George is a scholar's scholar. I would have loved to be a student in one –or, better, more than one — of his classes.

Don

Their colleagues must hate their guts, but their students love them.

That sort of thing is standard practise for him.

His classrooms must be a joy.

You might moderate your reaction to Lesvic. It should be sufficient to state your case and let readers decide.

Everyone earns their own allocation in the estimations of others.

Discussion of the activity of money distracts us from the underlying reality of allocation of resources.

When people “save” they are foregoing consumption.

If they save by hoarding, they are still foregoing consumption.

Money may be thought of a way of creating and transferring obligations.

IAC, it is the foregone consumption that make investment, and economic growth possible.

George is a scholar's scholar. I would have loved to be a student in one –or, better, more than one — of his classes.

Don

Their colleagues must hate their guts, but their students love them.

That sort of thing is standard practise for him.

His classrooms must be a joy.

You might moderate your reaction to Lesvic. It should be sufficient to state your case and let readers decide.

Everyone earns their own allocation in the estimations of others.

Discussion of the activity of money distracts us from the underlying reality of allocation of resources.

When people “save” they are foregoing consumption.

If they save by hoarding, they are still foregoing consumption.

Money may be thought of a way of creating and transferring obligations.

IAC, it is the foregone consumption that make investment, and economic growth possible.

Can you have deflation with a currency that continues to weaken? An inflation perhaps but a deflation certainly not!

I assume that Prof Selgin doesn't wish to eliminate saving altogether, but merely keep its ratio to spending as constant as possible.

But, in the wake of capital consumption, relatively more saving is exactly what is needed. With rainier days ahead, that is exactly what is needed. In the face of an oncoming avalanche, getting capital out of the way of it is exactly what is needed, saving it not just for the rainier days but for recovery where the opportunity for it appears.

A dollar cannot be both saved and spent at the same time. It is either being saved or spent, whether on consumption or investment.

Mises, another ignoramus, no doubt, explained why there could be no stability of any kind.

“With the real universe of action and unceasing change…neither neutrality of money nor stability of purchasing power are compatible. A world of the kind which the necessary requirements of neutral and stable money presuppose would be a world without action…in the frame of…a changing world money is neither neutral nor stable in purchasing power. All plans to render money neutral and stable are contradictory. Money is an element of action and consequently of change.”

While Prof. Selgin referred to stability of spending, and Mises to stability of purchasing power, the principle was the same. No stability. Period.

He defines his “properly organized monetary system” as “free banking, either on a gold standard or with a permanently frozen stock of fiat money.”

I'm glad to know that he's on our side, but from his choice of words, “properly organized,” you can hardly blame me for having thought otherwise.

He says that my misinterpretation of his words ought to earn me unending contempt. But why was it my responsibility to interpret his ambiguous words correctly rather than his to have written unambiguously in the first place, and my fault for having drawn the most logical inference from his words?

It may be true, as he said, that some of us have been too quick to label as socialist and such those with whom we disagreed. But we must still label their errors for what they are.

He is trying to disconnect what I do with my money when I deposit it in a bank and what the bank does with it when it lends it out. The disconnect is only in my mind. I think I am saving my money but the bank knows that it is investing it. The reality is not what I think is being done with it but what is actually being done with it. It is not being saved. It is being lent out and either consumed or invested.

But, regardless, suppose that, rather than “saving” my money in a bank, I saved it in my mattress. What would be wrong with that?

I assume that Prof Selgin doesn't wish to eliminate saving altogether, but merely keep its ratio to spending as constant as possible.

But, in the wake of capital consumption, relatively more saving is exactly what is needed. With rainier days ahead, that is exactly what is needed. In the face of an oncoming avalanche, getting capital out of the way of it is exactly what is needed, saving it not just for the rainier days but for recovery where the opportunity for it appears.

A dollar cannot be both saved and spent at the same time. It is either being saved or spent, whether on consumption or investment.