191–200 of 518 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there are decades of bad policy stacked on top of each other that are responsible for the current mess.
Current administration created gazillions of dollars out of thin air, far more than previous ones. They deserve the credit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Pretty much anybody who has more current liabilities than current assets can expect to benefit from some degree of inflation Except for the fact that they're getting a pay cut year after year. This is why the general public gets so mad about inflation. Like another commenter mentioned, inflation screws over anyone who works for a wage.
> Like another commenter mentioned, inflation screws over anyone who works for a wage. At worst, anyone who works for a fixed wage (and even then, the demand dynamics that create a fixed wage with inflation mean instead people just lose their jobs without inflation, because of the stickiness of nominal wages.)
This includes anyone who works for minimum wage (assuming it's not indexed to inflation), and they are not likely to be able to handle a cut in real pay as easily as, say, middle class homeowners.
Repeat with me: if the inflation is going up, I will run away.
Laughs in Argentinian inflation (50% or more for last years)
Put your money to work when inflation is running loose, look or save on another currency, stock stuff or buy something that is not loosing value.
1001 ways to survive in Latin America
When it starts to get really burdensome to keep your promises, the idea of breaking them gets really attractive. But that doesn't come for free. It costs credibility. The cost of central banks breaking their inflation-control commitment when inflation starts running hot, is that the market starts pricing in their unwillingness to raise interest rates. This fuels a whole bunch of other inflation feedback loops, and th…
Why haven't I been reading this kind of hemming and hawing over the lack of full employment for, oh, the last 50 years or so? The fed has a mandate for that too, but somehow when they didn't manage to achieve it, I never heard about how society is going to collapse any minute now. Only when poor people are making income gains. Strange.
> If inflation were allowed to run a bit higher, it could deliver a long-overdue win for young people who have had to face a combination of stagnant wages and rising housing costs what the hell? Inflation exists as a policy to stiff wage-earners. This is arguably more likely to go exactly the other way than the author expects. Take it from a nobel laureate: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi…
Inflation doesn't exist as a policy to stiff wage earners. Inflation exists as a reality of a growing economy (more goods and services needs more money to cover them). The alternative is deflation, which would be extremely bad. So what we aim for, is low inflation. Which we've had for ~40 years. Low, controlled inflation is the vastly preferable alternative to any amount of deflation, so it's the side of the scale we…
Horrifying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If your goal is stability this is the thing to be questioned. Stability, at what cost? Is it worth tearing up the environment, tricking people into buying shitty disposable consumer products, financializing the economy, and stealing from the poor and unborn to give to the rich in the here and now? I don't really see anyone challenging the tradeoffs of stability in the economic discourse, it's just so often given as…
Hmm; all of those things are what I would associate with breaking the stability promise, that is, reneging on inflation control and holding interest rates low. That encourages borrowing and propels the price of assets. I'd expect your objection to be associated with growth at all costs , not with stability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the national debt is permanent and exists by design. Can you pls point me to something about its design?
If you read history books covering the time just before and after the American revolution, there was a lot of discussion of this topic at the time. A lot of the founder fathers, most notably Alexander Hamilton, believed a national debt was a good thing for the country. The belief is/was that by carrying a substantial debt, you give the bank and financial institutions skin the game and make their success tied to the s…
> If inflation were allowed to run a bit higher, it could deliver a long-overdue win for young people who have had to face a combination of stagnant wages and rising housing costs what the hell? Inflation exists as a policy to stiff wage-earners. This is arguably more likely to go exactly the other way than the author expects. Take it from a nobel laureate: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi…
Don't worry, it'll be great! You'll get a 10% raise, and prices will only be up 15%.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inflation doesn't exist as a policy to stiff wage earners. Inflation exists as a reality of a growing economy (more goods and services needs more money to cover them). The alternative is deflation, which would be extremely bad. So what we aim for, is low inflation. Which we've had for ~40 years. Low, controlled inflation is the vastly preferable alternative to any amount of deflation, so it's the side of the scale we…
Yeah, deflation is awful. Imagine our continuously increased production and efficiency resulting in goods becoming cheaper and the value of the working person’s dollar going farther. Horrifying.
Some inflation is needed; what we don't need is https://brrr.money/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poor people are making _nominal_ income gains. Their real income is actually declining because wage gains aren't keeping up with inflation despite a red hot labor market. It's almost like rents rise to match incomes unless you build more housing. Rent control just means that the costs get offloaded to other things like the security deposit, application fees, and deferred maintenance. You can't regulate the market out…
Except, with higher interest rates the nominal price of housing falls relative to wages. A worker can reasonably hope to buy there way out of rents at some point in the future (assuming the price of the house is set as a multiple of it's rental equivalent cash flow discounted over time)
