11 Apr 2013

Team Brittany Interviews Murphy

Economics, Politics, Shameless Self-Promotion 7 Comments

The schtick with these ladies is that they are all named Brittany (really), hence the name “Team Brittany.” We talk about Bitcoin, the world economy, voting, my man-crush on Barney Frank, and tips for karaoke. Lots of giggling ensued (from them, not me).

7 Responses to “Team Brittany Interviews Murphy”

  1. Peter Šurda says:

    Dear Dr. Murphy,

    you’re one of my favourite Austrians, because you’re trying to genuinly deal with questions, instead of making up stuff on the fly.

    I’m wondering though if you have considered yet to read my thesis about Bitcoin.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Sorry Peter I have not! I have been really swamped with work, and being interviewed by Team Brittany of course.

      • Peter Šurda says:

        No worries, just remember if you’re interested, it’s there. I’m updating it now for a book (plus fixing errors), and Jeff Tucker wants to publish it. I’ll let you know once it’s available. Your class on the Theory of Money and Credit played a significant role in my understanding and I reference some of your work.

  2. guest says:

    Bob Murphy,

    Your point about the exchange value of gold being much higher as a money than it would be if it hadn’t become so, I think misses the point.

    If half the demand for gold as a commodity disappeared, and its value fell in terms of the amount of goods it would buy, you would still be able to determine the new value based on its utility as a commodity.

    Whereas with bitcoins, the valuation is completely arbitrary, which defeats the purpose of money, which is to solve the double coincidence of wants problem; If the unit of account doesn’t represent the ratio of the values between what I sell for it and what I buy with it, then it’s not money.

    Money is a medium between goods that are sold and goods that are bought, so the anchor to utility is necessary.

  3. skylien says:

    A strange argument I heard often was that if the government makes BitCoins illegal then this will only increase the value of BitCoins just like it was with alcohol during alcohol prohibition.

    This is completely wrong in my view because it ignores WHY alcohol was suddenly more expensive even though also demand for alcohol went down. That is of course because supply shrank drastically due to much higher production costs in a black market.

    With BitCoins that won’t happen. The supply is essentially unaffected by political laws, which means the price of it should fall drastically as soon as it is outlawed due to falling demand of law abiding citizens and business.*1

    Aside from certain skepticism I think BitCoin is a logical answer by the market to try to circumvent financial repression, yet I think even if the USG can’t shut it down completely it will do just enough to keep it under control (see e-gold or liberty dollar that where of course completely shut down).

    *1 The only way the value of BitCoins in such a scenario were higher than if there were no legal measures against BitCoin is if they were able to reduce BitCoin supply by heavy seizure of BitCoin wallets in massive scale and destroy them to outweigh the decrease in demand.*2
    *2 I am not sure but as far as I know lost BitCoins stay lost.. Maybe Peter Surda can answer that-

  4. Adrian Gabriel says:

    Wow!!!! Lucky ladies….

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