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Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

bbc.com

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Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#91

Post by latchkey »

diogenes4 wrote: post #66
amjnsx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a tale as old as time unfortunately. Currencies have been debased for centuries. It won’t change until we have actual hard money that can’t be debased by leaders/bankers/politicians.

Sorry, is there any reason to expect money to revert to behaving like gold any time soon? Sounds suspiciously like crypto tripe. Why would that be beneficial anyway? The relative purchasing power of poor countries won't change without some serious shifting in resource distribution worldwide.

I saved this comment a while ago... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26238410

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#92

Post by latchkey »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #31
toomanyrichers wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What blows me away is that it appears to have no bearing to what people can actually afford? If the houses aren’t sitting on the market, people can afford them. I think what actually happened is people realized that housing was underpriced . Which is insane in terms of the raw numbers, but it’s the truth: lack of supply along with increasing numbers of buyers means that the market really is that hot. Sucks to be la…

Building a little cabin out in the woods with starlink is looking increasingly tempting honestly...

Even easier and more mobile... buy a campervan and hang out in national forests.

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#93

Post by saltcured »

helen___keller wrote: post #42

Change is scary. Change for the worse is terrifying. From my observation, most people rightfully assume their incomes aren’t going to rise very fast, if at all. We’re in a world where some people would call a 3% annual raise “generous”. The correct and only way to get by inflation without getting pinched is to make sure your income raises to match cost of living increase. But a lot of people don’t live in the rat rac…

For those with some savings, you also need to understand how to get into inflation-resistant investments if you want to not be pinched by savings. Otherwise this spiral of increasing wages makes your prior savings irrelevant.

On the other hand, those with some debt need the financial wisdom to use their spiraling wages to pay down debt principal and not let the debt spiral due to increasing interest rates.

So, high inflation can be a kind of continuous cash debt/savings jubilee, resetting small-time debtors and savers to living hand-to-mouth as it erases their cash history. But it can accelerate the gap between the worst debtors and the biggest investors who are on opposite sides of the spiral...

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#94

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #86
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article cited 7.2% as the price inflation rate, which is close to the rate of 7.6% calculated by the Office for National Statistics based on my household spending[1] and is consistent with my personal experience. Do you know if those figures factor in non-consumables like housing and insurance? Asking because many US areas are seeing 20-100% jumps (or higher), year over year over year. When your largest expense…

What areas have seen housing or insurance costs jump over 100% year-over-year?

Florida. We moved in 2021 to same size house (but 25mi further out) and our rent is 1.95x our last rent. Rents generally doubled in our last neighborhood, one expired lease at a time. Typically, long existing tenants were not given opportunity to renew and new tenants got the new doubled rate.

Some of those old tenants joined the ranks of homeless people with savings, because there was nowhere to go. My sister may be one (diff state). We'll know more tomorrow.

Insurance stores are even more dire.

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#95

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #26
michaelteter wrote: post #4

Financial anxiety: Media - the primary instigator It's one thing to feel financially tight. It's another thing to have endless news articles and publications and posts warning of how bad the global economy is and how inflation is running out of control. Not only does this constant negative message directly cause stress on the viewers, but it can cause fear in business which can lead to "precautionary" retractions...…

I think it's great to check media sensationalism, but I think there's a massive disconnect between the impacts of inflation on highly paid software engineers, and most Americans. It's also a bit strange to see you view media as a completely separate entity from "decision-makers in companies". My experience has been that most decision makers in companies get most of their ideas entirely from the board and major invest…

> I think it's great to check media sensationalism, but I think there's a massive disconnect between the impacts of inflation on highly paid software engineers, and most Americans.

Thank you for saying this, it's exactly what was going through my head while reading that post.

The very idea that money problems are in people's heads, while it can be true, people are panicking not because the media told them to but because they can see for themselves that they don't make enough money.

If you've never been through it you may not understand. When we hit the recession in the early 90's my family quite literally did not make enough money to afford everything month to month (stepfather worked at a grocery store). We were slowly going into debt just to survive (bills, housing, food, gas).

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#96

Post by Moldoteck »

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #48
StuntPope wrote: post #14

They talk about inflation like it comes from a comet out of deep space. Not one mention that inflation is caused by the government and central banks expanding the money supply.

>Not one mention that inflation is caused by the government and central banks expanding the money supply. The recent inflation is more because of unfettered capitalism. Supply chain issues? Ok let's just keep on raising prices as much as we can. Things back under control? Ok, well we are still going to claim we have issues and just keep on raising prices. Workers want more money? Ok instead of us shareholders taking…

Imo it's bc of monopoly. Imagine a world where there sre thousands of processor manufacturers, not just tsmc, samsung and ~5 more at best

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#97

Post by Gibbon1 »

michaelteter wrote: post #4

Financial anxiety: Media - the primary instigator It's one thing to feel financially tight. It's another thing to have endless news articles and publications and posts warning of how bad the global economy is and how inflation is running out of control. Not only does this constant negative message directly cause stress on the viewers, but it can cause fear in business which can lead to "precautionary" retractions...…

> can cause fear in business which can lead to "precautionary" retractions... which can exacerbate the actual market problems.

Thing I learned a long time ago from an experience[1]. Managers often place more trust in what they read in rags like the NYT and the WSJ than they do their in house experts. Which is crazy because the guys that scribble for those outfits are relative buffoons with a knack for writing and nothing else. And relying on third hand bullshit most of the time.

[1] VP said we were idiots because what were were saying didn't line up with an article he read in Inc Magazine.

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#98

Post by wing-_-nuts »

latchkey wrote: post #92
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a little cabin out in the woods with starlink is looking increasingly tempting honestly...

Even easier and more mobile... buy a campervan and hang out in national forests.

Gotta have my owner shower and shitter. There's a certain level of basic hygiene I refuse to go below.

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#99

Post by makeitdouble »

BadCookie wrote: post #83

The song “Rich Men North of Richmond” really captures the zeitgeist. It was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart in August. If you haven’t heard it, it’s worth a listen. “‘Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end” https://youtu.be/sqSA-SY5Hro

The controversy around it is the funniest part to me, as it also revolves around paying in mass for downloads to get to the top.

NPR's mostly neutral take on it: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197954458

Re: Financial anxiety: The alarming side effect of inflation

#100

Post by datadrivenangel »

hbossy wrote: post #19
datadrivenangel wrote: post #12

I visited Argentina earlier this year, and the psychological effects of years of inflation were very real. The exchange rate has gone from 5 pesos per USD, to 350 officially in the last 10 years. The unofficial rate is up to almost 900 pesos per USD. In March the unofficial rate was half of that, so the currency has lost 50% of its value in the last 6 months. Everybody prefers to be paid in dollars, and if you're get…

Is it harder to travel from abroad? I imagine that thousands of $1 bills might rise some eyebrows at customs.

You get the best exchange rate with crisp $100 bills, and any USD that is damaged or too worn will get rejected by the money changers... Which makes you see where the demand for dollars is greatest (The wealthy).
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