'The Austrians were right' is a phrase we hear often now, and for good reason. The housing bubble and bust were called by the Austrians and, essentially, no one else. The Austrians were right about the dot com bubble and bust. The Austrians were right about the 1970s stagflation and the explosion in the price of gold after the gold window was closed.
You can tick through the issues and see that the Austrians have been right again and again throughout history: on price controls, on protectionism, on bailouts, on wars, on regulation, on prohibitions and civil liberties, and so on.
But issues concerning fiat money and the business cycle stand out because the Austrians possess unique insight. Only the Austrians have consistently warned that fiat money creates the wrong incentives for the banking industry, that central-bank manipulation of interest rates distorts the structure of production, that the combination of paper money and central banking leads to economic calamity.
These insights are not new, though many people are discovering them right now for the first time. From the moment Mises's 1912 book, The Theory of Money and Credit, made its appearance, and warned about the grave danger to free enterprise represented by paper money and central banking, the Austrians have been right.
That's 100 years of 'we told you so.'
