Lawrence H. White
@lawrencehwhite1
Studying private currencies since before they became cool. Prof of Economics at George Mason U. Latest book = Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin? (2023).
Almost everyone talking about the #coronavirus is displaying strong confirmation bias. Which only goes to prove what I’ve always said.
"[T]here is absolutely no consensus among economists about what money really is." -- Anthropologist who has never opened a book in monetary theory.
“Socialism doesn’t understand human nature” — Economist who has never opened a sociology or anthropology book in their lives.
Probably the best 41-minute summary available of the US fiscal outlook.
🏛️ Monetarium 2 👤 @RominaBoccia 🎙️ Escaping the Debt Doom Loop and Dollar Crash ▶️ Full video $30T in debt took 250 years to accumulate. The next $25T took only 10. (!!) Why Congress can’t fix it, what a debt crisis looks like, and a look into the potential escape routes ↓
Like the National Banking Acts passed during the Civil War, the "Genius Act" for stablecoins is a fiscal measure compelling a class of intermediaries to buy federal debt, disguised as a regulatory reform.
Me, on stablecoins and financial repression. thedailyeconomy.org/article/dcs-ge…
TIL that Tether has purchased a South American producer of corn, rice, and sugarcane. Aims: bioenergy for BTC mining, promote TetherUSD payments in intl commodity trades, possibly tokenize corn and sugar. reuters.com/business/finan…
i would like to make it illegal to talk about free banking (in the context of stablecoins) without having read the following books: - Free Banking in Britain: Theory, Experience, and Debate, 1800–1845 by @lawrencehwhite1 - Competition and Currency: Essays on Free Banking and…
Thanks to @Mehrankhosroza1 for reviewing my book Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin? in the Persian periodical World Economy. donya-e-eqtesad.com/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D…
If folks want a jump start on examining the entire Federal Reserve as an institution and assessing whether it has been a success, this paper by @GeorgeSelgin, @lawrencehwhite1, and Bill Lastrapes is a great place to start. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
.@SecScottBessent: "What we need to do is examine the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful... All of these Ph.D.s over there, I don't know what they do... This is like Universal Basic Income for academic economists."
Stablecoins, especially USDC, are *highly* leveraged as the term is normally used: assets are a large multiple of equity. The definition of unleveraged is assets = equity is, not assets = liabilities.
Thanks! What Congress did in the GENIUS Act is force a layering of the financial system here, where a foundational layer (the stablecoin) is designed to be solid. Leverage could be built on top of the foundational layer, but no leverage is allowed within the foundational layer
Stablecoins ARE fractionally reserved, as the term is traditionally used: base-money reserves are a fraction of liabilities. Non-fractionally reserved means base-money (cash) reserves = liabilities, not assets = liabilities.
I'm aware that credit vehicles are being built around stablecoins for stablecoin owners who want yield and are willing to lock up their stablecoins + take risk to achieve that yield. Congress got this right: stablecoin issuers should not be fractionally-reserved, period. So, if…
Don Boudreaux quotes from a book I edited 40+ years ago: cafehayek.com/2025/07/quotat…
On August 7, 11:45 am EST, I'll be part of a webinar discussion w/ @miltonmueller and @IncompleteRules re “US Dollar Compatibility with Bitcoin" hosted by the @TheIHS. (Or maybe that should be Incompatibility?) You can register to join in here: theihs.org/academic-progr…
Food price controls will cause food shortages. They will … make Hungary hungry. newseu.cgtn.com/news/2025-04-1…
🏛️ Monetarium 2 👤 @lawrencehwhite1 🎙️ Evaluating Reserve’s Endgame Plan: Gold, Bitcoin, or Asset-Backed Currency? ▶️ Full video Why Bitcoin’s fixed supply makes it unsuitable as money, gold’s supply flexibility advantage, and the promise of asset-backed currencies ↓
I too oppose ideological quotas in academia. But “progressives versus liberals is enough diversity of thought” has to be the worst argument for that opposition that I’ve ever seen.
most universities & colleges surely have faculty members who are contrarians? liberals & progressives are always quarreling with one another; "the left eats its own"; hiring conservatives per se will result in very lop-sided resumés especially in the sciences. really, research…
This is one of my favourite books of all time, and I highly recommend that everyone read it through at least once. You can purchase a copy of the book below: cambridge.org/core/books/cla…
Tell me, without saying it directly, that you’ve never studied the history of free banking systems in Scotland, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, or anywhere other than the legislatively hobbled US state systems.
Under “free banking,” private banks would issue their own money. That’s not discipline—that’s chaos. The Fed exists because that model caused panics and collapses for over a century.
When any economist today offers “monetary sovereignty” as a justification for state monopolization of money, I think back to early expressions of that notion, like this one on a coin struck in Islamic Spain, and wonder whether they realize how anachronistic their thinking is.
"For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences" -July 4, 1776