191–200 of 693 posts
The Fed is trapped: It can’t raise too much since trillions of debt rely on very low rates. If it doesn’t raise enough then inflation will cause a recession.
It’s even worse - if the Fed actions tank the markets, then millions of retirees who have been enjoying high market values are screwed and have no other source of wealth or income. I do not envy the position the Fed is in.
The Fed is trapped: It can’t raise too much since trillions of debt rely on very low rates. If it doesn’t raise enough then inflation will cause a recession.
It is a position is of its own making. It shouldn't have allowed this massive debt to accumulate in the first place. Cheap credit and the massive debt that comes with it is the main cause of inflation. Now that the whole economy depends on credit and debt, solutions to inflation can't be applied since they negatively affect credit.
IMHO, it's a sign that American innovation has peaked. It's also reflected by the markedly decrease in intellectualism (as if American culture wasn't anti-intellectual to begin with). When I see young students from other countries and compare them to Americans, there is very little valuing education in fact the antagonism is occurring.
For example, math is being scapegoated as systematically discriminating against the lowest performers while the highest performers are being subject to the equivalent of forced confessions, guilt and pushed ridiculous theories about race. Yet despite that camp's calls for equity, it is still okay for Asian Americans to be discriminated at academic institutions and various other fields while there are increased calls for virtue signaling towards other groups who do not get the same scrutiny and insanely high standards. Meanwhile the lowest end of the society are allowed to steal (as long as its under $950), commit crimes without consequences (take a trip to SF to see thanks to calls for community patrols post-Floyd) and descend into the inhumane (mental health issues from drug addictions and poverty being normalized) because there is now a sort of compassion industrial complex armed with the loudspeaker that is social media to manipulate opinions while cancelling out the rational as the enemy.
Meanwhile, the military are increasingly spending large amount of money in video games, making young Americans idolize military & war, if not evident from the war mongering cries out of America for a conflict that they largely put in the groundwork to trap their old enemy, censoring, cancelling any opposing view to their narrative. We are all confused, angry, quick to point fingers at one another, instead of nuanced takes, whatever narrative invokes emotions strongest drowns out other side, regardless of whether they are grounded on reality or outright fabrication.
This is the trickle down effect I notice also at YC, I see increasingly bad ideas being pushed like blockchains without any real adoption, trading of unregistered securities, and SaaS companies without real revenues raise ton of money but with no real business plan or use case. It's clearly a race to IPO and find exit liquidity. ex) Coinbase
This is all a giant mess and I ponder, how did America stoop this low, where did it all go wrong?
Inflation is almost 100% caused by "too much money" chasing "too few goods". "Too much money" is a condition almost always caused by the creation of too much "fiat currency" (ie a currency that is backed by nothing but the good faith and credit of the issuing government) As we all should know, in the US, on 6/5/1933 FDR took the US off gold-backed currency and started the fiat currency situation we still find ourselv…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Among the poverty-striken, sure. But nearly every society has some form of elder care.
True, but almost every society expects its elders to still do some kind of work, usually house work and child care, which helps free the healthy adults to do the more difficult work. Those who can't do that are usually very close to death.
Inflation is almost 100% caused by "too much money" chasing "too few goods". "Too much money" is a condition almost always caused by the creation of too much "fiat currency" (ie a currency that is backed by nothing but the good faith and credit of the issuing government) As we all should know, in the US, on 6/5/1933 FDR took the US off gold-backed currency and started the fiat currency situation we still find ourselv…
> Inflation is almost 100% caused by "too much money" chasing "too few goods". I find it baffling that the "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" crowd never inspects velocity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This literally could mean the difference between living independently or not for a lot of people. Given that quality of assistive care matters, it could literally mean the difference between living and not for people. Of course, on the other hand, so could runaway inflation for lots of people into the same age group (not every elderly person is self-sufficient on retirement income; many are supported by younger, wo…
If your retirement portfolio crumbles with a stock market correction when you’re actively retired, you have made terrible investment choices.
Inflation is almost 100% caused by "too much money" chasing "too few goods". "Too much money" is a condition almost always caused by the creation of too much "fiat currency" (ie a currency that is backed by nothing but the good faith and credit of the issuing government) As we all should know, in the US, on 6/5/1933 FDR took the US off gold-backed currency and started the fiat currency situation we still find ourselv…
Hyperinflation is a terrible thing too. But that does not necessarily make gold backed or non fiat currencies superior as large deflation is very destructive as well.
Inflation is almost 100% caused by "too much money" chasing "too few goods". "Too much money" is a condition almost always caused by the creation of too much "fiat currency" (ie a currency that is backed by nothing but the good faith and credit of the issuing government) As we all should know, in the US, on 6/5/1933 FDR took the US off gold-backed currency and started the fiat currency situation we still find ourselv…
An interesting aspect of this is that the endless printing of money in the last few years was a sort of stress test of modern monetary theory, which has been seeing lots of discussion in those same years. I never quite understood how this theory would work while avoiding inflation, and what's happening now seems to at least be related - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-m... Conceptually the…
Ah yes, surely central planning is the solution.