How did this momentous and fateful institution of central banking appear and take hold in the modern world? Fittingly, the institution began in late seventeenth century England, as a crooked deal between a near-bankrupt government and a corrupt clique of financial promoters. [1]
Murray Rothbard
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Laureate
[U]ltimately, each central bank reports, to some degree, to a political body, and the political pressure to address unemployment and lackluster economic performance has belied the concept, some might say façade, of independence.
Many people—many economists—usually devoted to the free market stop short at money. Money, they insist, is different; it must be supplied by government and regulated by government. They never think of state control of money as interference in the free market; a free market in money is unthinkable to them. Governments must mint coins, issue paper, define “legal tender,” create central banks, pump money in and out, “stabilize the price level,” etc.
Murray N. Rothbard – What Has Government Done to Our Money? Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn 2008, p. 8.
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