In this sure-to-be-controversial history of money and banking, Hixson examines the historical and resulting present-day deficiencies of the U.S. monetary and banking system. His study reveals that in a whole series of historical cases over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries faulty economic principles were applied to the developing system. His bold conclusions include suggestions that: commercial banks should be required to maintain 100 percent reserves on all demand-deposit accounts and thus be denied the present privilege of creating credit-money; and the federal government should be the sole creator of money in the economy. As in his previous book, Hixson challenges generally accepted historical and economic wisdom, making this a significant contribution to the literature.

In terms of economics, the twenty-first century promises to be one of experiments and mixed economies that display features of both a private enterprise market and an intrusive government sector. To fully understand this coming trend, William Hixson presents this study of the U.S. economy since World War I and its experiments with mixed economics. Hixson describes how the largely laissez-faire economy prior to 1929 was so structured to make a crisis of illiquidity and overindebtedness inevitable, and how the mixed economy that has prevailed since World War II is structured to result in a similar crisis. His work challenges the generally accepted views of both U.S. and Marxist economists.

Following a brief introduction that outlines Hixson's approach and theoretical framework, the book begins with a seven-chapter study of the basic operating principles and procedures of a laissez faire economy. The next three chapters examine the Great Crash of 1929 and how it was a predictable outcome of the U.S. economy's operation in a laissez-faire mode. A set of four chapters then analyze the emergence of the government sector as an increasingly significant factor, and the evolution and institutionalization of mixed economy. The last set of chapters considers the past four decades of a mixed economy and why it lacks long-term viability, while the concluding two chapters suggest changes in operating principles and financial practices to make the mixed economy a viable one. This work will be a valuable resource for professionals involved in all types of financial and investing fields, as well as for students and scholars of economics and national economies.

What's the Difference Between Bankers and Counterfeiters? Answer #1: Very little difference. The principal business of counterfeiters and bankers alike is the creation of money out of bits of paper and ink. Answer #2: Great big difference. Bankers create enormous amounts of money and prosper; counterfeiters create only piddling amounts of money and go to prison What's wrong with this scenario is not that money creation by counterfeiters is outlawed but that money creation by bankers is not. The creation of money is a proper function not of individuals or private corporations but of government. Above all what needs to be stopped is the current practice of the government letting bankers create money, borrowing it from them, and paying them interest on it, instead of the government creating interest-free money for itself. That's idiotic. Read more about it in this revealing book.

William Hixson's A Matter of Interest is a good example of the important contribution that an independent scholar can make to a subject where the professionals have become dependent on an orthodoxy which has been highly insensitive to criticism. Hixson's position is that the dynamics of debt creates a strong tendency for an increasing burden on a society which looks as if it can only be corrected by occasional catastrophe. There is much historical evidence to support this thesis. It represents an important tradition in economics, going back to Henry Simons and to Irving Fisher, which has been strangely neglected by the profession. Professional economists will find some things in this book with which they will disagree, but the general thesis presents a very important challenge to them, and this is a work that should be taken very seriously. Kenneth E. Boulding Distinguished Professor of Economics University of Colorado at Boulder In A Matter of Interest William Hixson presents a very interesting analysis of our economic systems. Hixson's analysis is highly original, well written, and comprehensible even for readers not well versed in economics. His frequent references to the great thinkers in economics give the argument a lot of depth. Robert Guttmann Professor of Economics Hofstra University Hempstead, NY