4 ms·

Its called inflation. They do that already, just less honestly.

didericis 6y ago
Exactly. It’s exacerbated by stimulus spending. Money is printed and spent in areas meant to stimulate more spending. That devalues the dollar and diminishes the value of savings.
JamesBarney 6y ago
What's dishonest about inflation?
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Inflation is slightly less upfront than a wealth tax on dollars that would involve you sending in a form every year. Generally speaking anything less than the most upfront option will result in large numbers of people not realizing what's going on.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    Upfront? We've had inflation for the last 100 years, almost everyone knows what inflation is. And even if they don't know the term they are probably familiar with the concept that their grandfather could buy more with a nickel than you could today. I really can't see how inflation is in any way dishonest. Not to mention the amount of money maid via taxes(1.5 trillion) absolutes dwarfs any revenue from seigniorage(65 billion). https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/16075/usa-seigniorage-revenue#:~:text=At%20an%20average%20inflation%20rate,of%20seignorage%20revenue%20per%20year https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/16075/usa-seig....
    - BobbyJo 6y ago
      Inflation is highly variable, and the body that can turn the most knobs (the Fed) doesn't have a good track record of predicting what the effect of that knob turning will do lately. Also, when the government borrows money and the fed buys notes to keep borrowing rates low, that still produces inflation. The fed is sitting on about 4T$ in bonds as of now.
      - JamesBarney 6y ago
        > Also, when the government borrows money and the fed buys notes to keep borrowing rates low, that still produces inflation. Assuming interest rates aren't 0 or near 0 that's true. But recently inflation has been consistently lower than historical norms.
        BobbyJo 6y ago
        Which the fed itself has attributed to fluke changes in the market they couldn't foresee.
- sparkie 6y ago
  It's taxation without representation. You don't get a vote. You get increased prices and reduced purchasing power whether you like it or not.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    I imagine the majority of dollars are held by Americans who can vote, and most non-Americans could always choose not to hold onto dollars.
    - ur-whale 6y ago
      First, a large fraction of Americans can't even understand the rule of 3, much less how they are being milked by their own government via (among many, many other mechanisms) inflation. Second, this is a typical "boiling the frog" type of taxation, which is slow and spread over long periods of time (typically portions of whole lifetimes) and even people with enough brains to understand the problem don't really pay attention because it's never felt as an immediate pain.
- Torwald 6y ago
  The grandparent did not say that inflation is dishonest. He said that the political class is dishonest, because they do take money out of the taxpayer's pocket via inflation. Presumably the grandparent sees this conduct as more dishonest than what was discussed earlier, because it does not require a accompanying public statement, which states explicitly that money is taken out of taxpayer's pockets.
Raidion 6y ago
It's not less honest, the federal reserve literally sets targets for inflation and publishes them. Everyone railing against fiat money while loving bitcoin have the exact same views as a government economist. The only difference is that the bitcoin/gold side keeps on trying to think of US Dollars as a store of value while the government and economists know it's a medium of exchange. The fact that people keep money under mattresses is a failure of the educational system, not a failure of monetary policy.
- id02009 6y ago
  It is dishonest. The liquidity is not being injected everywhere at once. Those who get to spend it first enjoy the full purchasing power at the expense of everybody else. Also imagine a person keeping 3000$ for a rainy day. He can't buy stocks, because rainy day could come at a stock dip. Losing 23% of that money in 5 years (assuming 5% inflation). How is it a failure of an educational system, not monetary policy?
- krupan 6y ago
  "It's not less honest [of the government]...[it] is a failure of the [government run] educational system" Think about that for a minute
  - id02009 6y ago
    OMG, excellent catch!
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  > The only difference is that the bitcoin/gold side keeps on trying to think of US Dollars as a store of value while the government and economists know it's a medium of exchange. Both. In the end, everything is a commodity — Apologies to Baudrillard
InvaderFizz 6y ago
Then remember the double whammy of inflation and fixed tax brackets. Tax brackets do not increase with inflation. So eventually we'll all be in the highest bracket, the change is just so slow that no one really realizes what is happening.

Exactly. It’s exacerbated by stimulus spending. Money is printed and spent in areas meant to stimulate more spending. That devalues the dollar and diminishes the value of savings.

JamesBarney 6y ago

What's dishonest about inflation?

whatshisface 6y ago
Inflation is slightly less upfront than a wealth tax on dollars that would involve you sending in a form every year. Generally speaking anything less than the most upfront option will result in large numbers of people not realizing what's going on.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Upfront? We've had inflation for the last 100 years, almost everyone knows what inflation is. And even if they don't know the term they are probably familiar with the concept that their grandfather could buy more with a nickel than you could today. I really can't see how inflation is in any way dishonest. Not to mention the amount of money maid via taxes(1.5 trillion) absolutes dwarfs any revenue from seigniorage(65 billion). https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/16075/usa-seigniorage-revenue#:~:text=At%20an%20average%20inflation%20rate,of%20seignorage%20revenue%20per%20year https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/16075/usa-seig....
  - BobbyJo 6y ago
    Inflation is highly variable, and the body that can turn the most knobs (the Fed) doesn't have a good track record of predicting what the effect of that knob turning will do lately. Also, when the government borrows money and the fed buys notes to keep borrowing rates low, that still produces inflation. The fed is sitting on about 4T$ in bonds as of now.
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      > Also, when the government borrows money and the fed buys notes to keep borrowing rates low, that still produces inflation. Assuming interest rates aren't 0 or near 0 that's true. But recently inflation has been consistently lower than historical norms.
      - BobbyJo 6y ago
        Which the fed itself has attributed to fluke changes in the market they couldn't foresee.
sparkie 6y ago
It's taxation without representation. You don't get a vote. You get increased prices and reduced purchasing power whether you like it or not.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  I imagine the majority of dollars are held by Americans who can vote, and most non-Americans could always choose not to hold onto dollars.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    First, a large fraction of Americans can't even understand the rule of 3, much less how they are being milked by their own government via (among many, many other mechanisms) inflation. Second, this is a typical "boiling the frog" type of taxation, which is slow and spread over long periods of time (typically portions of whole lifetimes) and even people with enough brains to understand the problem don't really pay attention because it's never felt as an immediate pain.
Torwald 6y ago
The grandparent did not say that inflation is dishonest. He said that the political class is dishonest, because they do take money out of the taxpayer's pocket via inflation. Presumably the grandparent sees this conduct as more dishonest than what was discussed earlier, because it does not require a accompanying public statement, which states explicitly that money is taken out of taxpayer's pockets.

Raidion 6y ago

It's not less honest, the federal reserve literally sets targets for inflation and publishes them. Everyone railing against fiat money while loving bitcoin have the exact same views as a government economist. The only difference is that the bitcoin/gold side keeps on trying to think of US Dollars as a store of value while the government and economists know it's a medium of exchange. The fact that people keep money under mattresses is a failure of the educational system, not a failure of monetary policy.

id02009 6y ago
It is dishonest. The liquidity is not being injected everywhere at once. Those who get to spend it first enjoy the full purchasing power at the expense of everybody else. Also imagine a person keeping 3000$ for a rainy day. He can't buy stocks, because rainy day could come at a stock dip. Losing 23% of that money in 5 years (assuming 5% inflation). How is it a failure of an educational system, not monetary policy?
krupan 6y ago
"It's not less honest [of the government]...[it] is a failure of the [government run] educational system" Think about that for a minute
- id02009 6y ago
  OMG, excellent catch!
alfiedotwtf 6y ago
> The only difference is that the bitcoin/gold side keeps on trying to think of US Dollars as a store of value while the government and economists know it's a medium of exchange. Both. In the end, everything is a commodity — Apologies to Baudrillard

InvaderFizz 6y ago

Then remember the double whammy of inflation and fixed tax brackets. Tax brackets do not increase with inflation. So eventually we'll all be in the highest bracket, the change is just so slow that no one really realizes what is happening.