Time Preference

learning about human action
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[Time Preference @TimePreference_]

the wealth gap isn't widening because of capitalism

it's widening because asset owners benefit from monetary expansion while wage earners suffer from currency debasement

the cantillon effect isn't a market failure, it's a policy feature

[Max Stirner @ernsterjuenger]

Der "POINT OF NO RETURN" in der Lehre von Von Mises:

"Ein Staat wird in an dem Punkt beinahe unreformierbar, an dem die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung finanziell oder strukturell vom Staat abhängig ist (Staatsangestellte, Beamte, Subventions- oder Förderungsempfänger, Bezieher von Transferleistungen etc.) Sobald die Gruppe derjenigen, die netto vom Staat profitiert oder alimentiert wird, größer ist als die Gruppe, bei der dies nicht der Fall ist, blockiert das System Reformen, da die Mehrheit aus Eigeninteresse für den Erhalt oder Ausbau staatlicher Leistungen stimmt."

Das ist genau die shice, die wir haben.

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@richjamesdobbs 100%

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rent control is taking a photograph of the housing market in one year and legally demanding it stay that photo forever

meanwhile the city around it changes. costs rise. buildings age. the landlord who can't raise rent doesn't renovate, he converts the building to something else or lets it rot

you didn't freeze rents. you froze the moment a landlord was willing to maintain a building.

the picture stays. the building leaves

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the socialist who earns a salary lecturing people about the rich. the activist on payroll. the union boss with a mansion

they're not against the existence of wealth. they're against the existence of wealth they don't control

every socialist movement is led by people who would be very rich in the system they're building. and they're not hiding it. they just say "when we get there, my role will be managing it."

yes. that was the plan

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an excavator does the work of 100 men with shovels. the keynesian looks at this and sees 99 lost jobs

by that logic we should ban the excavator. and the shovel. and the wheel

the goal was never jobs. the goal was stuff. jobs are the cost, not the product.

the economy that maximizes employment by making everyone dig with spoons is just hell with extra steps

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"democratic ownership of the means of production" is a very polite phrase for: 51% of people vote to take 100% of what the other 49% built

it's not democracy in the workplace. it's democracy over the workplace. the workers didn't buy the factory. they voted on it. those are very different things

a vote can't build a factory. it can only decide who gets to keep one

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if your money is good, why does it need a legal tender law forcing people to accept it?

nobody has to be forced to accept gold. nobody has to be sued for refusing a gold coin. the law isn't protecting the money.

it's protecting the money's bad reputation

fiat currency is the only product in history that needs armed enforcement to compete with salt

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and you just completely ignore austrian economics while you are on the way

[Khazbi Budunov @foscaecon]

My Intellectual Journey to Post-Keynesian Economics:

1. First, you study neoclassical macroeconomics at university and master its theoretical framework.

2. Then you try to apply what you’ve learned to explain real-world economic processes — and fail spectacularly. The theory exists in one world, economic reality in another.

3. Next, you turn to Marxism. Its intellectual depth, historical perspective, and literary elegance are compelling, but attempts to directly connect its theoretical categories to the System of National Accounts and the modern monetary and financial system prove rather difficult.

4. After years of searching, you finally discover Post-Keynesian economics, particularly stock-flow consistent models, where production, income, expenditure, debt, and financial assets finally come together within a coherent, macroeconomically consistent framework.

[Time Preference @TimePreference_]

there is no such thing as a firm that doesn't have an influence on its price

the pure competition theory is a fallacious one

yet it's in every single economic syllabus taught to 'aspiring economists'

the individual firm, no matter the size, no matter how small, always has a certain level of influence over its pricing

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every time a system built on central control collapses, the believers say it was never real.

“real socialism has never been tried”

so the experiment fails every single time, in every setting, with every kind of person running it.

and the theory is still “undefeated”

a theory that can't lose isn't a theory. it's a hobby. nobody blames the recipe when the cake burns every time they bake it.

except for the socialist of course

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the central bank promises price stability. the target is 2% inflation every year

at 2% a year, your money loses half its purchasing power in about 36 years.

that's the stable version. that's the “success story”

imagine a baker who promises every loaf is stable, it only shrinks a little each year. you'd call that a scam.

when the state does it, we shut our eyes and call it a mandate

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the debt isn't a problem, says the economist. we owe it to ourselves

so who exactly is the "we" that gets repaid and who is the "ourselves" that pays? because they're not the same people. one group holds the bonds. another group pays the taxes

"we owe it to ourselves" is what you say when you want to hide that someone is the creditor and someone else is the debtor.

the debtor just hasn't been born yet or hasn't been billed yet

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@monaco1565 💯

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your asset went up 10%. inflation also went up 10%. you didn't get richer. you broke even. purchasing power unchanged

the government taxes the 10% as a gain. you pay tax on money that didn't make you wealthier. you literally lost purchasing power and owe tax for the privilege

you got richer on the tax form and nowhere else

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@Tccup5 so we stop all productive efficiency?

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production gets more efficient. costs fall. prices fall. the consumer benefits. this is what progress looks like

the central bank sees falling prices and panics. "deflation." it prints money to push them back up. making things cheaper was apparently the wrong kind of progress

the austrian sees falling prices as a sign that civilization is working. the keynesian sees them as a disease to be cured.

same data, yet a completely opposite diagnosis.

keynesianism is wrong about what prosperity means

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@stanger_aidan explain without any fiat eye-rolling as to why the money supply needs to expand in order for the economy to remain stable

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@moneyisprinted couldn't have put it better myself!

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@DogmaKarma to an extent, yes. but it is no coincidence that the printer turns on each time we enter a 'deflationary period'

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@TXMCtrades @agnostoxxx Explain?

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a kid breaks a window. the glazier gets paid. the keynesian says great, that's spending, that's growth

nobody asks what the shopkeeper would have bought with that money instead. a suit. a new oven. the window is visible. the suit that never got made is not

the economy didn't grow. it got a window back and lost a suit. you can count the window in gdp. you can't count the suit anywhere. that's the whole trick

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the regulator says consumers make bad decisions. they buy junk. they save too little. they borrow too much. they need protection from their own judgment

fair. but who regulates the regulator? the same species. the same brain. the same biases. the same limited information

apparently bad judgment disappears when you get appointed to a committee. the same humans who can't be trusted to choose their own groceries can be trusted to choose the rules for everyone's groceries

the consumer makes one bad decision and pays for it. the regulator makes one bad decision and millions pay.

the scale of the error is the only difference.