Jim Grant Accepts Hayek Prize, Draws Lessons From 1921

Last week Jim Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, accepted the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Book Prize for The Forgotten Depression: 1921, The Crash that Cured Itself, and he took the opportunity to explain his rationale for writing the book as well as his basic argument against seven-years and counting worth of monetary stimulus.

“In 2008, the Great Depression of the 1930s monopolized the mar­ket in historical analogy. Policymak­ers constantly invoked the 1930s with reference to the crisis of the mangled mortgages and combusting banks. No intervention was too great to forestall a repeat of that calamity, they said.” said Jim Grant. “As far as I know, not one senior policymaker invoked the 1920-21 af­fair on the other...