It's worth noting that the paradox that an inconvertible, non-interest-bearing exchange medium should command value today despite the certain knowledge that it will eventually cease to be valuable, has long puzzled monetary economists.
In _Logik des Geldes_ (1912), Bruno Moll called it "the problem of the end." _The Value of Money_ by Dutch economist Tjardus Greidanus (cdn.mises.org/The%20Value%20…) has a nice discussion of it. Here's an excerpt, starting w/ a quote from Moll:
"The certainty of the individuals to be able to pass on the money rests in the end on the trust-whether conscious, half conscious or unconscious-that even the last owner of the money, who cannot pass it on, has in his possession something of value."
Greidanus responds: "The history of the last five thousand years, on the contrary, gives me the firm and deliberate conviction that the money that I readily accept to-day will one day be valueless. But
this has no perceptible influence on my readiness to accept it...
"... Whether the shilling that I accept to-day will still be
worth a shilling after a thousand years, or nothing, makes in cash value only the difference of a small fraction of a farthing."
Allowing that what goes for an actual money may also go for something that is merely expected by some to eventually become money, the same may be said, in answer to Taleb, about Bitcoin.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with George Selgin

George Selgin Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @GeorgeSelgin

29 Jun
Dan asks a question of crucial importance. I want to share my answer it as publicly as possible. Hence this new thread.
To begin, despite my work on free banking and all that, I'm not concerned here to argue against any government regulation of money whatsoever. I think, indeed, that we are long past the point of being able to dispense with it: the switch to fiat makes such control inevitable.
What I utterly reject is the notion that an adequate case for such control can consist solely of an appeal to the idea that controlling money is "fundamental to being an independent polity" or somehow "central to the state."
Read 16 tweets
28 Jun
The big one, though, was financial instability. Far from achieving a "stable means of exchange," the Civil War interventions set the stage for the great currency panics of 1884, 1893, and 1907. It was owing to these that the gov't went about reforming the currency all over again.
Robert glides over this inconvenient part of history, saying only that "In time – after a half-century, more or less – we ended up migrating the Greenback to a new central bank, hence today’s still-green Federal Reserve Notes." (For "greenback" again read "national banknotes.")
Of course his limited space but also, one supposes, his aims, wouldn't let him mention the politics behind the FRA"solution" to the problem of financial instability, including the way better options were passe up to please the big NYC banks. cato.org/publications/p…
Read 11 tweets
27 Jun
Let's by all means see if history can teach us anything about the merits of private vs gov't currencies, digital or otherwise. But doing so means knowing that history--not just the bogus myths that circulate (so to speak) concerning it!
Of antebellum currency-issuing banks, Robert writes, "If you liked this sort of thing – you wouldn’t – you called the banks ‘free banks’ and their currencies ‘free banknotes.’ ...If you were more sensible... you called the banks ‘wildcats’ and their notes ‘wildcat currencies’."
That dichotomy misleads in all sorts of ways. First, it misleads by confusing antebellum banks in general with (so called) "free banks." Second, it misleads by confusing "free banks" with "wildcat banks."
Read 47 tweets
26 Jun
The fundamental flaw in @nntaleb's "proof" that Bitcoin is "really" worthless consists of his utter failure to recognize what Keynes called "bootstrap" equilibria, in which agents' prophesies, however badly founded at first, become self fulfilling. jstor.org/stable/4180201…
Such equilibria can be perfectly stable; indeed, in so far as they rest on powerful network effects, they can be extremely..."antifragile." Many models of fiat money treat its postive valuation as such an equilibrium, so this is not some esoteric notion in monetary economists.
And it makes no difference what the basis is for agents initial expectations. That enough of them believe that X will become money may suffice to make it so. (The same idea is implicit in Menger's theory of commodity monies.)
Read 4 tweets
25 Jun
Having asked this question, but not having gotten an answer, I will answer it myself, and invite criticisms. To anticipate: I conclude that, if one wants an "optimum quantity of money," a corridor system, not a floor system, is the way to go.
Let's start with the original Friedman-rule ideal: a rate of deflation sufficient to reduce the nominal interest rate on "bonds" to zero. Such deflation, Friedman argued, would eliminate the opportunity cost of money holding, thereby leading to "optimum" money holdings.
For those who consider deflation undesirable in itself, Friedman's solution is obviously unappealing. (I don't wish here to get into the merits of this view.) But there's an alternative that's theoretically equivalent: have money bear the same nominal interest rate as bonds.
Read 14 tweets
25 Jun
Anyone who thinks the Fed didn't hasn't started tightening has been hoodwinked.
Despite having switched to a "floor" operating regime in October 2008 (and permanently in January 2019), and thereby all but ending interbank lending on the fed funds market, the Fed continued to maintain the pretense of "targeting" the fed funds rate.
But in reality, it no longer used open-market operations to keep a freely-fluctuating interbank funds rate close to its targeted value. Instead, it adjusted its policy stance by altering the interest rate it paid on bank reserves (IOR rate).
Read 16 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(