Potpourri
* Aristos sends this video of a policeman telling people he’d pulled over that he should have executed them. It’s true that the offense (threatening to kill them) isn’t as bad as in plenty of other videos we’ve showcased, but this one makes the cut because the people are being fairly cooperative. (I.e. in the other videos where, say, a cop starts pounding the heck out of somebody, usually it’s because the person was resisting arrest or some such thing that escalated the situation.)
* Just to give you guys a heads-up, at some point I am going to explain why my approach to cash balances–and not Wenzel’s–can rescue us from this insanity.
* Joe Salerno touting his new book.
* I’m too busy to experiment, but word on the street gives a thumbs-up to Google+. This is a fascinating episode, because it shows how fleeting a market “monopoly” is. When the Facebook movie came out, the social network seemed invincible. Not only was it dominant, but it was literally a network–so how could anyone displace them? And yet Jeff Tucker explains how Google+ seized on Facebook’s flaws.
* The unsaturated von Pepe sends this interesting link trying to explain fiat money using game theory. However, I don’t get the use of backwards induction in step 1 of the argument. Are they assuming a finitely repeated game, so there’s no value for the fiat money in period N, hence no value in period N-1, etc.?
* You know how little kids wonder whether a lion could beat a polar bear in a fight, etc.? Well did you ever wonder what would happen if crazy inflationist Scott Sumner took on the crazy inflationist MMTers? Here ya go, courtesy of the above link.
* Last week I outlined Mises’ proposal (in the Theory of Money and Credit) for linking a fiat currency back to gold. It’s not as easy as you might think.
* Then today I explain the logic of coupons and other price discounts.
* The creator of “KrugmanIsWrong.com” is running for office. However, he needs to be careful, as Jon Stewart would have fun if his campaign ever gets traction.
* Check out these graphics that Tony sent me, showing the size of our unfunded liabilities in terms of $100 bills.
To prove that Scott is a crazy inflationist, I commented on his article urging Obama to appoint Mankiw to the Fed that they could save money and appoint a parrot trained to say “print money.” Scott said, “John, that would work too.”
BTW, G+ is already on its death bed. I don’t login any more.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/google-minus/
Prof. Murphy,
Prof. Sumner appears to reject the Austrian business cycle theory. Have you any resources regarding the claim that ABCT explains the 1920s boom&bust? Prof. Sumner said it was a deflationary decade (price) and that the base money didn’t change.
Thank you,
J Oxman
Google running facebook out of business is only the first step. The day will come when Goggle will be have a monopoly over everything, including currency, which means we won’t be able to save unless Google runs a deficit.
I’m with you, Desolation. That’s why I’ve been accumulating Google bonds for the past two years. In fact I am going to soon issue my own currency, the Murph, and make it redeemable in Googles at a rate of 1 Murph = 1 googol Googles.
Interesting how Glasner eviscerates Roddis’ delusional evisceration of tax driven currencies:
I’m glad you picked up on that Andy Harless link. Even thought I said It cleared things up for me, after giving it another read and thinking about it it some more, I’m actually more confused than I was before. I got the feeling I’m falling for the accounting tautology trap.