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The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

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Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#31

When money supply expands faster than trade, you're going to have a bad time (in the future). We shall see how many USD it takes to buy goods from overseas.

Alternatively, it might turn out to be a pretty good counterbalance to China's tampering with their money supply to keep the yuan artificially much cheaper than it would be in a free market.

Everybody "tampers" with their money supply. And there is no such thing as a "free market". Not in currency, international trade, etc. All markets are controlled and manipulated. It's like every parrots what they hear.

Edit:

Oh god. Here comes the "CCP" nonsense. All countries have tight capital controls. And the tight capital control was part of the bargain for trade between china and the US. It's not like they did it secretly. They did it openly for decades as it was their stated goal and provided benchmarks and press releases. It's like the Fed openly advocating for inflation of 3% for decades and you claiming that they are "tampering". It isn't "tampering". It is the goal/agreement/system/etc. Now whether that capital control regime should continue is another debate. Just like whether 3% inflation is a worthy target. But to claim otherwise is just peter navarro style nonsense. It's just parroting.

Edit1:

> The Euro is the 'least tampered' big currency arguably because they have 25 nations each of whom would scream if the other tampered, meaning almost by definition it has to have integrity.

Hard to imagine such nonsense on HN. One of the problems in the EU is that some countries, like greece/italy/etc, feel that the value of the euro is being too greatly manipulated by germany. It's why britain was part of the EU but kept their currency. It's why every few years you hear about greece or italy leaving the EU/euro. The idea that the euro isn't manipulated is nonsense. All currencies are manipulated to achieve the goals of the nation/region/business community/banks/etc. And all currencies are political instruments as well as financial ones.

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#32

Is anyone (who is paid/lives in the US) concerned about the future value of USD? A lot of my friends are saying I should be investing in cryptocurrencies for future safety, but I don't see those as very stable, so I'm hesitant to put my savings into it.

There are all sorts of inflation-protected assets you can buy. At a basic level, any durable asset will provide inflation protection. But you could also buy things like Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities.

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#33

People keep predicting inflation, but it remains stubbornly below the Fed's target rate of 2%, which is itself low compared to 20th century averages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Consumer_Price_I...

The people who continue to jumble up inflation by its consumer defenition with the huge expanding of the amount of us dollars are only shooting their own wealth and anyone who listens to them's wealth in the foot. All you have to look at is stocks and home real estate to see that assets are ballooning no matter how cheap a dozen of eggs stays.

I mean, to some degree I'm not sure how much it matters. If there's some delayed response to the asset inflation then it'll be concerning, but why are inflated asset prices an issues in and of themselves?

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#34

People keep predicting inflation, but it remains stubbornly below the Fed's target rate of 2%, which is itself low compared to 20th century averages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Consumer_Price_I...

Yeah, maybe a gallon of milk did not increase that much. But did you see prices for houses? for education? for cars? for entertainment? even high-end electronics? Yes, for all those categories there are other (even more important) factors than inflation, but overall, we see a growth much larger than CPI

All the things you enumerated are included in the fed's calculation of CPI. Are you arguing their weightings are bad?

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who continue to jumble up inflation by its consumer defenition with the huge expanding of the amount of us dollars are only shooting their own wealth and anyone who listens to them's wealth in the foot. All you have to look at is stocks and home real estate to see that assets are ballooning no matter how cheap a dozen of eggs stays.

I mean, to some degree I'm not sure how much it matters. If there's some delayed response to the asset inflation then it'll be concerning, but why are inflated asset prices an issues in and of themselves?

Inflated asset prices means most folks are never going to be able to purchase a home, and equities (which generates wealth with no further effort besides the capital invested, for the most part) will continue to be owned by the wealthiest. Inequality worsens when asset prices increase faster than wages.

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#36

The fed has pumped 2.3 trillion dollars into the economy in the past six weeks.... I don't see how the dollar won't crash eventually. Why would foreign countries still buy US bonds?

Because the dollars have not been permanently pumped into the economy, and the world has faith that the Fed will shrink its balance sheet. Printing money and lending it out, and then burning the money when it's repaid, is very different than printing money and using it to buy goods and services.

I think this thread needs an ELI5 for how the whole process works from the ground up as there seems to be a lot of popular misconceptions.

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#37

Is anyone (who is paid/lives in the US) concerned about the future value of USD? A lot of my friends are saying I should be investing in cryptocurrencies for future safety, but I don't see those as very stable, so I'm hesitant to put my savings into it.

I think the safest dollar hedges right now are bluechip tech stocks and a forever home(if you need one and get take advantage of rock bottom rates)

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#38

The fed has pumped 2.3 trillion dollars into the economy in the past six weeks.... I don't see how the dollar won't crash eventually. Why would foreign countries still buy US bonds?

As long as we are the world's reserve currency we can do practically whatever we want.

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#39

People keep predicting inflation, but it remains stubbornly below the Fed's target rate of 2%, which is itself low compared to 20th century averages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Consumer_Price_I...

All this money HAS generated a lot of inflation already, you're just looking at the wrong place. Look at the S&P over the last decade, and especially look at the "V shaped recovery" of 2020.

Re: The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

#40

The fed has pumped 2.3 trillion dollars into the economy in the past six weeks.... I don't see how the dollar won't crash eventually. Why would foreign countries still buy US bonds?

Because the dollars have not been permanently pumped into the economy, and the world has faith that the Fed will shrink its balance sheet. Printing money and lending it out, and then burning the money when it's repaid, is very different than printing money and using it to buy goods and services.

That's a best case scenario and feels overly optimistic. What are the chances it gets fully repaid?
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