4 ms·

If money is just sitting around, and inflation is high, then it is losing value. The 'idle rich' are penalized. Further, lower-income people often have debts,

If money is just sitting around, and inflation is high, then it is losing value. The 'idle rich' are penalized. Further, lower-income people often have debts, which is reduced (relatively) by inflation. Ideally money wouldn't be just sitting around, and if proverbial piles of it are, perhaps we need to redistribute it more so that it's used more productively. This is why wealth (and not just income) taxes are being talked about more nowadays.

dnautics 6y ago
Lower-income people when they are borrowing, are borrowing at very high interest rates (credit cards or payday loans) and inflation doesn't help those situations at all. The wealthy are systematically benefitting from low-interest loans being reduced in value by inflation -- in the form of corporate bonds and leveraged trading (shorts, forex, margin accounts).
- xxpor 6y ago
  Most rich are asset holders. No poor people are (by definition). Therefore higher inflation (to a point) is better for poorer people.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    Tell that to the manual laborer working a long shift and swinging by a mcdonald's to get a double cheeseburger because there's no time to make food and who has the energy anyways. Oh also, that double cheeseburger is now $2.19 instead of $1.69 Inflation is good for you!
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    Assets keep up with inflation much better than working class wages.
    - xxpor 6y ago
      That might be true today, but wasn't during the last high inflation period of the mid-60s to early-80s.
jschwartzi 6y ago
We're using two different definitions of "hoarding" wealth here. The people you're disagreeing with consider buying up real-estate and company stock to be "hoarding" wealth because those assets could otherwise be put to productive use by someone else. People could otherwise live in those houses and become home-owners. Or the companies in question could get re-structured into smaller more efficient organizations during bankruptcy. It's hard for me to see the value of a real-estate investor buying his millionth acre of land when in earlier times multiple families could live on that land and call it home. In contrast, you're assuming that any money being loaned to anyone is put to "productive use." And the flip-side of that is that the loan will come due some day. So accumulated wealth is used to accumulate more wealth from people who don't have any to begin with. In other words, the hoard of money is being used to extract rent and to hoard even more money. It's hard for me to see the value of that kind of system. It seems to lead to a continual serfdom as most people become renters of everything in their life.
rsync 6y ago
"Further, lower-income people often have debts, which is reduced (relatively) by inflation." It is, indeed, true that inflation can "melt away" existing debts by devaluing both the principal and the interest payments. There is historical precedent of large, debt fueled investments being inflated away: "Anyone with debt benefitted as debts were inflated away to nothing under hyperinflation. For example a Pomeranian landowner took out a loan to purchase a property in February 1922 and repaid it in the autumn from the sale of less than half the crop of a potato field."[1] However, this only occurs with fixed rate loans. Lower income people (US mortgage debt notwithstanding) do not have the opportunity to borrow at fixed terms and it would be very difficult and expensive to incur large debts, for any purpose, at fixed rates. The floating rates that lower income people would, undoubtedly, borrow at would not protect them from inflation. [1] https://www.stewartinvestors.com/all/insights/stap/hyperinflation-in-germany.html https://www.stewartinvestors.com/all/insights/stap/hyperinfl...
- imtringued 6y ago
  I don't think I have ever gotten a floating rate loan in Germany. Are there specific countries or types of loans where these rates are common? Are you talking about credit cards?
  - rsync 6y ago
    Most of my experience is in the United States, where I live. In the US a "normal" mortgage typically has a fixed rate. However, any kind of unsecured loan will have a floating rate. Certainly that includes all credit card debt and any kind of short term business financing like paypal offers. Further, if you have a poor credit score it is likely that your car loan(s) will have a floating rate and that you will be aggressively steered into a floating rate mortgage (an "ARM"). This will be presented to you as a benefit in the form of lower monthly payments (for now).
  - samsonradu 6y ago
    In Romania most of the mortgage loans are floating rate, tracking the 6 month ROBOR (equivalent of EURIBOR).

dnautics 6y ago

Lower-income people when they are borrowing, are borrowing at very high interest rates (credit cards or payday loans) and inflation doesn't help those situations at all. The wealthy are systematically benefitting from low-interest loans being reduced in value by inflation -- in the form of corporate bonds and leveraged trading (shorts, forex, margin accounts).

xxpor 6y ago
Most rich are asset holders. No poor people are (by definition). Therefore higher inflation (to a point) is better for poorer people.
- dnautics 6y ago
  Tell that to the manual laborer working a long shift and swinging by a mcdonald's to get a double cheeseburger because there's no time to make food and who has the energy anyways. Oh also, that double cheeseburger is now $2.19 instead of $1.69 Inflation is good for you!
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  Assets keep up with inflation much better than working class wages.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    That might be true today, but wasn't during the last high inflation period of the mid-60s to early-80s.

jschwartzi 6y ago

We're using two different definitions of "hoarding" wealth here. The people you're disagreeing with consider buying up real-estate and company stock to be "hoarding" wealth because those assets could otherwise be put to productive use by someone else. People could otherwise live in those houses and become home-owners. Or the companies in question could get re-structured into smaller more efficient organizations during bankruptcy. It's hard for me to see the value of a real-estate investor buying his millionth acre of land when in earlier times multiple families could live on that land and call it home. In contrast, you're assuming that any money being loaned to anyone is put to "productive use." And the flip-side of that is that the loan will come due some day. So accumulated wealth is used to accumulate more wealth from people who don't have any to begin with. In other words, the hoard of money is being used to extract rent and to hoard even more money. It's hard for me to see the value of that kind of system. It seems to lead to a continual serfdom as most people become renters of everything in their life.

rsync 6y ago

"Further, lower-income people often have debts, which is reduced (relatively) by inflation." It is, indeed, true that inflation can "melt away" existing debts by devaluing both the principal and the interest payments. There is historical precedent of large, debt fueled investments being inflated away: "Anyone with debt benefitted as debts were inflated away to nothing under hyperinflation. For example a Pomeranian landowner took out a loan to purchase a property in February 1922 and repaid it in the autumn from the sale of less than half the crop of a potato field."[1] However, this only occurs with fixed rate loans. Lower income people (US mortgage debt notwithstanding) do not have the opportunity to borrow at fixed terms and it would be very difficult and expensive to incur large debts, for any purpose, at fixed rates. The floating rates that lower income people would, undoubtedly, borrow at would not protect them from inflation. [1] https://www.stewartinvestors.com/all/insights/stap/hyperinflation-in-germany.html https://www.stewartinvestors.com/all/insights/stap/hyperinfl...

imtringued 6y ago
I don't think I have ever gotten a floating rate loan in Germany. Are there specific countries or types of loans where these rates are common? Are you talking about credit cards?
- rsync 6y ago
  Most of my experience is in the United States, where I live. In the US a "normal" mortgage typically has a fixed rate. However, any kind of unsecured loan will have a floating rate. Certainly that includes all credit card debt and any kind of short term business financing like paypal offers. Further, if you have a poor credit score it is likely that your car loan(s) will have a floating rate and that you will be aggressively steered into a floating rate mortgage (an "ARM"). This will be presented to you as a benefit in the form of lower monthly payments (for now).
- samsonradu 6y ago
  In Romania most of the mortgage loans are floating rate, tracking the 6 month ROBOR (equivalent of EURIBOR).