Authors:

  • Benjamin Friedman

Excerpt

Is Our Financial System Serving Us Well? Benjamin Friedman, October 12, 2010, Paper. “In 1772, at the height of Scotland’s worst banking crisis in two generations, David Hume wrote to his close friend Adam Smith. After recounting the bank closures, industrial bankruptcies, spreading unemployment, and even growing “Suspicion” of the soundness of the Bank of England, Hume asked Smith, “Do these Events any-wise affect your Theory?” They certainly did. Smith’s analysis of the role of banking in The Wealth of Nations, published just four years later, clearly reflected the lessons he took away from the 1772 crisis. In contrast to the doctrinaire…” Link