71–80 of 478 posts
COVID's impacts have not been proportional across the socio-economic spectrum, nor has the benefit of the economic stimulus.
For anyone scratching their head on what "MP3" is: monetary policy 3, i.e. "helicopter money," i.e. "the government be handin out them stimmies," i.e. the government injected COVID-19 relief funds into the economy, giving an across-the-board increase in demand for goods & services, but there aren't enough "goods & services" to keep up with this demand.
Thanks you!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not an economist, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the CPI is gamed somehow, or at least the official government numbers do not reflect the bubble of the US I live in. My friends and family are seeing record wages and investment growth, but when my generation cohort looks at housing and all the numbers there are proportionally even higher, and people are selling 3 year old cars for nearly the nominal price…
CPI is almost certainly gamed. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
For anyone scratching their head on what "MP3" is: monetary policy 3, i.e. "helicopter money," i.e. "the government be handin out them stimmies," i.e. the government injected COVID-19 relief funds into the economy, giving an across-the-board increase in demand for goods & services, but there aren't enough "goods & services" to keep up with this demand.
First really thorough analysis of this situation that I have seen. It is surprising that this observation isn't more common, it is very obvious from looking at sectoral balance sheets...but, I suppose, not many people do this (it is odd to me that what was done during the pandemic had literally never been tried before, there was no economic logic for doing so, and no economist said: hold on, is this a good idea? And…
Seems like all that free money and no one working has definitely caused a supply issue ... yet everyone has tons of money furthering pushing up demand yet supply to meet the demand has shrunk. For those who push for a universal basic income where large groups of people do not work ... do not help produce the supply only push up the demand. Why do you think UBI is still a good idea and you are perfectly fine with how…
Personally, I believe UBI is a good offset for automation strength - an offset for lack of jobs. We're no where near full automation so probably a bit early for UBI, but I do think there's an argument that if the workforce demand isn't met, automation will be used to backfill. Takes time of course, but it's a one way street.
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Thank god we have crypto & NFTs to help people use all this free cash
Actually, that's a good point. Inflation would be even worse if that cash was going into physical goods and services. The government now has an incentive to leave crypto alone aside from providing clarity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not an economist, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the CPI is gamed somehow, or at least the official government numbers do not reflect the bubble of the US I live in. My friends and family are seeing record wages and investment growth, but when my generation cohort looks at housing and all the numbers there are proportionally even higher, and people are selling 3 year old cars for nearly the nominal price…
CPI is almost certainly gamed. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
Some wags have pointed out the price has been constant for many years https://web.archive.org/web/20080512223437/http://www.shadow...
The billion prices project independently collects prices and matches CPI well https://www.businessinsider.com/million-prices-project-vs-th...
Note that the inflation stats in Argentina *were* manipulated and official numbers differed from billion prices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not an economist, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the CPI is gamed somehow, or at least the official government numbers do not reflect the bubble of the US I live in. My friends and family are seeing record wages and investment growth, but when my generation cohort looks at housing and all the numbers there are proportionally even higher, and people are selling 3 year old cars for nearly the nominal price…
CPI is almost certainly gamed. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices...
Is the fuel cost per mile traveled 4 times higher than it was in 1981? No. Fuel prices adjusted for CPI are about identical with what they were in 1981 ($3.80/gallon): https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices... And fuel efficiency has improved by about 40% in that time: https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-... (Even as vehicle reliability and safety and comfort have also gone up.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the macro economic sense, fiat money isn't 'used up' or 'locked away' when you buy something like crypto, it's transferred from your account to someone else's bank account. Worse, it goes through the process of fractional reserve banking and multiplies about ~10x after changing hands repeatedly.
The trickiest question in business that noone seems to get right: Q: How much money flows into "X" market? A: None, money flows THROUGH markets.
If the market valuation goes up to Y+Z, you could say money has "entered" the stock market, pushing its share of value to (Y+Z)/(X+Y+Z) even though the money in circulation, X, could be unchanged.