Imagine a community that over time has come to adopt a medium of exchange, which allows them to trade much more easily for the goods they want.
Then imagine someone suggesting they create more of that medium (but not more goods), claiming it would make them all richer.
#inflation Eager to become rich, they double the money supply. After heated discussion about who gets the 'cash', they decide that the poor should get more.
Upon getting the new cash, people rush to buy the goods they couldn't afford before. It results in a shortage of goods; prices soar.

People's belief in data as a source of knowledge needs to be addressed. It is rarely more than faith backed up by scientism and fundamental misunderstandings of science/the scientific process. There are no data that can "speak" for themselves and data are rarely "objective." The social sciences study a complex process emergent from actions based on actors' interpretations, understandings, and valuations. Much of the social world consists of unobservables, but even "objective" data that actors take into account are interpreted and thus subjective.

There is deep confusion about money in the bitcoin camp. On the one hand, evangelists are right that a money is better if it is not controlled by a singular entity (with interests of its own) and exists in limited quantity or is difficult to create (resists arbitrary inflation). OTOH, they often misunderstand the definition of money--the commonly used medium of exchange--and its implications, which is clear from how they refer to bitcoin as a "decentralized" money. That claim doesn't make sense. What they mean is decentralized control over the currency.

Since I got my first faculty position in 2012, students' knowledge has plummeted (from a not-great level). Few nowadays have heard of Robinson Crusoe, know why there was a wall in Berlin, or can read or write well. This is not the students' failure. It's a failure of instruction. But students also have a fair amount of false knowledge: they have learned (been taught) things that simply aren't true. This is strikingly obvious in my field #economics, but also in #history and other fields of study. This isn't a failure of instruction; it's outright sabotage.

The nonsense of MMT
This thread intends to be a continuously expanding selection of claims that proponents of #MMT have made in supposed support of their dogma based in economic illiteracy. Paraphrased and quoted. twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Money supply doesn't affect prices, because prices are in money but set by supply and demand. #nonsense

Funny how critics, always from the 'left', dismiss Austrian economics for supposedly being political or even "not economics." If you are to criticize (or dismiss) something you should at least be aware of the basics. Both of the aforementioned "points" are very wide of the mark. (1) to be political (rather than positive) the theory must leave room for value judgments. Austrian economics doesn't: it's purely deductive logic with the theory derived from the action axiom. This means you have two options for critique: an axiomatic error or problematic logic.

Beltway libertarians showed their true colors during the pandemic, @jeffreyatucker writes. (As I like to say, they're not anti-state--they're merely statists with a fetish for "small" government.) theepochtimes.com/why-elite-libe… As libertarians supported (even called for) dictatorial government power to deal with the spread of a virus, I pointed out that freedom does work, that it's an error to believe in centralization as a means (in retrospect, I didn't push nearly hard enough): mises.org/wire/benefits-…

Apparently one cannot ask reasonable questions in response to a nonsense tv "star" asking a question. Take a look at the responses... Like this guy, who immediately blocked me. Not sure why he wasted all those letters.

A lot of people spew this type of fallacy. By doing so they commit fundamental economic errors. What are they? Simply put, they disregard time (and uncertainty) and what demand is. The issue of time lies in the fact that production precedes consumption. Production in the present facilitates consumption in the future. So the goods available for sale today were produced previously, not now. People are employed for their contributions to meeting future demand.

There's something about price #deflation (that the purchasing power of money rises) that messes with people's ability to think properly. Instead, they assert/conclude that the economy will go down the tubes if people get more for their earnings and savings. The only way you end up with such a nonsense conclusion is if you have no conception of value creation in the economy. That is, if you assert that the economy is about simple statistical metrics, not the constant striving to satisfy people's wants (on their own terms, not yours).

#Economics was properly a study of concepts, the recognition of which is important in action/to actors and thus to understanding the economy. But economists have increasingly sought to replace conceptual understanding with measurability, which undermines the value of their field. This is why we see economists chasing statistical data, using models that bear little resemblance to the actual world. But, as is increasingly evident, sophisticated mathematical analyses cannot replace conceptual understanding, but serve only to hide the lack of actual depth.

People are claiming economics needs to be supported by "evidence" (empirical, anthropological) to prove the origin(s)/emergence of money, i.e. the commonly used medium of exchange. (Some even claim a lack of "evidence" somehow refutes the concept.) That's a fundamental confusion. Economic theory deals with concepts. The concept of money is an understanding and practice, not the thing that is used. Currency can be money, but it doesn't have to be. Ask anyone in the Weimar republic, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela. It's not the piece of paper that makes it money.

What did I do in early 2022 that you disliked, @Twitter? November 2021-January 2022.

There's some confusion about my quoting Friedman on inflation. The way I see it, Friedman was referring to inflation as the general rise in prices observable as money's lower purchasing power. Prices fluctuate for many reasons, but that's not inflation (to me or Friedman). Where Friedman and I differ, of course, is that he thought of a 1:1 relationship between the money supply and the price "level" in equilibrium. I think that's an unfounded assertion. Money is not neutral and there is no such thing as a price "level" (it's a conceptual error).

The cult of #scientism, including both proponents and critics of #economics, go too far in their attempts to redefine social science. Neither the economy nor economic theory can be understood as purely empirical. They both depend on economic *concepts*, which are unobservable. Unobservable doesn't mean unreal. It means the concept cannot be directly observed and measured. Money, for example, can only be observed as currency (dollars), but the meaning of money is neither observable nor measurable. This does not make money unimportant or irrelevant.

We need to broaden our discussion on #regulatorycapture. The typical understanding is too narrow and based on a faulty understanding of #economy and #regulation as a one-shot game. It's not; the market is a process, and action in it and regulation of it have process implications. The standard interpretation seems both neutral and innocuous, but it is not. It asserts a certain order of events that has support neither in theory nor empirically: that government agencies are implemented to then be captured/corrupted.

I presented the paper "How do Entrepreneurship and Credit Relate? The Different Views of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's Students Joseph A. Schumpeter and Ludwig von Mises" *(in progress) at #AERC this past weekend. My presentation slides. (1/4) (2/4)

It is amazing the lengths to which people willingly go to make all Russians out as somehow responsible for any atrocity committed by Russian troops in Ukraine. If "the people" are responsible for what the government does, then you should be serving time without access to Twitter. I can understand the desire to make sense of your emotions with flawed logic. But it is still not reasonable to have an ethic for Russians and another for yourself--just because you feel that way. At least you need to consistently apply it. Even the collectivism you adhere to.

Frustrated by listening to @joerogan and @jordanbpeterson on the issue of "living wage." Otherwise intelligent people get the discussion completely backwards. Businesses do not pay workers and suppliers out of their profits: they make profits if they produce more value than cost. It is a common but fundamental mistake to look at the numbers after the fact and, therefore, inadvertently reverse the course of time. Businesses pay for resources based on what they think they can charge for the product they're going to produce. The actual outcome is uncertain.

The Pfizer mRNA is now approved, despite the trial nowhere near concluded. So many questions about what happens now. I'd appreciate insightful pushback. Does this mean the Moderna and J&J EUAs are or must be expired/canceled? washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08… What I would guess, with no particular insight into the process, is that the Moderna mRNA is also approved, perhaps with reference to the Pfizer vaccine and the technologies being practically the same (?). The authorities have obviously pushed for mRNA from the get-go (but why?).

The role of #entrepreneurship in the market process is little understood. Even those who are well read in Ludwig von Mises's magnificent Human Action tend to get the economic function wrong, especially its implications for the structure and progression of the market process. To Mises, entrepreneurship is 'simply' the uncertainty-bearing aspect of human action. This is his praxeological definition, which therefore offers us truths about how the structure of human action explains observable phenomena and cause-and-effect relationships in the market.