7 ms·

There is more to inflation than the value of the currency. Price inflation generally comes from monetary inflation - growth in the money supply. Where does that

There is more to inflation than the value of the currency. Price inflation generally comes from monetary inflation - growth in the money supply. Where does that created money go? Who gets that money? What does it fund? These questions are at the root of the issue. Yes, price inflation reduces the value of debt. However, it also means there is a pretty big disincentive to save money. When you take away an easy avenue for the poor to save money, those people have one less easy way to save for their future. But to the question of who gets the money, this is the concept of seigniorage. The people closest to the money creation get the most value from that money. That's because when that new money is spent, prices haven't accounted for that monetary inflation yet, so they have higher buying power than they should have. When that money trickles down to the rest of us, that money has already lead to devaluation of the money that results in price inflation. In practice, banks, financial institutions close to those banks, and governments get the most benefit from this created money. But this is also a zero sum game. Creating more money doesn't create more wealth. The more currency you create, the lower the value of the currency. So where does the value gained in seigniorage come from? Well it comes from the people farthest away from the hose: the poor. This is why the monetary inflation leads to price inflation means prices go up before wages go up. There's even more to it than this. Its a complex topic. But I hope you see where the iceberg might be.

notahacker 5y ago
Seignorage revenues are distributed amongst ordinary people borrowing money who benefit from lower interest rates rather than being captured by those who own gold mines. Takes a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance to argue granting them to the latter group would be a more progressive approach.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Yeah the flaw is that if the rich get the money early and don't generate inflation, it implies they haven't spent it and thus do not significantly benefit from inflation. They may have gotten a greater share of all USD but they haven't redeemed that share in a way that takes resources away from the poor. If they spend it, poor people would still benefit because the spending is creating jobs in the process. Really, the only problem is land ownership (renting out buildings is fine) and that has nothing to do with inflation, rent seeking is a fundamental problem that drains productivity from the economy.
  - billytetrud 5y ago
    Renting land is actually not "rent seeking". Tho I can see how people make that association. Rent seeking is specifically the act of manipulating pulic policy to gain more money without providing anything in return.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    The money isn't given and isn't targeted at "the rich" anyway. It's lent, with interest. If it wasn't lent, people would have to borrow money from the [mostly] rich, at higher interest rates, so in that respect the rich actually lose a subsidy. Sure, some rich people take out loans (but have to pay it back, which often they do by spending the loan on stuff that creates jobs) and some benefit very indirectly from asset prices rising. But as a general rule the poorest demographic borrows more than they own and lends absolutely nothing, and the richest demographic borrows less than it lends, and sees returns to its lending fall
- billytetrud 5y ago
  Ok, well sort of. The consequences of seigniorage are afforded to those that spend the money earliest, including borrowers if the money borrowed is newly created money. However, the borrowers are paying for that privilege. And everyone else is paying for that privilege down the line. IE the borrower pays interest well in excess of any seigniorage realted benefits, the people or companies he pays with that loan money are selling things to him at a lower rate than they should based on the increased money supply (becuase that information takes time to propagate through the market), so when they spend the money, they have already been taxed. But most banks aren't the originator of that money. The Fed creates money, all other banks lend it out which causes a money multiplier effect. However, the money multiplier doesn't actually affect prices directly - beause most of that money are deposits, ie they're not being used. Money only leads to price inflation when its spent. Banks gain seigniorage by having first access to money lent out or spent by The Fed. If they need extra money to cover for too little deposits, The Fed is there to give those banks below-market-rate loans. If the government needs to borrow more money and banks don't have enough to buy the bonds, The Fed will buy bonds from banks at above market rates so those banks can buy more bonds with the money they get back from that. That's where the seigniorage happens. There are also financial institutions that banks give benefits to (cheap loans for example). Those financial institutions also benefit from seigniorage by getting those cheap loans. Ordinary people aren't getting cheaper loans tho. If anything, the monetary inflation pushes loan rates up, even as nil resere requirements and a low discount rate have pushed them down.
legutierr 5y ago
The way you describe it, it seems that if increases to the money supply were driven by fiscal spending on government programs benefiting the poor and middle class, rather than being driven by monetary action by the Fed, then the poor and the middle class would be the primary beneficiaries of inflation, being as they would be closest to the hose, as you put it. Would you not agree?
- billytetrud 5y ago
  Government programs that benefit the poor and middle class benefit the poor and middle class, by definition really. But since the government is taking this money out as a loan, they need to pay interest on it. The interest they pay is certainly higher than any Seigniorage benefit they get. So the loan (where paying interest is required) is essentially the wall past which Seigniorage no longer benefits the receiver - unless they're getting a below-market-rate loan. Even if the loans were below-market-rate, or 0% interest, this government spending of money that isn't collected in taxes is a recipe for disaster. Eventually, the tax payers (who are primarily the middle class) will pay for it. And often the things the government spends money on are not very efficient, so deficit spending is extra bad in those situations.
  - legutierr 5y ago
    > Government programs that benefit the poor and middle class benefit the poor and middle class, by definition really. Well, of course. But what I was inquiring about was with regard to what would happen if such spending was not financed through deficits but was funded instead by direct money creation, while at the same time money creation by the central bank, etc., was proportionally diminished. If all or most new money originated from entitlement spending (money printed for that purpose), how would that change the inflation dynamic?
    - billytetrud 5y ago
      > what would happen if such spending was not financed through deficits but was funded instead by direct money creation Theoretically it would be better because you wouldn't need to pay a fee (interest) to middle men (banks). However, it would also be potentially a lot more abusable if congress could just create as much money as they want. Arguably the Fed now is abusing this ability anyway, so maybe it would be at least no worse if the government could do it directly. > how would that change the inflation dynamic? Well, devaluation would still happen, so the market distortion that incentivizes bad investments and removes an avenue for saving would still exist. If banks continue to lend out more money than they have, then we'd still have a debt cycle of booms and busts. However, the taxpayers would save money. The people gaining from Seigniorage wouldn't change much - whoever the government gives funding to would be gaining from seigniorage, with the same wealth sapping effects from the rest of the population. It might be a reasonable improvement.
imtringued 5y ago
The real problem is that the Fed isn't powerful enough. It can only set the interest rate and it can't even set it below 0%, it cannot decide how to distribute the money. The only one who can do that is the US government. Republicans hate distributing money fairly because it goes against neoliberalism and people vote for republicans because they believe in austerity at all costs (unless its tax cuts that benefit them personally) and making sure there is a poor group of people at the bottom to provide cheap services.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The real problem is that the Fed isn't powerful enough. It can only set the interest rate and it can't even set it below 0%, AFAICT, experts have for years (even before the recent spat of foreign NIRP uses provided additional experience on the effects and raised new questions about whether the Fed would use them) long indicated that the Fed can set and pursue a negative target rate, but has never really shown interest in doing.
- billytetrud 5y ago
  The Fed can absolutely set interest rates below 0%. However, elites can't collect Seigniorage rents if they aren't creating new money. There's also the issue of creating so many loans that people can't pay them back without new money entering the system. Our system is based on ever expanding money and debt. It will be painful when we're no longer able to expand these things.
  - nine_zeros 5y ago
    This is one thing I've never understood. If all the money is loaned out to the limits of fractional reserve, more money for interest can only come into existence by printing more. So we basically always need to print money.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > If all the money is loaned out to the limits of fractional reserve, more money for interest can only come into existence by printing more. "Fractional Reserve" banking is not a thing, as banks do not lend out reserves (except overnight to other banks). It does not and has never accurately described how banks lend, nor does it accurately define limits to bank lending. The limit to bank lending is capital. Bank capital consists of trusted assets (e.g. IOUs that central banks are willing to discount or which other banks accept as collateral for overnight loans) that are believed to be risk free. Generally this means government debt. Government debt is the sole constraint on bank lending as well as loan growth. Reserves have nothing to do with this in a modern system, and were only incidentally important in earlier systems. > more money for interest can only come into existence by printing more. Please define what you mean by "money". When most people think of money, they think of demand accounts, and these are not created by the government but by the private sector. Clarity in definitions can explain almost all of these misconceptions. A good rule of thumb is that someone who doesn't know what they are talking about mentions only "money". If you know what you are talking about, you specify the asset and matching liability, and so you distinguish between bank reserves, vault cash, deposit accounts, bank bonds, and different bank assets, knowing which meet capital adequacy requirements and which do not. A good description of how the monetary system works is provided by the Bank of England report "Money Creation in a Modern Economy". https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m... That article does a good job at dispelling myths of "fractional reserve banking", "money printing", and the like, and it accurately describes how modern banks work and what central banks actually do. It is required reading for anyone who goes off about "money printing" or whoever thinks that banks lend out reserves.

notahacker 5y ago

Seignorage revenues are distributed amongst ordinary people borrowing money who benefit from lower interest rates rather than being captured by those who own gold mines. Takes a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance to argue granting them to the latter group would be a more progressive approach.

imtringued 5y ago
Yeah the flaw is that if the rich get the money early and don't generate inflation, it implies they haven't spent it and thus do not significantly benefit from inflation. They may have gotten a greater share of all USD but they haven't redeemed that share in a way that takes resources away from the poor. If they spend it, poor people would still benefit because the spending is creating jobs in the process. Really, the only problem is land ownership (renting out buildings is fine) and that has nothing to do with inflation, rent seeking is a fundamental problem that drains productivity from the economy.
- billytetrud 5y ago
  Renting land is actually not "rent seeking". Tho I can see how people make that association. Rent seeking is specifically the act of manipulating pulic policy to gain more money without providing anything in return.
- notahacker 5y ago
  The money isn't given and isn't targeted at "the rich" anyway. It's lent, with interest. If it wasn't lent, people would have to borrow money from the [mostly] rich, at higher interest rates, so in that respect the rich actually lose a subsidy. Sure, some rich people take out loans (but have to pay it back, which often they do by spending the loan on stuff that creates jobs) and some benefit very indirectly from asset prices rising. But as a general rule the poorest demographic borrows more than they own and lends absolutely nothing, and the richest demographic borrows less than it lends, and sees returns to its lending fall
billytetrud 5y ago
Ok, well sort of. The consequences of seigniorage are afforded to those that spend the money earliest, including borrowers if the money borrowed is newly created money. However, the borrowers are paying for that privilege. And everyone else is paying for that privilege down the line. IE the borrower pays interest well in excess of any seigniorage realted benefits, the people or companies he pays with that loan money are selling things to him at a lower rate than they should based on the increased money supply (becuase that information takes time to propagate through the market), so when they spend the money, they have already been taxed. But most banks aren't the originator of that money. The Fed creates money, all other banks lend it out which causes a money multiplier effect. However, the money multiplier doesn't actually affect prices directly - beause most of that money are deposits, ie they're not being used. Money only leads to price inflation when its spent. Banks gain seigniorage by having first access to money lent out or spent by The Fed. If they need extra money to cover for too little deposits, The Fed is there to give those banks below-market-rate loans. If the government needs to borrow more money and banks don't have enough to buy the bonds, The Fed will buy bonds from banks at above market rates so those banks can buy more bonds with the money they get back from that. That's where the seigniorage happens. There are also financial institutions that banks give benefits to (cheap loans for example). Those financial institutions also benefit from seigniorage by getting those cheap loans. Ordinary people aren't getting cheaper loans tho. If anything, the monetary inflation pushes loan rates up, even as nil resere requirements and a low discount rate have pushed them down.

legutierr 5y ago

The way you describe it, it seems that if increases to the money supply were driven by fiscal spending on government programs benefiting the poor and middle class, rather than being driven by monetary action by the Fed, then the poor and the middle class would be the primary beneficiaries of inflation, being as they would be closest to the hose, as you put it. Would you not agree?

billytetrud 5y ago
Government programs that benefit the poor and middle class benefit the poor and middle class, by definition really. But since the government is taking this money out as a loan, they need to pay interest on it. The interest they pay is certainly higher than any Seigniorage benefit they get. So the loan (where paying interest is required) is essentially the wall past which Seigniorage no longer benefits the receiver - unless they're getting a below-market-rate loan. Even if the loans were below-market-rate, or 0% interest, this government spending of money that isn't collected in taxes is a recipe for disaster. Eventually, the tax payers (who are primarily the middle class) will pay for it. And often the things the government spends money on are not very efficient, so deficit spending is extra bad in those situations.
- legutierr 5y ago
  > Government programs that benefit the poor and middle class benefit the poor and middle class, by definition really. Well, of course. But what I was inquiring about was with regard to what would happen if such spending was not financed through deficits but was funded instead by direct money creation, while at the same time money creation by the central bank, etc., was proportionally diminished. If all or most new money originated from entitlement spending (money printed for that purpose), how would that change the inflation dynamic?
  - billytetrud 5y ago
    > what would happen if such spending was not financed through deficits but was funded instead by direct money creation Theoretically it would be better because you wouldn't need to pay a fee (interest) to middle men (banks). However, it would also be potentially a lot more abusable if congress could just create as much money as they want. Arguably the Fed now is abusing this ability anyway, so maybe it would be at least no worse if the government could do it directly. > how would that change the inflation dynamic? Well, devaluation would still happen, so the market distortion that incentivizes bad investments and removes an avenue for saving would still exist. If banks continue to lend out more money than they have, then we'd still have a debt cycle of booms and busts. However, the taxpayers would save money. The people gaining from Seigniorage wouldn't change much - whoever the government gives funding to would be gaining from seigniorage, with the same wealth sapping effects from the rest of the population. It might be a reasonable improvement.

imtringued 5y ago

The real problem is that the Fed isn't powerful enough. It can only set the interest rate and it can't even set it below 0%, it cannot decide how to distribute the money. The only one who can do that is the US government. Republicans hate distributing money fairly because it goes against neoliberalism and people vote for republicans because they believe in austerity at all costs (unless its tax cuts that benefit them personally) and making sure there is a poor group of people at the bottom to provide cheap services.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> The real problem is that the Fed isn't powerful enough. It can only set the interest rate and it can't even set it below 0%, AFAICT, experts have for years (even before the recent spat of foreign NIRP uses provided additional experience on the effects and raised new questions about whether the Fed would use them) long indicated that the Fed can set and pursue a negative target rate, but has never really shown interest in doing.
billytetrud 5y ago
The Fed can absolutely set interest rates below 0%. However, elites can't collect Seigniorage rents if they aren't creating new money. There's also the issue of creating so many loans that people can't pay them back without new money entering the system. Our system is based on ever expanding money and debt. It will be painful when we're no longer able to expand these things.
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  This is one thing I've never understood. If all the money is loaned out to the limits of fractional reserve, more money for interest can only come into existence by printing more. So we basically always need to print money.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > If all the money is loaned out to the limits of fractional reserve, more money for interest can only come into existence by printing more. "Fractional Reserve" banking is not a thing, as banks do not lend out reserves (except overnight to other banks). It does not and has never accurately described how banks lend, nor does it accurately define limits to bank lending. The limit to bank lending is capital. Bank capital consists of trusted assets (e.g. IOUs that central banks are willing to discount or which other banks accept as collateral for overnight loans) that are believed to be risk free. Generally this means government debt. Government debt is the sole constraint on bank lending as well as loan growth. Reserves have nothing to do with this in a modern system, and were only incidentally important in earlier systems. > more money for interest can only come into existence by printing more. Please define what you mean by "money". When most people think of money, they think of demand accounts, and these are not created by the government but by the private sector. Clarity in definitions can explain almost all of these misconceptions. A good rule of thumb is that someone who doesn't know what they are talking about mentions only "money". If you know what you are talking about, you specify the asset and matching liability, and so you distinguish between bank reserves, vault cash, deposit accounts, bank bonds, and different bank assets, knowing which meet capital adequacy requirements and which do not. A good description of how the monetary system works is provided by the Bank of England report "Money Creation in a Modern Economy". https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m... That article does a good job at dispelling myths of "fractional reserve banking", "money printing", and the like, and it accurately describes how modern banks work and what central banks actually do. It is required reading for anyone who goes off about "money printing" or whoever thinks that banks lend out reserves.