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Michael Snoyman
e3ba5e1a06e11c860036b5c5e688012be2a84760abc066ac34a099535e433365
Programmer, economist, author, speaker, weight lifter, Bitcoin enthusiast. Born in 🇺🇸, living in 🇮🇱 עזרי מעם ה' עושה שמים וארץ

For me, the charts are no longer “how rich am I” but rather “how long until the world finally gets off the fiat wild ride.” The higher BTC goes, the lower USD is going, hopefully leading to its near demise.

This is the world Bitcoiners want #bitcoin #memes #memestr

Replying to Avatar Brunswick

Skepticism of Aggregates: Most Austrians, would be wary of oversimplified macroeconomic aggregates such as the velocity of money. The velocity of money is calculated as the ratio of nominal GDP to the money supply, but an Austrian might argue that it obscures the nuanced, individual decisions about saving, spending, and investing that drive economic activity.

2. Focus on Individual Action: Austrian economics emphasizes methodological individualism—the study of economic phenomena as the result of individual choices. An Austrian would likely point out that the velocity of money is a statistical artifact that cannot fully explain the dynamic processes of human action and market coordination.

3. Misesian Critique: Following Ludwig von Mises, An Austrian would argue that money's demand and supply are what matter most in determining purchasing power. The concept of velocity might give the impression that money is somehow circulating faster or slower independent of human action, which is misleading in the Austrian view.

4. Time Preference and Capital Structure: An Austrian would likely stress the importance of time preference (how individuals value present goods versus future goods) and the structure of production in the economy. Changes in what mainstream economists interpret as changes in velocity are more accurately reflections of changes in individuals’ saving and spending behavior, driven by these deeper factors.

5. Critique of Keynesianism: An Austrian would probably critique Keynesian economics for treating the velocity of money as a variable that policymakers can influence to achieve desired outcomes like increased GDP. From an Austrian perspective, this approach neglects the distortions that monetary manipulation can create, particularly in capital markets.

6. Role of Cantillon Effects: An Austrian might emphasize Cantillon effects—how new money enters the economy and impacts different sectors unevenly—over the simplistic notion of velocity. The path of new money matters far more in Austrian theory than the aggregate measure of how often money "turns over."

Thank you for the detailed response. Trying to translate it to my own world view: the velocity of money in Keynesian terms is a specific statistic that can be measured and influenced by policy makers. Austrians would avoid that for many of the reasons you mentioned. That makes sense to me. Instead, they would subsume those kinds of effects under other behavior.

I think my misunderstanding was thinking of velocity not as an aggregate statistic, but as a general trend, similar to say “the money supply went up.” But maybe even there I’m still thinking too Keynesian-ly and thinking we can make broad predictions based on these trends.

Anyway, thank you for the thoughtful response.

I don’t know the details of the Trump coin, but almost certainly market makers. You’d be shocked (or not) to find out how much the centralized exchanges demand from companies looking to list tokens, including presence of market makers. The grift for everyone involved is amazing.

I happen to think there _is_ a use case for some projects in the crypto space and that governance tokens with assigned portions of revenue is a fair method for compensation, so I’m not against all coins but BTC. But clearly this stance doesn’t apply to pure meme coins.

If you decide to sell mugs like that, let me know 💪

Replying to Avatar Leathermint

I would refer back to this note.

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I don't see what else could be analized.

Sure, if there is less barrier to commerce with easier money to use then I would generaly say it's good. But again we're really just saying it's good when more people fulfills each others needs.

What more would you expect from knowing that people are spending more or less?

The example I gave would be one. We like to understand what changes will lead to which outcomes. There’s value in understanding that a change in payment technology or consumer behavior may result in an increase in average prices, for example. It helps us make intelligent business planning decisions, as well as providing useful models for understanding history. That can be vital in shooting down BS monetary theory from the Keynesian side.

To make sure I’m being clear, I’m not disagreeing with your statements overall. I’m simply trying to understand if I’m correct that Austrian economics generally doesn’t use this paradigm and, if that’s the case, how they would explain changes in the economy that a Keynesian would attribute to velocity of money.

I agree with not dictating monetary policy. But velocity of money would still be useful in analysis of the economy, e.g. “despite the fact that the money supply itself did not increase, we experienced an increase in velocity of money due to introduction of faster payment settlement technologies which resulted in an increase in the average price level.”

Not at all saying that statement is accurate, just saying velocity could be used as a tool of analysis.

Low velocity can result from lots of factors, including what you describe. What I’m asking about though is: am I correct that Austrians don’t use this concept in discussions of monetary policy, and if not, how do they address it?

One of the few non Austrian economics ideas that makes sense to me is velocity is money. The more often the same unit of money is used in transactions, the larger it’s impact on things like inflation. However, per my understanding, Austrian economics does not use this concept. Can anyone explain how Austrian economics addresses this? #economics #asknostr

35 hours. 46 minutes.

The true definition of conspiracy theorist is “someone who sees the incentive structures present and see where corruption likely resides.”