4 ms·

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.

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.