Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the solution to the "two-income trap".
Wouldn't a 2.5 day work week actually be the solution to the "two-income-trap"?
Oh look, enough time in the week for 2 jobs!
Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
571–580 of 619 posts
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>In the current environment, cost inflation is not a problem anymore. Everyone person who lives paycheck to paycheck, and is barely keeping their head above water as the cost of everything continues to skyrocket disagrees with you. Good luck telling them that "cost inflation is not a problem anymore". I can't speak to how things are in Denmark, but without a doubt the situation for young people (especially those loo…
Please don't mix up monetary and fiscal policies. The US is not famous for their redistribution politics especially not the past 30 years. In Denmark we have numerous policies in place, that ensures that housing stays as housing and does not become a speculative asset - this is good if you want to buy a house the popular places. Also, remember this is macro dynamics. Yes, houses are more expensive in the bay area. Bu…
>>But I bet that housing has comparatively gone down in value in less popular areas.
You would lose that bet.
Other than a few places where the town/city as literally being abandoned (i.e. towns in the middle of nowhere were the last factory has shut down) - home process have gone up everywhere in the last 3-4 years, and pretty dramatically so.
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How do you incentivize this? Who needs to incentivize it? People already have an incentive to produce goods and services, because people want and need things in order to live whatever life they want to live (food, clothing, and shelter at a minimum, but of course there are lots of other things people want), so they have to either produce those things themselves or produce something that can be traded for them. Of c…
> Not at all, it’s the opposite of communist, since it involves no central planning Central planning is a feature of state capitalism, not communism. (It’s true that regimes–universally of the Leninist bent which adapted Marxism in the hopes of getting it to work in situations where the prerequisites did not exist–claiming to be Communist in ideological orientation almost invariably got stuck in state capitalist phas…
By your definition of "communism", it has never existed and never will exist, since any country that tries it will get stuck at what you are calling "state capitalism".
While I agree that "state capitalism" is a fair description of the current system in the US and other Western countries, I don't think it's a fair description of the Soviet Union, or of Pol Pot's Cambodia, or of the People's Republic of China under Mao (to give some examples of states that are usually called "communist"). It might be a fair description of the PRC today (even though the PRC still calls itself "communist").
I would agree, though, that all of those regimes are examples of central planning.
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not at all, it’s the opposite of communist, since it involves no central planning Central planning is a feature of state capitalism, not communism. (It’s true that regimes–universally of the Leninist bent which adapted Marxism in the hopes of getting it to work in situations where the prerequisites did not exist–claiming to be Communist in ideological orientation almost invariably got stuck in state capitalist phas…
By your definition of "communism", it has never existed and never will exist, since any country that tries it will get stuck at what you are calling "state capitalism". While I agree that "state capitalism" is a fair description of the current system in the US and other Western countries, I don't think it's a fair description of the Soviet Union, or of Pol Pot's Cambodia, or of the People's Republic of China under Ma…
> By your definition of "communism", it has never existed
Yeah in communist theory, “communism" as a thing is an ultimate goal (and in many schools of communist thought, a relatively distant one).
> and never will exist, since any country that tries it will get stuck at what you are calling "state capitalism".
No, only the Leninist-derived approaches that try to bypass private capitalism get stuck in state capitalism (or migrate from that toward a system that looks a lot like fascist corporatism, as in the PRC.)
The displacement of the system Marx originally described as “capitalism” with what has been described as “mixed economies” is closer to what you might expect if Marxist (not Leninist) Communists tried to implement their program of moving toward communism in the conditions Marx saw as necessary to begin that transition.
> While I agree that "state capitalism" is a fair description of the current system in the US and other Western countries
It is not, it is a description Lenin made of a deliberate choice made by the USSR as a transitional step, which doesn't resemble anything done in the US very closely.
> I don't think it's a fair description of the Soviet Union, or of Pol Pot's Cambodia, or of the People's Republic of China under Mao (to give some examples of states that are usually called "communist").
All of those involved the state acting in the role of a major or sole legally tolerated capitalist. It's possible to imagine, I suppose, central planning in a decentralized, cooperative, voluntary way without that feature, but no actual regime has done that (though subsidies and incentives that fall short of coercive directive commands in mixed economies are, at least, something vaguely in that direction compared both to the absence of central planning in pure [private] capitalism and the authoritarian central planning in “communist” state capitalism.)
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't mix up monetary and fiscal policies. The US is not famous for their redistribution politics especially not the past 30 years. In Denmark we have numerous policies in place, that ensures that housing stays as housing and does not become a speculative asset - this is good if you want to buy a house the popular places. Also, remember this is macro dynamics. Yes, houses are more expensive in the bay area. Bu…
>>But I bet that housing has comparatively gone down in value in less popular areas. You would lose that bet. Other than a few places where the town/city as literally being abandoned (i.e. towns in the middle of nowhere were the last factory has shut down) - home process have gone up everywhere in the last 3-4 years, and pretty dramatically so.
Americans are more than capable of changing these things through fiscal policies.
Or just impose regulations: an example of what we do in Denmark is to make house owners liable for having somebody to live in the unit (bopælspligt).
Would you seriously want the FED to solve the housing crisis instead of democratic appointed representatives?
that is absolutely absurd.
edit:
Anyways, to keep focus median house prices has seen a major correction after interest rates went up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
combine this with higher salaries, and you can infer yourself that you get more house for you money now.
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't answer their question: Define "better": is a higher CPI better, or is a lower CPI better? Why is a lower CPI better for the government? In what way does the CPI calculation translate to a "problem" and why does lower CPI = "smaller problem"?
I did answer the question - I said a lower CPI is better for the government because it makes it look like inflation isn't as bad as it is. Do you think it's better to report 5% inflation or 10% inflation? Regardless of what you report, the inflation is what it is. Modern politics is about pretending to solve problems, not actually solving them.
> I said a lower CPI is better for the government because it makes it look like inflation isn't as bad as it is.
Let me guess, you think anything other than 0% inflation is "bad"?
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Economic growth means producing more goods and services. How do you incentivize this? Your view seems fairly communist. Also how does a net new innovation factor into this framework. New pharmaceuticals for previously untreatable diseases for example. What slice of the fixed money pie do those get? > But that is because the quantity of Bitcoin is not fixed. People can mint more. Sorry pal this is sophistry. Your co…
> How do you incentivize this? Who needs to incentivize it? People already have an incentive to produce goods and services, because people want and need things in order to live whatever life they want to live (food, clothing, and shelter at a minimum, but of course there are lots of other things people want), so they have to either produce those things themselves or produce something that can be traded for them. Of c…
> They are not treating Bitcoin as money.
Indeed. So will Bitcoin become relevant to this discussion in 2140 when new issuance ends? I’m not sure there’s much difference between then and now in practice as 95% it all Bitcoin possible is already live on the chain.
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering how difficult it has become (even pre-COVID) for young people to buy a home, your argument flies in the face of reality, doesn't it?
Buy a home where? In the area of a thriving city? Where everyone wants to live?
Anywhere. Young people have to move to thriving cities to get better paying jobs and education for better paying jobs, because they cannot afford homes where they were born with the salaries and opportunities there.
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
'Just kidding' refers to what's above it. Sorry for the confusion; it wasn't intended but I can understand it.
So people should ignore their expenses going way up, and not bother plotting them or whatever because...?
You might be posting to the wrong subthread?
Re: Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. A lot of people trot out the argument that you'd just save money instead of spending if there was deflation. But electronics are deflating, and how often do people save money instead of spending on electronics? People still buy electronics because, simply, they want the electronics. Purchases may be pushed back a little, perhaps until the next generation of device comes out, but this doesn't have much of an…
But electronics are deflating,… Electronics have become cheaper through gargantuan investments of capital. Such investments are actively discouraged by deflation. And in an inflationary world, you can just park your money in government bonds (effectively returning it back to the Fed) to beat inflation most of the time. Inflation doesn't force you to spend your money productively Putting your money in government bonds…
This comment avoids responding to the actual point about electronics, which is that deflation is alleged to cause certain effects, and when we observe deflation, we don't actually observe those effects, so why is that?