Michael J. Hoffman

Novelist and Satirist 📖 ✍🏻 Check out the link to my new novel DEATHFALL below:

[Michael J. Hoffman @Austro_Punk]

My new dystopian novel DEATHFALL is finally out!

Libertarians, conservatives, and classical liberals can all appreciate the message contained within these pages.

100% of the profits will be going to a veteran’s charity of my choice.

Check it out: https://t.co/XsJZdqYJTM

[Banquero Hayekiano @HayekianBanker]

@sigmahamster2 @elliotismz David Friedman is the best Friedman

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

Bitcoin isn’t “money,” either, no matter how many people call it that. It’s use as a payments medium has always been quite limited; and now it is not even a favored medium for crypto-market transactions.1/2

[camper Ⓐ @ivnferrer_]

alguno que lo haya leído lo recomienda como primera lectura en inglés?

[Michael J. Hoffman @Austro_Punk]

@ivnferrer_ If you have a good understanding of Austrian monetary and capital theory, you’re ready for it

[Agorist Nexus (Brandon) @AgoristN]

Tread on them.

Happy Killdozer day.

[Sal the Agorist @SallyMayweather]

22 yrs ago today, after a long zoning dispute with local officials that ruined his business, welder Marvin Heemeyer had enough & created the Killdozer.

He destroyed the mayor’s house, the judge’s house, town hall, the police station, & the bank - while avoiding hurting civilians or their property.

Happy Killdozer Day to those who celebrate 🎊

[Emil Verner @EmilVerner]

I've really been enjoying @DavidBeckworth @Macro_Musings podcast lately (we are in a golden age of econ podcasts!). A recent episode with former CEA chair Tyler Goodspeed takes on a fascinating question: Are recessions driven by random shocks (bad luck) or the product of inherently cyclical boom-bust phenomena? Goodspeed's new book argues it's the former. The episode is good fun and very interesting.

https://t.co/cUN5cHFl4L

Two thoughts I wanted to share in reaction, given that this is a topic close to my heart:

1) Somewhat ironically, even though we call short-run fluctuations business *cycles*, the random shocks view is close to the mainstream approach in academic macro. A long tradition in time series macro going back to Granger's work in the 60s looks at the properties of macroeconomic time series (spectral densities!) and finds that there is not much evidence of stable, regular cycles in macro series. Modern DSGE macro models expansions/recessions as the product of relatively persistent shocks, rather than endogenous cycles. The view that business cycles are the product of endogenous boom-bust dynamics is slightly more on the periphery of macro than people might think!

2) That said, I would push back a bit on the strongest version of the random shocks view. I agree that a lot of variation at business cycle frequencies comes from random shocks. But there is quite a bit of evidence that the endogenous boom-bust story has some truth, at least during specific episodes featuring credit and financial booms preceding financial crisis recession. There is quite a bit of evidence that rapid expansions in credit, especially to certain risky sectors like real estate, coupled with booming prices of real estate and other assets, are a strong predictor of future downturns and financial crises. Financial crises are not unpredictable "bolts from the blue." While the exact timing of a crisis is very hard to predict, there are certain vulnerabilities that make financial crises and deep recessions more likely. These dynamics don't hold mechanically during every business cycle, but they do matter for understanding major downturns involving financial instability.

A few examples off the top of my head include: 2008 in the US, Spain, Ireland, etc; the Japanese financial crisis after the 1980s boom; the crises and deep recessions in the Nordic economies of late 1980s; emerging market crises like Mexico 1994 and Thailand 1997; or historical crises like Australia’s housing boom and bust in the late 1880s, the panic of 1893, and perhaps the US Great Depression.

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

If bad banking laws and incompetent central bankers allow, say, a massive collapse in the money stock and spending, that's just fine. But if authorities take steps to avoid or counter such a collapse, that's "bailing out" producers--hence, unwarranted government intervention.

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

That Cantillon himself, writing in the 1730s, was describing the consequences of _gold_ discoveries (he discusses banks, but only in a much later section of his _Essay_), doesn't seem to concern our fundamentalist Austrian.

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

🧵The "Mises-Rothbard tradition" is in fact replete with arguments that start with the Humean insight that, for any nominal money stock, there's a set of prices such that the stock is all people need, and conclude from it that monetary expansion never serves any good purpose...

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

I trust that stuff on the Mises Institute website is in the Mises-Rothbard tradition; and saying that changes in the money stock merely "dilute" the purchasing power of each unit without affecting real allocations is calling those changes neutral. 1/

[Voluntaryist Minister @GodIsVoluntary]

@Rep_Davidson Taxation is theft.
The money is stolen as soon as it is collected or spent (due to monopoly on currency)

Treating symptoms will not cure the disease.
Separate money and state.

[Olivia Langarica @olilangarica]

Check this out.

[Olivia Langarica @olilangarica]

📌

[F. A. Hayek Quotes @FAHayekSays]

Hayek calls Milton Friedman “still a Keynesian”

[Luke Gromen @LukeGromen]

USD remains most USED global currency.

Gold becomes most RESERVED global asset.

Behold the new global monetary system, where the "Store of Value" function is separated from the "Medium of Exchange" & "Unit of Account" functions...hiding in plain sight 👇

[Professor John Hearn @jbhearn]

Let me introduce you to someone you should avoid. Called @fiat_money he has no idea what it means and thinks I am unfit to teach.

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

In _Theory of Free Banking_, I show that even with fixed reserves, a free banking system tends to expand M when V falls and vice-versa. That’s not countercyclical fiscal policy; but it does make such policy less necessary.

[George Selgin @GeorgeSelgin]

No, we didn’t: we needed to get rid of debilitating state-government bank regulations, and to heed Canada’s example: sensible regulations there yielded exceptional stability despite the absence of a central bank. 1/