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What is energy, actually? (2011)

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Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#171

Post by dustingetz »

hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

it’s a lot simpler than that. People need growth. Nobody wants a pay cut, you would be really unhappy and leave because it messes up your plans, you can’t make your mortgage payment, etc. The need for growth is universal at all scales and layers. Wealthy or poor, Society to cellular. BTW check out Macro Voices podcast.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#172

Post by Ma8ee »

chkaloon wrote: post #165
Ma8ee wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your growing pile of wheat incurs increasing storage and maintenance costs over time. That is quite neglible. The barn will stand there wether there's any wheat in it or not.

Eventually you will need another barn

For the argument I can stop saving wheat after the first bag.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#173

Post by 0xffff2 »

mcny wrote: post #152
adventured wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's asset inflation, which is where most of the Fed's inflation (eg many trillions of dollars of overvaluation into the stock market) via artificially low rates has gone since the Clinton and Bush years when they helped to spark the stock market bubble (#1, #2 and now #3) and then the housing bubble that way. Then they openly admitted to intentionally reinflating the housing market with their various market interven…

> Warren Buffett likes to regularly point out that the Fed's rates act like gravity on stock valuations. The lower the rates, the less gravity. The same is largely true of how housing is affected by the Fed's rates. If you want to absolutely crush housing prices, push Fed rates back up to where mortgage rates are at 15-20% again. What that all really means is, the lower the rates, the more asset valuation inflation o…

Why 5%? That's enough to very nearly double the recurring cost of my house (mortgage, insurance and taxes), which seems overly punitive. Does this get offset somewhere else? Looking at a few quick numbers from Google, just residential property alone would add 50% to current US tax revenues. I'm guessing that means we'd be in the ballpark of doubling Federal tax revenue. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but how do you make sure that money actually goes to the things you listed instead of the military?

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#176

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

pjc50 wrote: post #53
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation may occur due to uncontrollable factors, like scarcity of resources as they are consumed at a basic rate. Increasing scarcity means everyone must now compete harder to get the same basic rate of consumption from the reduced resource pool size, regardless of whether corporations or investments or governments even existed at all. Another source of inflation is increasing wage & benefit demands, especially fro…

Inflation is a side effect of monetary and fiscal policy; central banks are now quite good at adjusting interest rates to keep inflation in the 0-2% band. > In direct response to large classes of workers demanding more pay & benefits, companies will raise their prices to pay for those increases, again totally regardless of whether a stock market exists. How well this works is down to the "tightness" of the labour mar…

Even in a barter economy with no government, money system or central fiscal planning there can be inflation. Inflation is nothing more than sustained higher prices for the same amount of goods or service, no matter the cause. Prices could be denominated in fiat money, currency, bartered physical goods, time, whatever. Inflation could be localized to a cafeteria where kids are trading lunch items for the best desserts, or span the globe in ways that transcend any given government’s ability to use fiscal and monetary policy.

Inflation caused by Federal Reserve actions is just one (minor) type of inflation.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#178

Post by mac01021 »

hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

It's a mistake to assume I'm looking for 0% inflation-adjusted-growth.

Assume there is no inflation. If I have invested $625,000 and I want to retire with the ability to spend $25,000 per year on food, housing, medical care, taxes, travel, and insurance, then I require 4% growth (or dividends!) for that to be sustainable.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#179

Post by 0xffff2 »

maxsilver wrote: post #138
pjc50 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is already almost zero in much of the West. People demand growth because they want to get richer, regardless of the prevailing conditions. I would also like to point out that if there were to be no growth and no inflation (edit: and a static population level!), then the only way to add a dollar to your pile is to permanently make someone else a dollar poorer. That seems likely to accelerate the lethality of…

> Inflation is already zero in much of the West. There is no way this is true. Real world inflation (the kind all working people experience directly) is somewhere between 5-10% year-over-year in the US + Canada today.

You can't just make that claim with absolutely no evidence to back it up.
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