Jim Devine wrote:
The libertarians are right that Central Banks replace the gold standard or a pure specie-based economy with fiat money. This, I think, is what the libertarians are pissed about: they'd prefer a system where the entire economy was guided by the invisible hand of the market.
Back in September, Terry Gross, a radio interviewer in the US, had a show with Greenspan. Greenspan considers himself a libertarian, and Gross asked him how he could reconcile this view with being the most powerful regulator in the world. Greenspan's reply was that the interest rate regulation that most central banks have carried out in the last twenty years has been an attempt to replicate the rules that were governing under a gold standard. He then suggested that he may not have been a regulator of interest rates at all. Starts at about the 35 minute mark: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14500893
