Quote from: thefiniteidea on February 15, 2013, 01:00:41 PM

Quote from: Etlase2 on February 13, 2013, 12:02:36 AM

Money supply inflation means there is more money in the money supply than previously. Supply on its own has nothing to do with value (in a vacuum, admittedly), it is only a quantity; only when it is combined with demand can you determine a value or price.

"Keynesian economic theory proposes that changes in money supply do not directly affect prices, and that visible inflation is the result of pressures in the economy expressing themselves in prices." -Keynesian view of inflation

Carefully read what I wrote and try again. I am trying to neutrally define a term without any accompanying effect, not deny an effect happening.

From your OP on money supply deflation:
"so you have sort of a "deflationary effect" in the value, as long as more exchange occurs for BTC at a rate which is faster than that set generation rate."

You are doing the same thing as the keynesian definition but to the opposite effect.

*I* am not claiming that money supply inflation has an effect one way or the other. *I* am defining a term without judgment or predilection. Before you can determine a value or a change in value, you need to know the demand or change in demand. The terms "money supply inflation" or "money supply deflation", in the clearest sense of the words, can only mean an increase or decrease in the money supply. That's the whole point of writing "money supply" in front of the words. Unfortunately and less clearly, "money supply" can mean the total number of individual undivided units (including the money multiplier for most measurements), or it can mean those units in circulation (this one, more often than not).

Either way, it is not a measurement of value. An example of the "right" way to use these terms:

The Fed expanded the money supply by 3.6% last year. That money supply inflation is believed to have caused most of the 3.1% price inflation over the same time frame, leaving 0.5% to real growth.

See how clear and direct that statement was? That's because cause and effect are clearly portrayed, and they can also be clearly argued for or against if necessary. The sentence asks, "do you have better data to refute this claim?" not "what kind of fuzzy logic can you come up with to confuse the average joe?" like what happens when the words inflation and deflation are tossed around naked.

To top this off: there are plenty of periods that actually exist in history where you could make this statement "The fed expanded the money supply by x% last year. That money supply inflation is believed to helped encourage the x+1% growth over the same period." Maybe they're not as common, maybe it's a sign of a bubble, but the fact remains that you cannot say for certain that the same cause always has the same effect. There are WAY TOO MANY VARIABLES. In the same vein, you can't be sure the same effect has the same cause. So the cause has to be separate, without bias and analyzed on its own merit.

By separating out money supply inflation/deflation vs. price inflation/deflation, your goal should be to clearly and simply define those terms--then use them to make the statement that you want to make (and make an attempt at being unbiased--do not make guarantees), not make your statement within the definitions. It is dishonest otherwise, but perhaps just misguided.