Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles • Hacker News Board

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#81

Post by lowkey » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

verall wrote: post #79

lowkey wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has got to be the laziest rebuttal - think of the orphans! I'm sorry you felt my argument to be lazy. Allow me to elaborate. Widows and orphans is a common trope in finance that refers to the most vulnerable members of society, those without the pricing power to keep up with inflation. Typically it means those on a fixed income such as pensioners. These 'widows and orphans' are the worst hit by inflation since…

Orphans are children and wards of the state. They are not laboring (I hope). The government could print fiat money and give it to them, and their wealth would still grow with inflation. With deflation, their 0 dollars do not increase, and it is impossible for them to find jobs when the grow up. The modern monetary system, which is inflationary, is obviously biased towards wealth holders. This does not imply that a de…

Again, ‘widows and orphans’ is a well established term when referring to the impact of inflation. It generally refers to those on fixed incomes - i.e. those without the pricing power to fight for increases in income to combat inflation.

You seem to be stuck on the word orphans, let’s use ‘those on a fixed income’ instead.

If you can get past the word orphans, may I ask you to address the core point of my argument?

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#82

Post by verall » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

lowkey wrote: post #81

verall wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orphans are children and wards of the state. They are not laboring (I hope). The government could print fiat money and give it to them, and their wealth would still grow with inflation. With deflation, their 0 dollars do not increase, and it is impossible for them to find jobs when the grow up. The modern monetary system, which is inflationary, is obviously biased towards wealth holders. This does not imply that a de…

Again, ‘widows and orphans’ is a well established term when referring to the impact of inflation. It generally refers to those on fixed incomes - i.e. those without the pricing power to fight for increases in income to combat inflation. You seem to be stuck on the word orphans, let’s use ‘those on a fixed income’ instead. If you can get past the word orphans, may I ask you to address the core point of my argument?

Your core argument has, from my view, morphed from "inflation hurts the poor and downtrodden" to "inflation hurts those with a fixed income".

My questions are:

Why must widows or orphans or anyone have a fixed income?

What is the problem with the government providing subsistence incomes indexed to inflation and letting wealtholders fortunes get inflated away?

How does deflation, which proportionally rewards holders of currency, help those with a fixed income more than inflationary handouts?

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#83

Post by lowkey » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:18 PM UTC

verall wrote: post #82

lowkey wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, ‘widows and orphans’ is a well established term when referring to the impact of inflation. It generally refers to those on fixed incomes - i.e. those without the pricing power to fight for increases in income to combat inflation. You seem to be stuck on the word orphans, let’s use ‘those on a fixed income’ instead. If you can get past the word orphans, may I ask you to address the core point of my argument?

Your core argument has, from my view, morphed from "inflation hurts the poor and downtrodden" to "inflation hurts those with a fixed income". My questions are: Why must widows or orphans or anyone have a fixed income? What is the problem with the government providing subsistence incomes indexed to inflation and letting wealtholders fortunes get inflated away? How does deflation, which proportionally rewards holders o…

> What is the problem with the government providing subsistence incomes indexed to inflation ..

There is nothing wrong with the idea except it does not exist. Show me a country where governments provide subsistence income indexed to the official inflation rate, let alone the real rate of inflation. Show me a gov that allows minimum wage to increase at anything approaching inflation. Or show me a traditional bank account that will allow them to save at a rate that keeps up with inflation - It doesn’t exist.

> and letting wealtholders fortunes get inflated away?

and show me a wealtholder who’s fortune is held in cash instead of scarce assets so as to be inflated away - doesn’t exist.

> How does deflation, which proportionally rewards holders of currency, help those with a fixed income more than inflationary handouts?

Watch the bottom 70% of El Salvador’s citizens over the next decade for a real world example. They now get a decentralized savings account denominated in a currency growing at 200% y/y instead of one that is constantly being debased (USD printed 50% of all dollars ever created during the pandemic) - except for crypto no bank account will ever again pay enough interest to keep up with inflation.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#84

Post by lowkey » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

verall wrote: post #82

lowkey wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, ‘widows and orphans’ is a well established term when referring to the impact of inflation. It generally refers to those on fixed incomes - i.e. those without the pricing power to fight for increases in income to combat inflation. You seem to be stuck on the word orphans, let’s use ‘those on a fixed income’ instead. If you can get past the word orphans, may I ask you to address the core point of my argument?

Your core argument has, from my view, morphed from "inflation hurts the poor and downtrodden" to "inflation hurts those with a fixed income". My questions are: Why must widows or orphans or anyone have a fixed income? What is the problem with the government providing subsistence incomes indexed to inflation and letting wealtholders fortunes get inflated away? How does deflation, which proportionally rewards holders o…

> Your core argument has, from my view, morphed from "inflation hurts the poor and downtrodden" to "inflation hurts those with a fixed income".

No, my argument has always been that inflation disproportionately hurts the poor more than the rich.

You are either misinterpreting my words or intentionally being misleading. Again the ‘widows and orphans’ or those on a fixed income references were simply examples. My argument applies to those on low incomes, middle income or even high incomes.

Only those wealthy enough to live entirely off investments have the potential to suffer a little less from inflation.

I say suffer a little less because even the idle rich suffer from currency debasement - just less than this who are less well off.