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Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

yarn.pranshum.com

241–250 of 550 posts

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#241
post #12

Print lotsa money, get lotsa inflation.

Yes, but why now? They have been printing money for a long time. This is a question I have never seen these inflation hawks answer: If printing money triggers inflation, why is there a 14 year lag on that effect?

1) There has been inflation, but partly hidden from everyday folks.

2) They turned up the printing 10x.

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#242
post #86

History teaches us that inflation will continue as long as the government keeps printing fiat money with no backing. For a historical example, the Confederacy had high inflation. The printing press was in Richmond. When Richmond was threatened with a siege, the Confederacy hustled the printing press out to get it to a new, safer location. Confederate inflation paused during the move. The reason is pretty simple - the…

> History teaches us that inflation will continue as long as the government keeps printing fiat money with no backing. You do realize that the US has had fiat money for decades, right? Including our longest period of low inflation, a run of nearly 4 decades. So it would seem history teaches us the opposite. "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

This is not obvious at all. 'decades' is a short term in the history of money. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that switching to fiat causes low inflation in the short term but results in long term hurt. I feel if anything, the past few years should have taught us that things that seem easy or prudent in the short term can lead to long-term issues. Why is it such a stretch to believe that about fiat.

Either way I don't think 'decades' should be used as evidence that any monetary policy is good. We can reconsider if we get to centuries.

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#243

In California, people fitting certain economic criteria are now being issued $1000 checks for inflation relief. This is beyond ludicrous. We have printed so much money, the only solution is to... print more? It's almost like it is all a sneaky backdoor to letting the government redistribute wealth without real oversight...

yes. even though technically california doesnt 'print money'. people are more important than economy. the 'redistribution' is happening to help the most vulnerable and that's exactly what surpluses should be used for..seems like a good use of money to me.

I hate it when people make it seem like the economy and the people are two different things.

The economy is the aggregate capability of a society to provide goods and services to people, if the economy collapses the goods and services that are being provided cease to be as well and people are worse off.

Short sighted statements like "people are more important than the economy" is a feel good virtue signaling that is indicative of an inability to think clearly about the consequences of actions and a substitution of emotional reasoning over rational thought.

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> History teaches us that inflation will continue as long as the government keeps printing fiat money. Of course, that is almost a tautology. The devil is in the details. No inflation is bad because the economy stops. High inflation is bad because of erosion of purchasing power and negative impact on nearly every participant in the economy. So what do you do to get that sweet spot of about 1-2% inflation? I'd say rai…

> Of course, that is almost a tautology Inflation lags the money printing, so it isn't a tautology. > So what do you do to get that sweet spot of about 1-2% inflation? I'm amazed that propaganda of a sweet spot gets so heavily embedded into the popular wisdom. If there is a sweet spot for inflation, it's 0%. Note that the US had net 0% inflation from 1800-1914, while growing from subsistence farming to superpower.

> Note that the US had net 0% inflation from 1800-1914, while growing from subsistence farming to superpower.

This is grossly ahistorical: in 1914, 2/3rds of the US lived in abject poverty[1]. Individual farming, including subsistence farming, didn't peak until the 1930s[2]. The US's ascent to superpower status can be traced, at the earliest, to lending programs begun during WWI (and repeated, to fantastic effect, during WWII).

The US's phenomenal ascent in international status and power is directly tied to its monetary policy, a policy that has more or less kept inflation around 2% since 1935[3].

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150720050803/https://www.irp.w...

[2]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

[3]: https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-inflation-rate-history-b...

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#245
post #230
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that’s not the whole picture… in 1962 the ford truck was $2000 now is around 40,000 so while a new one is better you still have to earn 2x as much to get the most basic one available

When I go to ford.com and look at their basic truck, the 2023 Maverick, I see "starting at $22,195". So if a 1962 truck truly sold for $2000, the inflation seems to account for entirely the price increase. And I'm pretty sure everyone will agree a 2023 Maverick is superior to a 1962 F-100 in every conceivable aspect. Housing and healthcare are better examples of goods or services whose prices have increased faster th…

The F-150 is the lowest cost full size pickup truck Ford makes. If you can't put full sheets of plywood and 2x4s in it, it's not really a pickup truck.

  How Much Does the Ford F-150 Cost?

  The 2022 Ford F-150 starts at $29,990, which is the lowest base price in the full-size pickup truck segment. However, that's for the three-seat Regular Cab, so if you're looking for more room, take note of the Super Cab's $34,075 base price and the SuperCrew's $37,700 MSRP.
Source: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/ford/f-150

The nearest dealer to me had 17 of them ranging in price from USD$34k to USD$62k

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#246

History teaches us that inflation will continue as long as the government keeps printing fiat money with no backing. For a historical example, the Confederacy had high inflation. The printing press was in Richmond. When Richmond was threatened with a siege, the Confederacy hustled the printing press out to get it to a new, safer location. Confederate inflation paused during the move. The reason is pretty simple - the…

> History teaches us that inflation will continue as long as the government keeps printing fiat money. Of course, that is almost a tautology. The devil is in the details. No inflation is bad because the economy stops. High inflation is bad because of erosion of purchasing power and negative impact on nearly every participant in the economy. So what do you do to get that sweet spot of about 1-2% inflation? I'd say rai…

Have you ever noticed you get raises roughly based on last year's inflation and not an estimation of next year's inflation? When the money printers print the people who touch the new money first get to buy assets before the price inflation occurs. Then, once the new money eventually circulates to the peasants, they get to use it to buy goods and services at the new, higher prices.

Inflation is a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy. It is not, by any means, necessary.

https://mises.org/wire/inflation-its-wealth-redistribution-s...

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#247
post #230
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that’s not the whole picture… in 1962 the ford truck was $2000 now is around 40,000 so while a new one is better you still have to earn 2x as much to get the most basic one available

When I go to ford.com and look at their basic truck, the 2023 Maverick, I see "starting at $22,195". So if a 1962 truck truly sold for $2000, the inflation seems to account for entirely the price increase. And I'm pretty sure everyone will agree a 2023 Maverick is superior to a 1962 F-100 in every conceivable aspect. Housing and healthcare are better examples of goods or services whose prices have increased faster th…

You should go to a dealer and try to actually get one for $22,195. Dealers have been gouging with huge fees above sticker / MSRP.

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#249
post #225

Unfortunately I leaned on history to make investment decisions during this period of rising inflation. Gold, stocks, and real estate were historically good hedges against inflation and cash holdings should be minimized. But that conventional wisdom has been a bad strategy this time. As a reminder one ~sure bet is iBonds (the i is for inflation). Last I checked the yield is little shy of 10% and your money only needs…

> Too bad there's a $10k annual deposit limit. It’s $10K per tax identifier, so if you’re married you just doubled it. If you have kids, each of them can buy $10K as well (though be sure to understand that you’re permanently transferring the assets to them, you can’t take it back it’s effectively an early inheritance). You can also buy $10K as a corporation, LLC, or anything else with a tax identifier.

So you could technically open N LLCs and stick $10k in each of them?

Re: Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

#250
post #230
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that’s not the whole picture… in 1962 the ford truck was $2000 now is around 40,000 so while a new one is better you still have to earn 2x as much to get the most basic one available

When I go to ford.com and look at their basic truck, the 2023 Maverick, I see "starting at $22,195". So if a 1962 truck truly sold for $2000, the inflation seems to account for entirely the price increase. And I'm pretty sure everyone will agree a 2023 Maverick is superior to a 1962 F-100 in every conceivable aspect. Housing and healthcare are better examples of goods or services whose prices have increased faster th…

I'd be surprised if you can get a truck at anywhere near MSRP these days. Trucks aren't a great example anyways because they're seen as a luxury good in the US today, which wasn't the case in the 60s.
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