Ludwig von Mises - Business cycles are caused by the uncontrolled expansion of bank credit. A socialist government could not make the economic calculations required to organize a complex economy efficiently. ”The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”
Frederick Hayek - Complex markets can’t be modeled by central planners. “Whoever controls the means must decide which ends they are to serve.” He proposed that artificially low interest rates not only cause investment to be artificially high, but also cause “malinvestment”—too much investment in long-term projects relative to short-term ones, and the boom turns into a bust. Hayek saw the bust as a healthy and necessary readjustment.
Murray Rothbard - What has the government done to our money? - Similar to Hayek felt that: “Under freedom, the commodities chosen as money, their shape and form, are left to the voluntary decisions of free individuals. “
George Gilder - The 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information theory of Money - Money is a measuring stick. Inflating it damages this. Tweetstorm summary from Andrew DeSantis endorsed by Gilder “Money should be a standard of measure for the outcomes of entrepreneurial experiments”.
James Dale Davidson - Sovereign individual - We are transitioning to a world where the nation state is becoming less important than online communities. They will have their own monies. Secessions will become more common.
Naval Ravikant - Two key tweetstorms. 1/ His updating of the Sovereign Individual for 2010’s. 2/ Blockchains convert networks to markets. “Blockchains combine the openness of democracy and the Internet with the merit of markets.”
Nick Szabo - His Bitgold idea was a precursor to Bitcoin, which is referenced in the Bitcoin white paper. Longform essays on historical origins of money, among other things. His blog is Unenumerated.
Saifdean Anomous - Takes ideas of sound money from Austrians and applies it to a logical end game for Bitcoin. Bitcoin could be a world settlement system. He is working on a book which I am looking forward to.
James Rickards - Road to Ruin - Rickards gets flack for being bearish on Bitcoin and trying to time collapses but he actually writes clearly on the systemic risks of the current system. Fed will try cut rates but it won’t work this time. They will have to resort to IMF SDRS and a reversion to the gold standard. People will covet hard assets like art, gold and property.
Nathaniel Popper - Digital Gold - Early history of Bitcoin. Focuses on the characters that were drawn to it. Those who understood Bitcoin immediately seem to have realised it was an interesting test of Austrian Economic Theory.
Trace Mayer - Trace wrote a very digestable 80 page book on Money and Systemic Risk called The Great Credit Contraction just before Bitcoin launched. It is still worth a read and helps you understand why Bitcoin was so promising to him at $.25 . His podcast is also worth listening to bitcoin.kn
Who am I missing?
Twitter.com/btcbehaviour