Thursday, December 23, 2010

Yes to Kling, no to money

Why did money and velocity show less mirror-image behavior from 1960 through 1979? Beckworth's answer is that the Fed was doing a lousy job of offsetting velocity shocks. My answer is that velocity was less able to offset monetary shocks.
Says Kling in his latest position on the velocity.

My point would be that the retail transaction rate, the rate at which the typical consumer walked to the typical store to buy the typical bag of groceries. That rate*size should have two specific stable points, the corner store equivalent of MV.  Further I will claim that the total Tr*S quantity in the inflated state will be 15% more than the rate in the deflated state.
Then Kling says:
I do believe, however, that if the U.S. government were really determined to have inflation in the short term, that could be accomplished. If we printed dollars and used them to by foreign assets in massive amounts, that would to the trick.
No, within the current velocity rate (time constant) a reverse channel of flows would compensate. The exchange rate will always be within 15% of stabilization. When the observed discrepancy exceeds that value, the entire Levine rank of one or both economies will adjust. In fact, I think the central banker will be psychological incapable of screwing up exchange rates until the perceived imbalance exceeds 15%.

When we get hyperinflationary, then money no longer works as money and people have already adapted a secondary exchange that meets the 15% rule.

Quantum channels are fundamental in nature, the hydraulic model is the approximation.

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