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The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

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Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is high because corporations have increased consumer prices well above their own increases in costs. There's just as much evidence for this claim as "inflation is demand > supply" or "inflation is M2".

Corporations raise prices until demand starts to reduce. If you had a store that was constantly selling out of goods, you’d raise the prices until you stopped constantly selling out, no matter what your input costs are. This is what the Fed is attempting: demand destruction.

This is not a law of nature. It's a function of the idea that you should always seek the highest price you think you can get. That's a very specific political and moral idea, and some people, in some circumstances, would call that "price gouging". Nobody is demanding that a store raises prices in response to being out of stock - the store does it because it believes people will pay more, and if their costs are constant, they will make more money by charging more. There are other conceptions of how this could/should work that do not bestow god-like status on "the highest price that doesn't shrink demand is the right price".

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now imagine what happens when blue collars get saturated again. The downward pressure on their compensation will see the cost to build new homes come down and thus the market will trend towards affordable again? After all, like all things, the cost of a used home is a function of the cost of a new home.

Well, in HCOL areas, the land costs more than the labor charges.

In total, but you're building denser so the per-resident cost ends in a similar ballpark.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an anti-capitalist, I would love a society where everyone benefited from unpleasant jobs being automated away. However, under capitalism, only the owners will benefit. That's because automation turns labor into property. That means the owners of property, capitalists, benefit. If the value of automation were distributed differently it'd be great. If workers owned a company such as in a worker-cooperative structure…

We have a 5000+ year history of automation creating jobs, not destroying them. Any jobs displaced will result in a multiple of new jobs created with the new opportunities it unlocks.

Surely this doesn’t last forever, no? Even if it does, if the rate of job automation is so quick that there’s no way for new workers to be trained before the job becomes obsolete, then it’s effectively unscalable?

I’m not saying we’re in a post-scarcity situation yet, by any means, but it seems inevitable that if humanity continues in the same general direction, it’s only a matter of time before it happens. At which point, such a discussion is unavoidable.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you import labour en mass, pay them less and kick them out when you're done with them. At least that seems to be my country's solution? Literally a permanent underclass of temporary foreign workers propping up parts of the economy.

If by your country you mean, Singapore, then yes. It works because foreign exchange is likely in Singapore's favor. People who come can be indentured servants and help out a lot of people back home. At some point though, the tide begins to turn and you have to find new sources of cheap labor. But, what happens when the sources run dry?

The world is big and never seems to be running of countries going bankrupt or going into chaos. You'll always find new people. Also, Africa just opened the gates for tons of new labor.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#205
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody wants to control inflation until it's time to suppress wage growth. The Bank of Canada even came right and out said that employers should definitely not raise wages quickly. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-wage-negoti...

Bank of Canada's position is very nuanced, but all the nuance is ignored by their critics. They never asked employers not to raise wages this year. They asked them not to bake in e.g. 8% per year wage increase for the next 10 years if they are negotiating a long term contract with a union. The rationale is that while 8% raise this year is reasonable given the inflation rate, the inflation rate will not remain high fo…

Not sure that's much better? Tiff also said "inflation is transitory", but hey, here we are.

And if I'm a union guy negotiating my next 3 year contract and I listen to Tiff and only get 8% this year, then 3% the next two years, is Tiff going to pay the difference when inflation isn't under control?

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly — wealthy people don’t spend most of their money on goods & services, they leave it parked in investments. Reducing a wealthy person’s net worth don’t really affect how much they spend on consumer goods. A poor or working-class person spends (nearly) all of their money on consumer goods. Give them 10% more money and they try to buy 10% more things. Restricting money on the wealthy doesn’t reduce demand fo…

Then tax the wealthy and put that money into the hands of people who actually need it.

Well that causes inflation, was my point, because that money wasn’t (isn’t) being used to compete for consumer goods.

But by redistributing it to lower and middle class, it’s now being spent on consumer goods, increasing demand for the goods, causing inflation.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#207
The mandate is for "stable prices". When a person's body weight is stable it may fluctuate a little but basically stays the same year-over-year. This says "stable prices", https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/section2a.htm

Federal Reserve actually targets 2% per year and regularly exceeds that. Try that with your body weight and look at the scale in a decade when you can't see your toes. Nobody cares to hold Federal Reserve to the law of stable prices.

Notice how they word-smith "stable prices" into "stable inflation".

"... low and stable inflation at the rate of 2 percent per year ..." https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/monetary-polic...

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of Fed monetary policy is to contain inflation back down to the 2% target rate. The knob they have to turn is raising interest rates. There's a lot of steps in between that and inflation coming down. Inflation right now has a strong component of rising Labor costs because of low unemployment and workers having strong ability to bargain for higher salaries. To achieve low inflation in the current environment,…

Iamontocg, this would have been a sufficient explanation in a market with no interdependencies. Yet, the cause of the problem is not workers aiming for a living wage when the income inequality is at its all-time high. Inflation causes vary: 1) Covid business loans 2) Cost of logistics post covid 3) Corporate profits recently hit all time high 4) FX rate with EUR and GBP I agree that the vanilla solution seems to be t…

For your item 1, those loans became gifts.

And point 5 could be ever-increasing federal spending beyond federal taxation.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#209
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zombie company to me sounds like a shell company with one or two people - that is not going to spike unemployment. Unless I don't understand what a zombie company is

Zombie company usually means a company that should close down but continues to exist because capital is soooooo cheap. Imagine things like unprofitable companies that are riding venture capital, etc. Uber could be one, perhaps.

That, and unprofitable companies taking on larger and larger piles of debt to continue their operations. IIRC some 15-20% of listed companies fall in that category.

Re: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

#210
post #70
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treasuries have maturities up to 10 years, so some bonds that will mature in 2030 (and new bonds need to be reissues at current rates) were issued at rates from 2020. Thus, a relatively large portion of the federal debt may be isolated from a relatively short (3-5 year) jump in rates.

Treasuries go up to 30 year maturities. In fact, the 30 year Treasury used to be the leading indicator for the bond market. Most use the 10 year now though.

You are correct, I was thinking the distinction between t-bills, treasury notes and treasury bonds, which denote different maturity length.
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