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>> Economists weren’t born yesterday. So? They can still be idiots. Idiocy does not have an age limit. >> Inflation is measured in many ways, most often by l

>> Economists weren’t born yesterday. So? They can still be idiots. Idiocy does not have an age limit. >> Inflation is measured in many ways, most often by looking at a basket of goods where the prices are relatively non-volatile. Meaning you remove the items from the basket if it's price jump too much ? so if you tamper with the items in the basket you can project(pretend) that the inflation is not happening.? >> using the USD/Bitcoin ratio as a yardstick for inflation seems very misguided, as Bitcoin is heavily speculated. No it doesn't need to be a yardstick as Bitcoin is not yet in full circulation in the economy but it's growth indicates people are increasingly prioritising it over paper to store value. Re: speculation, everything is a speculation, there are those who keep holding USD in cash and banks and keep speculating that the economic prophets will do the right thing to retain value in their chosen currency.

542458 6y ago
It seems a bit arrogant to claim that every one of the thousands of economists who study inflation are idiots. You can look up the methodologies used to determine the basket of goods. By non-volatile I mean that they’re aggregates over purchasing categories - for example, it’s not the simply the price of a “40inch TV” or cod fillet (which may change in ways non-representative of general purchasing practices - as TVs of a given size get cheaper, or cod has a good year) but an aggregate over the entire purchasing category (fresh fish, consumer electronics) based on typical purchasing habits. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001... When things are added or removed it’s because people have stopped buying that thing (DVD rentals for example).
SamBam 6y ago
> but it's growth indicates people are increasingly prioritising it over paper to store value. Or simply that there are thousands of speculators. (Which isn't even that many people considering the number of people who speculate in stocks.)

542458 6y ago

It seems a bit arrogant to claim that every one of the thousands of economists who study inflation are idiots. You can look up the methodologies used to determine the basket of goods. By non-volatile I mean that they’re aggregates over purchasing categories - for example, it’s not the simply the price of a “40inch TV” or cod fillet (which may change in ways non-representative of general purchasing practices - as TVs of a given size get cheaper, or cod has a good year) but an aggregate over the entire purchasing category (fresh fish, consumer electronics) based on typical purchasing habits. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001... When things are added or removed it’s because people have stopped buying that thing (DVD rentals for example).

SamBam 6y ago

> but it's growth indicates people are increasingly prioritising it over paper to store value. Or simply that there are thousands of speculators. (Which isn't even that many people considering the number of people who speculate in stocks.)