Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

eco3min.fr

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 277 posts

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#191

Post by [deleted] »

roncesvalles wrote: post #147
znnajdla wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have checked. It’s too early to tell but anyway relative price is not what matters. What matters is purchasing power. EUR purchasing power was better and improving compared to USD. And check out interest rate derivatives — the euro has actually overtaken the dollar as the #1 currency in this massive market.

Purchasing power for what? Consumer goods? Most purchasing power calculations are completely bogus because they rarely compare goods of equal quality. A neighborhood with just a Walmart doesn't have higher purchasing power than a neighborhood with just a Whole Foods.

[deleted]

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#192

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

wat10000 wrote: post #187
roncesvalles wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if not quite true, it doesn't change my argument since it was more about the rate of change. You can construct the definition of white collar in a way that makes it seem like it's mostly white people, but among high paying job titles within a company, absolutely I would say there are fewer than 50% non-Jewish whites.

Why “non-Jewish”?

You know why.

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#193

Post by logicchains »

alright2565 wrote: post #32

This article over and over describes inflation as a tax or destruction, without backing those claims up. It would be a much stronger article if it focused on the main point rather than having it interspersed with the author's personal opinion of changes in the denominator of a fraction.

>This article over and over describes inflation as a tax or destruction, without backing those claims up

Inflation due to money supply increase being like a tax is a fundamental economic result that doesn't need to be rehashed. If you were to counterfeit a trillion dollars and spend it, what happens? You get more things, reducing the remaining supply of things, and everyone else has the same amount of money but chasing a smaller amount of things, so their purchasing power per dollar goes down. It acts as a wealth transfer from other currency holders to yourself. The same applies if the government creates money, but in that case it's called a tax because wealth transfer to the government is termed taxation.

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#194

Post by wat10000 »

fwipsy wrote: post #98
preommr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe and the Gulf diversifying both their investments and defense purchases. With what? The euro, yuan? Or weapons from france? I hate to admit it, but it's much less that the US is great because it's the reserve currency, and much more that the world reserve currency is the dollar because the US is what it is. Weapons are expensive, and it only makes sense to buy them from a country that specializes in them. And…

I'm having trouble reconciling this comment with reports that US stockpiles are already being depleted by the Iran war. At this point the US weapons production seems relatively specialized and inefficient, not "huge scale." Someone more informed care to weigh in?

I’m probably not more informed, but it seems to me that it can be both. The rate of expenditure in a medium-sized war will far outstrip peacetime production needs. Even if you’re arming half the planet’s militaries, your peacetime production rate will be much smaller than what’s being used now, even if you’re building a lot by non-wartime standards.

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#196

Post by znnajdla »

roncesvalles wrote: post #183
znnajdla wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commodities. Raw materials with which all goods and services are made. Coffee, sugar, wheat, pound of beef, gasoline. Also products which are supposed to be identical like a Big Mac. Purchasing power is hard to measure but it’s a question studied deeply by economists.

Even the Big Mac index is flawed because it's not quite the same burger, since it's not made in the same regulatory environment, or by people compensated equally fairly.

All measures are flawed but can you do better?

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#197

Post by runako »

senderista wrote: post #76
latentframe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Mods, can we please remove this and other obviously AI-generated comments from this account?

This reads like every founder-posted comment from a YC company going back 10 years. "obviously AI-generated" is a stretch.

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#198

Post by wat10000 »

Gud wrote: post #135
preommr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe and the Gulf diversifying both their investments and defense purchases. With what? The euro, yuan? Or weapons from france? I hate to admit it, but it's much less that the US is great because it's the reserve currency, and much more that the world reserve currency is the dollar because the US is what it is. Weapons are expensive, and it only makes sense to buy them from a country that specializes in them. And…

Weapons are only expensive if you want them to be expensive. Ukraine are butchering Russians for 870 USD per dead soldier. The USA has the most expensive weapons in the world, the problem is that much of it is obsolete.

Ukraine butchers soldiers for cheap. The US drops a bomb through the Atatollah’s bedroom window for not-cheap. It’s not clear to me which is more cost effective in the end. (Ignoring for a moment that US strategy in this war seems to be nonexistent. Imagine these capabilities were being used with some actual goal in mind besides “if we take their king then we win.”)

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#199

Post by sp4cec0wb0y »

anal_reactor wrote: post #133
prox wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the internet use is usually “reverse uno (card)” which means the tables are being turned, aka what you tried is being reflected back at you.

I really don't think that HN would ace a card game knowledge test.

Thank you for your faith in HN, anal reactor.

Re: 72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes

#200

Post by rayiner »

probablypower wrote: post #35

This study doesn't correct for baseline exponential decay due to inflation, to better highlight the meaningful variations. By comparing based on 1914 dollars it also causes old variations to be relatively more extreme and newer inflationary events to look less extreme. You must compare apples to apples. Finally the events are quite cherry-picked. It is a conclusion looking for a result, when the statistical reason fo…

Also we’re looking at periods that involve dramatically different monetary policy (gold standard before WWII, Bretton Woods from 1944-1976, then the current regime).
Post reply on HN