The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
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Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#2In a well functioning capitalist economy prices should constantly decrease.
The workaround is to get so large, that only the government could possibly compete with you, then you control prices.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#3In a well functioning capitalist economy prices should constantly decrease. The workaround is to get so large, that only the government could possibly compete with you, then you control prices.
wait, so there's no profit in capitalism?
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#4In a well functioning capitalist economy prices should constantly decrease. The workaround is to get so large, that only the government could possibly compete with you, then you control prices.
And then you exclaim that it's the fault of what little regulation there is that's keeping the prices up, and that the prices will drop as soon as the government allows us to pay below minimum wage/hire children/loosen health-and-safety regulations.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#5I mean it's not just prices.
If my income and benefits had tracked with inflation and promotions I wouldn't mind.
But I got promoted and lost 20% of my purchasing power in real terms.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#6That people do not understand very basic concepts is scary.
> The root of what’s going on here can feel obvious: blame inflation, which picked up in mid-2021 and throughout 2022. But that isn’t really the issue anymore, at least not at the current rate, because inflation is coming down. The actual problem here is prices.
Inflation going from 10% to 5% is "inflation is coming down" - but it means that prices are rising at 5% a year instead of 10% a year.
If you want prices to go down - the inflation number would have a negative sign infront of it. Then they would be writing about how scary deflationary spirals are.
The problem is inflation - and inflation like all returns compound year after year.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#7In a well functioning capitalist economy prices should constantly decrease. The workaround is to get so large, that only the government could possibly compete with you, then you control prices.
I guess this might be true if all goods are commodities but if you look at the details pretty much all goods aren't. If you make a pair of shoes that lasts twice as long and looks twice as good, you can charge twice the price and people will happily buy it and that's a good thing.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#8I mean it's not just prices. If my income and benefits had tracked with inflation and promotions I wouldn't mind. But I got promoted and lost 20% of my purchasing power in real terms.
That's the point though, the Fed main lever to lower inflation is causing pain in the market.
When they say soft landing they really just mean they believe they can break things just enough to cool down the economy and get back to the magic number of 2-3% inflation.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#9That people do not understand very basic concepts is scary. > The root of what’s going on here can feel obvious: blame inflation, which picked up in mid-2021 and throughout 2022. But that isn’t really the issue anymore, at least not at the current rate, because inflation is coming down. The actual problem here is prices. Inflation going from 10% to 5% is "inflation is coming down" - but it means that prices are risin…
It’s really disheartening to see the percentage of people that don’t understand this (and feel perfectly comfortable having an argument about it). People posting comparisons of receipts from 8 years ago and saying that prices are “really still up 30%” and “they’re lying to us”.
Re: The problem isn't inflation. It's prices. What goes up may not come down
#10That people do not understand very basic concepts is scary. > The root of what’s going on here can feel obvious: blame inflation, which picked up in mid-2021 and throughout 2022. But that isn’t really the issue anymore, at least not at the current rate, because inflation is coming down. The actual problem here is prices. Inflation going from 10% to 5% is "inflation is coming down" - but it means that prices are risin…
Deflationary spirals are scary, at least for a debt and consumption driven economy like ours.
In theory supply and demand should force prices back down over time, but ongoing consolidation/monopolies/backdoor price fixing (RealPage, Amazon Marketplace) kinda broke the efficient market stuff.
Trust bust before the economy busts?