Saifedean Ammous

Author of The Bitcoin Standard, The Fiat Standard, The Gold Standard & Principles of Economics! Sold more than a million copies in 39 languages!

[Saifedean Ammous @saifedean]

Understanding Bitcoin will change how you see the world.

https://t.co/O9kmpAomIr is your guide - featuring books by @LynAldenContact, @parkeralewis, @matthewlysiak, @RicardoBSalinas, and me -including The Bitcoin Standard, which has sold more than 1 million copies in 39 languages!

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

Statement from the owner of the newly occupied home—Dr. Hassan Said Shukri—a neurologist based in Syracuse, NY. @JohnMannionNY22 @SenSchumer @gillibrandny @GovKathyHochul your constituent is asking for help in recovering his house stolen by the IDF.

[Breaking the Silence @BtSIsrael]

"Ambulance network around Nablus has been almost completely paralyzed since most entrances to the city were closed Saturday night"

More than 150,000 Palestinians are now under lockdown over an incident that did not even happen in Nablus.

https://t.co/Jq1pWWrKuH

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

Soldiers just occupied the home of an American citizen in Turmus’ayya—a home flying an American flag. Sure seems like a direct message to @GovMikeHuckabee and @SecRubio that American citizenship means absolutely nothing to Israel. Great ally you’ve got there 👍

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

Settler-soldier thugs just arrested Ihmeed Hathaleen—one of the kindest, most gentle people I know—in Umm al-Khair. 1 year ago tmrw, his cousin, Awdah, was murdered by a settler, and Ihmeed was detained and tortured for 11 days. Timing is no coincidence—punishment for grieving.

[Zachary Foster @_ZachFoster]

Settler terrorism is out of control.

Read this first hand account by @MohammadHuraini of what it’s like to be targeted by terrorists who work together with the Israeli military & Israeli government to impose a regime of terror on millions of Palestinians.

[Saifedean Ammous @saifedean]

@MrHodl @w_s_bitcoin @gregory_kramer I even had steak with Mr. Hodl after the seminar hosted by this good man!

[Saifedean Ammous @saifedean]

Edmund Phelps, 1933–2026: A Scholar and a Gentleman

Edmund “Ned” Phelps, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, died in Manhattan on May 15, at the age of 92. The world has lost one of its most consequential economists. I have lost a friend and mentor who was pivotal to my professional and intellectual development.
I first came to know Ned in 2008 at Columbia University, where he had taught for decades as McVickar Professor of Political Economy. I was in the final year of my PhD and increasingly disaffected by my growing disagreement with much of what I was being taught. He was a Nobel laureate at the height of his fame, only two years after Stockholm had called.
I attended one of his talks and enjoyed his perspective. We chatted briefly afterward, and I followed up by email. In the conversations that followed, I finally found someone at Columbia who had the time and interest to listen to my increasingly heretical ideas. We connected over our shared interest in Hayek, whose work was hardly fashionable at Columbia. We enjoyed many lunches and long email exchanges. The distance between our stations could scarcely have been wider, yet it never once entered into how he treated me.
Soon afterward, he appointed me a visiting scholar at his Center on Capitalism and Society. It was my first academic research appointment and allowed me to spend the summer of 2011 with him at Columbia. He later made me a Foreign Member of the Center, and we remained in contact and worked together on various papers and projects.
He took my ideas seriously when practically nobody else did. He opened doors that a young economist could not have opened for himself. Whatever I have achieved in this profession began with Ned Phelps taking a chance on me.
What I will remember most, however, is not the professional generosity but the conversations. Ned was that increasingly rare figure in academia: a man genuinely happy to discuss ideas and genuinely happy to be disagreed with.
We found much common ground in our interest in free markets, while our disagreements over macroeconomic methodology produced many memorable, pleasant, and challenging discussions. They were never contests and never quarrels. He engaged every objection on its merits, pleasantly and patiently, with the confidence of a man who had nothing to prove and everything still to learn.
In 2018, when I first published The Bitcoin Standard to little interest from the academic world, I wrote to ask whether his Center might host me to discuss it. A book on the economics of Bitcoin was not, in 2018, an obvious subject for a Nobel laureate’s research center at an Ivy League university. But Ned was delighted to host the event. An idea was on offer, an argument was to be made, and that was reason enough to open the doors. Bitcoin itself never quite persuaded him. But he was always happy to discuss it, with me and with others. He did not need to agree with an idea before considering it worthy of serious attention.
Ned’s impact on modern economics was momentous. He was pivotal in demolishing one of the central conceits of postwar macroeconomics: that governments faced a stable and exploitable trade-off between inflation and unemployment.
According to the crude version of this doctrine, governments could increase employment by tolerating more inflation and suppress inflation by accepting more unemployment. This offered politicians a seductive menu of supposed policy choices. Unemployment could be cured by debauching the currency, while inflation could be blamed on excessive employment and fought by putting people out of work.
In work dating to the late 1960s, Phelps showed why this supposed long-run trade-off could not survive. Workers and employers form expectations about inflation and incorporate those expectations into wages and prices. Once they adjust, the apparent employment stimulus disappears. Attempts to hold unemployment below its equilibrium level therefore produce not permanently higher employment, but ever-higher inflation. Alongside Milton Friedman, Phelps transformed how economists understood the relationship between inflation, expectations, and employment.
The stagflation of the 1970s made the old mythology impossible to sustain in full view of the world. If inflation reliably purchased lower unemployment, why were inflation and unemployment rising together?
Governments have spent much of the period since trying to forget the lesson, while Keynesians have devised increasingly elaborate stories to explain away its implications. But Ned’s central conclusion remains intellectually devastating: there is no permanent prosperity to be purchased through inflation. He helped kill the fantasy of a stable long-run Phillips-curve trade-off, and economics is better for it.
That alone would have constituted a historic career, but Ned’s range was remarkable. In 1961, while still in his twenties, he formulated the Golden Rule of capital accumulation, identifying the savings rate that maximizes sustainable consumption across generations. He performed pioneering work on the microfoundations of macroeconomics, efficiency wages, statistical discrimination, pricing, and structural slumps.
In his later decades, he turned increasingly toward the deepest economic question of all: what makes human beings and their economies flourish?
His answer, developed most fully in Mass Flourishing in 2013, was that prosperity does not originate primarily in ministries, plans, or a handful of celebrated inventors. It grows from the grassroots, from ordinary people imagining, experimenting, innovating, and taking risks. This dynamism is not merely materially enriching. It gives people challenge, purpose, self-discovery, and the opportunity to exercise their creativity.
He lamented the corporatism, conformism, and short-termism that smother this process. In developing this account, he drew on and added to the work of thinkers such as Hayek, connecting economic progress to the dispersed imagination and initiative of ordinary individuals.
Ned practiced the dynamism he preached. At 86, he published Dynamism with Raicho Bojilov, Hian Teck Hoon, and Gylfi Zoega. That same year, he began writing his memoirs. My Journeys in Economic Theory appeared from Columbia University Press in 2023, when he was 89. It became the final book in a career that included twenty-four books and more than 180 articles.
Ned was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1933, during the Depression that helped shape his lifelong preoccupation with unemployment. He studied at Amherst and earned his doctorate at Yale under James Tobin. After appointments at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, he joined Columbia in 1971 and made it his intellectual home for more than half a century.
He was the only American of that great generation whom I came to know closely, and he will forever leave me with a favorable impression of it: classy grandeur, relentless ambition and confidence, a towering physique, and a beaming, charismatic smile. I always thought he looked a little like Frank Sinatra, and his wit sometimes reminded me of him too.
Over the years, our families grew closer, and I would visit him whenever my travels took me to New York. My wife and daughter came to love him like family. He was unfailingly warm, charming, and caring, and I will remain forever grateful to him.
I am very proud to have called Ned Phelps my friend. He was a true scholar and a true gentleman, and the two qualities were inseparable in him.
I will miss the conversations most of all.
Rest in peace, Ned. And to the lovely Viviana, my deepest condolences.

[Alon-Lee Green - ألون-لي جرين - אלון-לי גרין 🟣 @AlonLeeGreen]

בקיצור, מכל "הפיגוע של הפלסטינים בחוות גלעד", הסתבר שהמתנחל שנהרג הוא בכלל התוקף ושהחייל שנהרג בכלל נהרג מאש צה"ל. איפה כל ההתנצלויות? 4 בני אדם נרצחו באירוע, מאש המתנחלים והחיילים ביחד. החיים שלהם לא נחשבים כי הם פלסטינים? עליהם לא אומרים "נרצחו"? בושה של תקשורת ופוליטיקאים.

[Alonso Gurmendi @Alonso_GD]

The everyday violence of colonialism. You live at the mercy of the colonizer and you are a terrorist if you fight back

[Senex @senex_official]

Did you know Israel attempted to massacre American and British civilians, and were planning to blame it on Egypt in order to start a war?

Greatest ally? I think not.

[Itay Epshtain @EpshtainItay]

The village of Till appears on the 1880 Palestine Exploration Fund map. The settlements now encroaching on its cultivated lands, of course, do not.

What some Israeli ministers present as a journey through Jewish history is, in reality, the political legitimization of settler violence.

The result: Palestinians killed, communities terrorized, and, as now reported, the two Israelis - in and out of uniform - killed in apparent friendly fire. A grim illustration of what follows when perverted ideology eclipses facts, human life, and the rule of law.

[Daniel Mayakovski @DaniMayakovski]

"Nosotros (los colonos) provocamos e iniciamos la violencia contra los palestinos para que luego llegue el ejército y poder expandir la zona que ocupamos con la excusa de la seguridad. Iniciamos la violencia con orgullo y el ejército de Israel también lo hace".

Colonos sionistas admiten sin pudor que están provocando la violencia contra los palestinos en Cisjordania, para luego llamar al ejército a protegerles y expandir sus asentamientos, robándole así más tierras.

Estas garrapatas ni siquiera ocultan que violentan, agreden y asesinan palestinos para poder robarle sus casas, así es la cara del colonialismo en pleno 2026.

[Zachary Foster @_ZachFoster]

This video, of Jews taking over a Palestinian home in Jerusalem last week, could have been taken anytime, anywhere in Palestine, over the past 140yrs.

It poignantly distills the essence of Zionism:

Removing Palestinians from their homes & replacing them with Jews.

[Saifedean Ammous @saifedean]

Theft is Israel's ethos

[Ir Amim English @IrAmimAlerts]

🚨 On Wednesday, Israeli settlers seized the home of the Palestinian Basha family in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City after Israeli courts ordered their eviction. The family, which consists of six households, most of whom are elderly, have lived in the building since the 1930s. Their eviction followed legal proceedings initiated by the General Custodian, a governmental body within the Israeli Ministry of Justice.

In a video circulating online, Rabbi Avishai Zruya, head of the Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim settler organization, is seen leading settlers in a prayer and affixing to the building’s entrance a mezuzah—a Jewish ritual object traditionally placed on a doorpost, symbolically marking the newly seized building as a Jewish space. He declares: “Today, on the eve of Tisha B’Av… we come here with dignity and splendor, in the fullness of our Jewishness and faith.” Tisha B’Av is a Jewish day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Jewish Temples.

Ateret Yerushalayim is closely connected to the Ateret Cohanim settler organization, which plays a central role in the forced eviction of Palestinians and settler takeover of their homes in the Old City and surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods, including Silwan.

This is what settler violence looks like in East Jerusalem: no need for settler pogroms or rampages, instead, discriminatory laws, state institutions, courts, and police are all utilized to forcibly remove Palestinians from their homes and seize them for Jewish settlement—all under the veneer of legality. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim property allegedly owned before 1948, while denying Palestinians the same right to recover property they lost in West Jerusalem and elsewhere.

[Ir Amim English @IrAmimAlerts]

🚨 On Wednesday, Israeli settlers seized the home of the Palestinian Basha family in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City after Israeli courts ordered their eviction. The family, which consists of six households, most of whom are elderly, have lived in the building since the 1930s. Their eviction followed legal proceedings initiated by the General Custodian, a governmental body within the Israeli Ministry of Justice.

In a video circulating online, Rabbi Avishai Zruya, head of the Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim settler organization, is seen leading settlers in a prayer and affixing to the building’s entrance a mezuzah—a Jewish ritual object traditionally placed on a doorpost, symbolically marking the newly seized building as a Jewish space. He declares: “Today, on the eve of Tisha B’Av… we come here with dignity and splendor, in the fullness of our Jewishness and faith.” Tisha B’Av is a Jewish day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Jewish Temples.

Ateret Yerushalayim is closely connected to the Ateret Cohanim settler organization, which plays a central role in the forced eviction of Palestinians and settler takeover of their homes in the Old City and surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods, including Silwan.

This is what settler violence looks like in East Jerusalem: no need for settler pogroms or rampages, instead, discriminatory laws, state institutions, courts, and police are all utilized to forcibly remove Palestinians from their homes and seize them for Jewish settlement—all under the veneer of legality. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim property allegedly owned before 1948, while denying Palestinians the same right to recover property they lost in West Jerusalem and elsewhere.

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

This is by no means the worst drone the IDF commits, but it is very revealing. Here you can see soldiers vandalizing Palestinian cars for no reason in Bethlehem. No one in the force stops them, because discipline is non-existent and Palestinians have no rights or value on their eyes.

[kristina. @cosmepolitics]

Now imagine if more people knew about this.

I wonder why they don’t.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is, unsurprisingly, a complete inversion of reality.

Netanyahu says the ICC under Khan went after him to distract from the sexual misconduct allegations against Khan.

But the truth is that the allegations suddenly started surfacing a couple of weeks AFTER Khan informed the US of his decision to seek warrants, and after he was told - in the public record - by US senators (including Marco Rubio): "Target Israel and we will target you."

This is the actual timeline (source: https://t.co/9Y0jsxLVFy):

- 25 March 2024: Khan informs the US administration of his decision and that warrants would be sought by the end of April.

- 19 April 2024: A senior US official warns Khan by phone of "disastrous consequences" if he proceeds; Khan says he rejected this, citing Israel's lack of cooperation.

24 April 2024: 12 Republican US senators (including Marco Rubio) send Khan a letter warning "Target Israel and we will target you."

26 April 2024: Netanyahu publicly criticises the ICC on social media, saying: “Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defence.”

2 May 2024: The sexual misconduct/harassment allegations are first put to Khan in person by members of his team, on the same day, per his later ICC submission, that he had been planning to announce the Netanyahu/Gallant warrants.

Draw your own conclusion 🤷‍♂️

[Saifedean Ammous @saifedean]

@Fidias0 They only needed to buy 5.67% of Palestine before stealing the rest

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

BREAKING: Israeli settler terrorists attacked the Palestinian village of Beita in the occupied West Bank, stormed a factory, and set several trucks on fire.

[Mel @Villgecrazylady]

Take a moment to take in the scene around his bookstore. Now gone forever. It’s breathtaking. Israel extinguishes every spark of life it finds.

This is their MO. This is what they do.