He definitely comes closest out of anyone I'm familiar with. I haven't heard him explain it from first principles though, which I think would be helpful.

While I love the meme power of that simple equation, I don't think it's technically or fundamentally correct. Civilization is finite, and the real important concept is how money enables and contributes to the growth of the civilization "pie".

It's important, because it explains why money should appreciate over time, and why the idea that it should depreciate through inflation is ridiculous and damaging. Equity in a successful company appreciates over time because it represents the sacrifice someone made in the past to build a productive enterprise, when they could have consumed those resources instead. If they're successful, the increased value of that equity is the reward for the productivity that wouldn't exist without that past sacrifice. That aligns incentives in the economy and leads to more abundance for everyone.

Since sound money represents the exact same sacrifice, in an economy that's growing and successful overall, the savers whose productivity and deferred consumption made that success possible should be rewarded with rising purchasing power, not punished with constant inflation.

The incentive structure is completely borked, so it's no wonder the whole system is dysfunctional and failing.