3 ms·

>Is that.. really the argument you're trying make here? No? My argument is gold is a wildly impractical currency that does not align with the goals of contempo

by RC_ITR 5y ago

>Is that.. really the argument you're trying make here? No? My argument is gold is a wildly impractical currency that does not align with the goals of contemporary society (new supply is randomly distributed to land owners, its extraction ruins valuable natural resources, it requires a significant amount of fossil fuels to move, etc.) I really wonder, why when the average low-income American is in nominal debt at fixed interest rates [0] that HN thinks inflation is bad for them (it is in fact bad for upper middle class savers like the majority of HN, so maybe that's why). [0]https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:125;series:Consumer%20credit;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7;units:levels https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

billytetrud 5y ago
Ok. Yes, gold does have those downsides, I agree. The upside is a limited supply and therefore limited ability to inflate the supply. > why when the average low-income American is in nominal debt at fixed interest rates [0] that HN thinks inflation is bad for them Many reasons. Monetary inflation doesn't just lead to devaluation of the currency - it doesn't just hurt lenders and holders of dollars. Monetary inflation extract Seigniorage from the people. Prices rise before wages, leading the poor to get poorer. The money is used by banks to extract interest from people they give loans to. Read my other comments on this thread tho. I'd rather not rehash it yet again.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  >Prices rise before wages Source? This Chart [0] seems to show they at least move in tandem (with wages maybe having the slight first mover edge). >The money is used by banks to extract interest from people they give loans to Again, I think you're poorly sourced. As sourced in the last comment, in the bottom 50% of US households, credit card debt is 50% of total debt (higher for lower percentiles, but the FED doesn't break that out), and as this chart [1] shows, credit card debt is priced independent of inflation. Where are banks using inflation to exploit the working class, exactly? [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2n https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2n [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2k https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2k
  - billytetrud 5y ago
    Its called the "Sticky Wage Theory". * https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sticky-wage-theory.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sticky-wage-theory.asp Store prices can be adjusted as often as once a week, but wages are generally adjusted only a couple times per year. So it makes sense that wages lag prices. > This Chart [0] seems to show they at least move in tandem They should move in tandem at wide granularities. But there's way too much noise in the chart to really be sure of anything from it. CPI is constantly tweaked, so its hard to even give much meaning to how the line moves throughout this chart. And why just hourly earnings here? There's lots of places that look like one leads the other and vice versa, but it may just be noise. There's too many confounding variables. > Where are banks using inflation to exploit the working class, exactly? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27476789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27476789
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      I mean, I'm going to throw in the towel at 'the data you show isn't right, but I have no alternative and also here's a different unsourced/somewhat ill-informed comment I made'

by RC_ITR 5y ago

billytetrud 5y ago

Ok. Yes, gold does have those downsides, I agree. The upside is a limited supply and therefore limited ability to inflate the supply. > why when the average low-income American is in nominal debt at fixed interest rates [0] that HN thinks inflation is bad for them Many reasons. Monetary inflation doesn't just lead to devaluation of the currency - it doesn't just hurt lenders and holders of dollars. Monetary inflation extract Seigniorage from the people. Prices rise before wages, leading the poor to get poorer. The money is used by banks to extract interest from people they give loans to. Read my other comments on this thread tho. I'd rather not rehash it yet again.

RC_ITR 5y ago
>Prices rise before wages Source? This Chart [0] seems to show they at least move in tandem (with wages maybe having the slight first mover edge). >The money is used by banks to extract interest from people they give loans to Again, I think you're poorly sourced. As sourced in the last comment, in the bottom 50% of US households, credit card debt is 50% of total debt (higher for lower percentiles, but the FED doesn't break that out), and as this chart [1] shows, credit card debt is priced independent of inflation. Where are banks using inflation to exploit the working class, exactly? [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2n https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2n [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2k https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EK2k
- billytetrud 5y ago
  Its called the "Sticky Wage Theory". * https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sticky-wage-theory.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sticky-wage-theory.asp Store prices can be adjusted as often as once a week, but wages are generally adjusted only a couple times per year. So it makes sense that wages lag prices. > This Chart [0] seems to show they at least move in tandem They should move in tandem at wide granularities. But there's way too much noise in the chart to really be sure of anything from it. CPI is constantly tweaked, so its hard to even give much meaning to how the line moves throughout this chart. And why just hourly earnings here? There's lots of places that look like one leads the other and vice versa, but it may just be noise. There's too many confounding variables. > Where are banks using inflation to exploit the working class, exactly? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27476789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27476789
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    I mean, I'm going to throw in the towel at 'the data you show isn't right, but I have no alternative and also here's a different unsourced/somewhat ill-informed comment I made'