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The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

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Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#281

Post by syshum »

maxerickson wrote: post #172
syshum wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Most other developed nations put a stop to this a long time ago… hmm I wonder if there might be a connection there... as other nation implement price controls a larger part of the R&D and the costs associated with that are born by the US Further Medicare / medicaid price controls to keep the cost of the entitlement program from going bankrupt has transferred the cost to patients not on those programs Third leg of t…

Lots of people get pretty mediocre care in the US, our high spending isn't delivering for everybody. Hospitals complain that Medicare and Medicaid underpay, but it's a modest amount, not something that explains the very high costs for other patients: https://www.aha.org/fact-sheets/2020-01-07-fact-sheet-underp...

I would not call 15% underpayment by 60% customers to be " a modest amount" if a company routinely had to settled 60% of its account payable with a 15% shave those companies would go out of business very quickly

Also in the Hospital context there are other factors that drive up the costs. Keep in mind that about 70-80% of all US Hospitals are non-profit

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#282

Post by ComodoHacker »

aisengard wrote: post #146
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also debatable that there are no costs associated with digital goods. If suddenly Netflix had a surge in subscribers and they doubled them over a short period of time, they'd have to invest in infrastructure to support the extra demand. That would cost them in hardware and human resoursces to handle the extra demand. But yeah, digital services have a better situation at meeting demand than physical goods of whic…

But the surge in revenue from doubling subscribers would (way) more than cover any costs in infrastructure spending. This would not drive any increase in subscription cost, which is purely governed by the competition and content acquisition costs, paired with whatever magic number the major investors/board decides is an acceptable profit margin.

The infrastructure is physical though, and thus is of limited supply. If you really had to double your capacity quickly, you'd have to take the computing power from someone else, at a cost.

Every digital value chain ends up on something physical.

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#283

Post by deanak »

anm89 wrote: post #77
deanak wrote: post #49

So far it's a lot of words and graphs with a tenuous grip on reality in a few places: > There are, however, some groups in lower income brackets that do poorly in inflationary environments. If someone doesn’t have a lot of money and lives on a fixed income in retirement, they have a lot of vulnerability to inflation. Those sorts of folks should consider owning inflation hedges to protect their lifestyle, if they expe…

This is culture war baiting. The whole appeal of someone like Alden is that she isn't playing for either team, shes just trying to step back and analyze. And it is a much more useful an interesting perspective on the world than turning every single discussion into team sports politics. The fact that the parent is one of the more upvoted comments I've ever written seems to indicate that I'm not alone. A final point is…

> shes just trying to step back and analyze... And it is a much more useful an interesting perspective on the world than turning every single discussion into team sports politics.

When is the last time you read a serious financial analysis that divided up 150 years of world history in such a way? Or tried to relate it to investment?

> The fact that the parent is one of the more upvoted comments I've ever written seems to indicate that I'm not alone.

Does that mean you're correct?

> A final point is that her publicly listed example portfolio performance seems to indicate the she has an exceptionally solid grasp on reality.

I read through her website, and it's pretty much the same thing you'll get on other pitch sites ultimately selling a newsletter. It's not bad advice in general, but wealth managers and other investors don't post example portfolios. They post their track record with real money.

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#284

Post by MontyCarloHall »

midasuni wrote: post #221
paulpauper wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Normally, an increase in money supply would cause consumer goods to increase in price, since more people are able to buy them and there is a limit on how much of any particular physical good is available. Computers and other electronics are cheaper than ever on a real and absolute basis despite increased demand and increased money supply

Top model iPhones have increased price about 15% per year since launch

Yes, and they’ve also improved by orders of magnitude in terms of processing power, camera quality, etc.

Today’s top-end iPhone probably would have cost upwards of $10,000 in 2015, if it were even possible to manufacture.

As an aside, someone did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and found that the equivalent computing power of a 2014 iPhone would have cost $32 million in 1991: https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/how-much-would...

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#285

Post by anovikov »

cortesoft wrote: post #34

I've wondered what the effect our modern digital economy has had on consumer price inflation. Normally, an increase in money supply would cause consumer goods to increase in price, since more people are able to buy them and there is a limit on how much of any particular physical good is available. This isn't the case, however, for digital goods. If there are suddenly 100 million new people who want to buy a Netflix s…

Got to add that almost all physical goods are part software these days. In a way, everything becomes software. And fixed costs to create something and put it into the market are huge and tend to grow, but manufacturing unit costs are low and tend to fall.... So this observation applies to most physical goods just as it does to digital ones!

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#286

Post by myfavoritedog »

syshum wrote: post #280
DistressedDrone wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting an accurate portrait of Canada as a whole is very difficult, as healthcare is a provincial responsibility. As a Canadian however, it would not surprise me if most of the people traveling were upper class people trying to bypass the waiting lists. You have to understand that this is inevitable as long as our systems don't have the same level of fairness and people are allowed to "choose" their system. Of cours…

>>By the way, the position on the waiting list is often adjusted according to the urgency of one's situation This is only technically true, and ignores the fact that many medical procedures that are done when something is not critical means making a full and complete recovery with no life long effects but delaying the treatment while sitting on a wait list until the issue becomes "critical" means the problem may only…

You have to remember that to some, as long as everyone is in abject misery, it's "fair".

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#287

Post by rthomas6 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #266
lbschenkel wrote: post #256

Some personal anecdotes. I grew up during the hyperinflation days in Brazil (80s, early 90s): talking about 60% a month. People would get their salary and run to the supermarket and buy everything they needed for the month, because if they waited a single day the prices would have changed. A lot of people internalized that habit and still do that nowadays (not in the sense of running to the supermarket, but buying a…

Thanks for the great story. I’d love to hear more about why the real was successful. Wikipedia makes it sound like it was just luck that Brazil had positive trade balance in the years following its introduction.

Planet money has a good story about it: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/13/788003778/episode-216-how-fou...

Here is a text version: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/788003778

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#288

Post by sgerenser »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #171
sgerenser wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OOP maximums can be the real killer for those with chronic conditions. But at lower to middle income levels even OOP max isn’t always that bad in ACA plans.

OOP max is just a trade off for higher premiums. Either you pay more per month for lower OOP max, or you pay more when the healthcare expenses happens. They’re all actuarially equivalent, per the metal levels of ACA. If anything, people should chose the high deductible high OOP max HSA plan so you can take advantage of tax benefits.

They're not actuarially equivalent if you qualify for "enahnced cost sharing" subsidies: https://www.healthinsurance.org/obamacare/the-acas-cost-shar...

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#289

Post by globular-toast »

BurningFrog wrote: post #104
bob33212 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are entering a Post Scarcity Economy. A lot of fiction books write about how this plays out. Regardless of what happens a lot of economic theory becomes less relevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy#:~:text=... .

As long as people want things they don't have, there will always be scarcity. I'll believe the Post Scarcity Economy only when I see it.

Do you buy as much milk as you can afford? Most food is way beyond scarcity at this point.

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Inflation

#290

Post by globular-toast »

midasuni wrote: post #224
klipt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living space in rural areas is cheap. Living space near good jobs is what's scarce.

Not in the U.K. average house prices in rural areas are far higher than in towns, as they are more desirable.

That's true, but they are also bigger and better. A block of flats in the middle of nowhere would be worth way less than one in a city.
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