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Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

thewalrus.ca

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Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#461

Post by quadrangle »

RC_ITR wrote: post #428
quadrangle wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Inflation is not about prices" is the silliest thing I've ever heard. You might as well say that gravity has nothing to do with up and down. The only thing anyone MEANS when they say "inflation" is that it's short for "price inflation". But to deal with your point directly: if the U.S. Treasury literally printed a quadrillion dollar bill but then gave it to someone with a contract saying that they agree never to spe…

> You might as well say that gravity has nothing to do with up and down. Gravity doesn’t have anything to do with up and down. It deals with mass and center points. It only appears as up and down to you on earth. Probably a lesson in there somewhere.

> It only appears as up and down to you on earth

Up and down aren't anything but appearances. And since we evolved on Earth, with gravity, our experience of "up" and "down" are specifically caused by indicators that tell us which way the center of our planet's mass is. Sure, it's all perception via our sensory systems, and they can get distorted, so we could sense "up" as toward the earth if something in our sensory system gets messed up (pun in that metaphor hah).

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#462

Post by quadrangle »

randmeerkat wrote: post #454
quadrangle wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really tangential, but "up" and "down" are completely meaningless without gravity. Literally, without gravity, "up" doesn't exist. "Up" is literally just "away from the primary gravitational pull". People on either pole looking away from the planet are both looking up. That's what "up" is. It's funny to realize that two people can look "up" in opposite directions, but that's what's going on. Neither of them i…

“From our experiments, the presence of gravity appears to be a sufficient condition to evoke up/down biases in interceptive responses, at least in some subjects. It is not, however, a necessary condition. Indeed, it is thought that a network of connections involving the insulae and temporoparietal junction of the brain integrates a variety of sensory modalities to define an up/down reference frame and then tunes fast…

Up and down are perceptions that we evolved specifically to indirectly sense gravity. "nothing to do with" is wrong, it's like saying that thermometers have nothing to do with temperature because various versions of them can get miscalibrated and are really visual devices.

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#463

Post by quadrangle »

RC_ITR wrote: post #427
ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uh no, cryptocurrencies can't generate USD. If I buy crypto from a miner, the dollars don't disappear. The miner uses it to buy energy and semiconductors, which makes its way around the econony until some miniscule fraction of it comes back to me. (The loss of assets in the economy needed to create the transaction does not destroy dollars, but it does destroy finite resources such as fuel or sunlight for energy, th…

Lol, you’re trying to talk about the credit multiplier as it relates to crypto with a crypto fan. Maybe a lost cause?

How did you imagine me to be a crypto fan??? I'm a total crypto-cynic sympathetic to the argument that it's all a speculative wasteful scam.

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#464

Post by Ericson2314 »

NumberWangMan wrote: post #382
Ericson2314 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MM it's more complicated than that. The classical dichotomy people, simplified, think money is arbitrary like "inches" are arbitrary, and you can always choose different units. On hand hand, that's saying money doesn't matter, on the other hand, that's saying that, ignoring the coefficient, the "monetary economy" and "real economy" do the same things. Spending the time to talk about both separately is acknowledging t…

Hmm, I take issue with one of your points. To say that real wages have gone up since 2019, does not mean that they wouldn't have gone up more if we had lower inflation. There are all sorts of reasons why real wages change. Maybe increased worker bargaining power as a result of the stimulus checks is a factor. As for raising rates hurting poor people -- inflation hurts poor people a lot too, especially if they're not…

If we didn't do a stimulus we would probably have a huge recession and slow af recovery, just like 2009. That would be terrible for real wages.

If we did do something about inflation, what would it be? How would it it effect those poor whose real wage had been going up?

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#465

Post by quadrangle »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #420
quadrangle wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are far more dollars floating around thanks to crypto Uh no, cryptocurrencies can't generate USD. But if you meant "dollars" as a generic term for currency, then sure, kinda yeah, to the degree that cryptocurrencies are actually working as currencies (which they mostly are not). Anyway, the "deflationary" claim is internal to a cryptocurrency. Nobody is asserting that cryptocurrencies cause deflation of USD.

> Uh no, cryptocurrencies can't generate USD. If I buy crypto from a miner, the dollars don't disappear. The miner uses it to buy energy and semiconductors, which makes its way around the econony until some miniscule fraction of it comes back to me. (The loss of assets in the economy needed to create the transaction does not destroy dollars, but it does destroy finite resources such as fuel or sunlight for energy, th…

I'm not following. Yes, cryptocurrency mining and the buying of it with dollars has effects on the world, but "generate" dollars?? Economic activity doesn't generate dollars. Do you mean the standard metaphorical "make money" which really means "get paid"?

If a single dollar gets pushed around a small economy a thousand times in a day, it is facilitating economic activity, but that doesn't increase or decrease the money supply.

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#466

Post by randmeerkat »

quadrangle wrote: post #462
randmeerkat wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“From our experiments, the presence of gravity appears to be a sufficient condition to evoke up/down biases in interceptive responses, at least in some subjects. It is not, however, a necessary condition. Indeed, it is thought that a network of connections involving the insulae and temporoparietal junction of the brain integrates a variety of sensory modalities to define an up/down reference frame and then tunes fast…

Up and down are perceptions that we evolved specifically to indirectly sense gravity. "nothing to do with" is wrong, it's like saying that thermometers have nothing to do with temperature because various versions of them can get miscalibrated and are really visual devices.

> Up and down are perceptions that we evolved specifically to indirectly sense gravity.

I disagree. We evolved to orient ourselves in the environment that we operate in. Does a giant squid perceive up / down based on gravity or pressure differences in the water depth..?

> it's like saying that thermometers have nothing to do with temperature

I also disagree with this analogy. Gravity is a force of nature, unlike a thermometer which is a human invention to describe one’s environment.

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#467

Post by RC_ITR »

quadrangle wrote: post #461
RC_ITR wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might as well say that gravity has nothing to do with up and down. Gravity doesn’t have anything to do with up and down. It deals with mass and center points. It only appears as up and down to you on earth. Probably a lesson in there somewhere.

> It only appears as up and down to you on earth Up and down aren't anything but appearances. And since we evolved on Earth, with gravity, our experience of "up" and "down" are specifically caused by indicators that tell us which way the center of our planet's mass is. Sure, it's all perception via our sensory systems, and they can get distorted, so we could sense "up" as toward the earth if something in our sensory…

Yeah so our sense of up and down has everything to do with gravity but not vice versa.

Again, lessons to be learned…

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#468

Post by vorpalhex »

adolph wrote: post #201
vorpalhex wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are pretty close to full employment. Rising groceries and fuel costs hurt everyone, but that hurt is more so on the poor who have less overall cash flow.

> We are pretty close to full employment. The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job was little changed at 5.7 million in January. This measure decreased by 1.3 million over the year but is 708,000 higher than in February 2020. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take…

> These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job.

I mean, I suppose we can forcibly employ everyone? Anyone not employed in two weeks gets contracted out to the IRS or whatever.. but that doesn't seem to be the goal.

If you aren't looking for a job, and you can't take a job.. you aren't going to be employed. That isn't some kind of "only the strong survive" thing, that's just a tautology - you must in fact apply for jobs to get a job.

Why do you think "people who aren't looking for jobs aren't employed!" is a response here?

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#469

Post by TameAntelope »

pdonis wrote: post #355
TameAntelope wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot make both criticisms and remain internally consistent in your argument. Either you do know what is in the data or you can't know what's in the data. You cannot argue both, and yet you continue to try. Nothing else in your comment follows, since this does not follow.

> You cannot make both criticisms and remain internally consistent Sure I can. The inconsistency you think you see is in the straw man version of my argument that you have concocted in your head, not in my actual argument.

It is an inconsistency I think I see, because an inconsistency exists in your actual argument, though your attempt at gaslighting me is a perfectly fine example of why I'm not going to continue with this conversation any further, so thank you for that.

Re: Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

#470

Post by TameAntelope »

oonerspism wrote: post #417
TameAntelope wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point is that $10 added daily food cost results in the food producer being able to hire more employees, which means the person who makes $0/day can make $300/day now. Also these numbers are super weird. It's probably more like $10 total daily food cost going up to like $10.30, and going from making $30/day (part time minimum wage) to $50 (near full-time minimum wage).

The numbers were symbolic to illustrate proportional effect. I'm not seeing a great deal of causation in your theory. The same amount of food is being produced, thus the same amount of work is done - so extra employees are not required. If anything, in your closed system theory, the food producer is going to laugh and pocket extra profits.

The same amount of food is not produced, more food is produced because it's the only way the food company can keep up with inflation.
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