and b) is wasted human potential.

Other issues topping his list of priorities included reforming certain entitlement programs and deregulating areas where he believes the free market would be a more effective solution.

Obamacare is a problem but weve also had 100 years of misregulation of the health care system by both major parties, Sarvis said.

Original post:
Sarvis addresses students

Robert Sarvis, Libertarian Candidate for Senate, On VA Immigration #2
What is the biggest hurdle in Congress to addressing immigration reform? What is your suggested solution?

By: Virginia Wins

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Robert Sarvis, Libertarian Candidate for Senate, On VA Immigration #2 - Video

Karen Tumulty asks in the Washington Post,

what label do you put on the political philosophy of a state that one year would legalize marijuana for recreational use and the next year recall two state senators who voted for stricter gun laws?

Readers of this blog might have an answer. So, it turns out, does Sen. Mark Udall:

Were a libertarian state small l when it comes to privacy issues, issues of reproductive freedom, gun ownership, who you worship, who you spend your life with, Udall said. Were a pro-environment state. We self-identify with environmentalists more than any other state in the nation. But were also very pro-business.

So now those small-l libertarian voters will have to decide whether they prefer a not-so-libertarian Democrat, a not-so-libertarian Republican, or a big-L Libertarian.

Read more on libertarian voters, especially in the Mountain West.

See the original post here:
Libertarian Choices in Colorado