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> The government can print USD for themselves, effectively stealing money from everyone through inflation. Not quite. The only people bitten by inflation in th

by nuerow 5y ago

> The government can print USD for themselves, effectively stealing money from everyone through inflation. Not quite. The only people bitten by inflation in the long run are those who stockpile cash and intend to perpetually live off capital gains without contributing anything to society. Meanwhile, the vast majority, which are either salaried employees or own businesses, see both their income and expenditures adjusted to inflation. This is in fact one of the often ignored aspects of inflation, as well as taxes: a way to mitigate or avoid concentrations of wealth detrimental to society.

christophilus 5y ago
AKA stealing from the elderly to fund today’s excesses.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nuerow 5y ago
  > * AKA stealing from the elderly to fund today’s excesses.* I appreciate a good appeal to pity, but unfortunately you got it completely wrong. Even though pension funds use investments to complement their investment pool, they are primarily funded through contributions from the employer and existing members as an income redistribution scheme[1]. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pensionplan.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pensionplan.asp
fsflover 5y ago
> The only people bitten by inflation in the long run are those who stockpile cash and intend to perpetually live off capital gains without contributing anything to society. This is completely missing the point. People with big amounts of cash never keep it, they invest in something to avoid inflation. The only people who suffer are poor people who happen to have a small amount of USD saved for a rainy day.
argentinian 5y ago
> This is in fact one of the often ignored aspects of inflation, as well as taxes: a way to mitigate or avoid concentrations of wealth detrimental to society. As somebody living in Argentina, a country with usual double digit inflation, your argument is complete bullshit. Here the wealthy are not affected by inflation: they can save in real state, strong currencies, shares... And the same rich families stay rich for generations. We also have very high taxes. Inflation harms the poor more than the rich. Try living in Argentina for some years and you will learn.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > As somebody living in Argentina, a country with usual double digit inflation, your argument is complete bullshit. The only bullshit I spot is this idea to use Argentina, or Zimbabwe or Venezuela, as the posterchild of responsible monetary and economic policies, when they are actually the result of gross and perpetual mismanagement. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-argentina-faces-an-economic-crisis-again-11569422388 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-argentina-faces-an-economic... Meanwhile most of the world reaps the benefits of sane and responsible monetary policies, and thus is free from hyperinflation, and somehow that's supposed to mean nothing? Only your cherry-picked appeals to emotion matter? Even the European Union, which has been subjected to quantitative easing policies from around a whole decade and thus has been seeing their central banks print money like crazy, at most only complains about low inflation and mild economic stagnation.
  - argentinian 5y ago
    I agree, the inflation here is the effect of the perpetual and gross mismanagement. What about your idea regarding inflation as a way to avoid concentrations of wealth? (the idea I quoted and I replied to). That one is unsustainable.
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > What about your idea regarding inflation as a way to avoid concentrations of wealth? (the idea I quoted and I replied to). That one is unsustainable. You're free to discuss the facts I've pointed out, instead of going off on a tangent with a non-sequitur regarding Argentina's hyperinflation. It's undeniable that stockpiling cash out of the economy has a deeply negative social, economic, and even fiscal impact on a nation. Inflation provides an incentive to actually put the money to use, and interest rates for the most conservative investments, like risk-free bonds, are then used to provide incentives to couple investments with economic cycles.

by nuerow 5y ago

christophilus 5y ago

AKA stealing from the elderly to fund today’s excesses.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nuerow 5y ago
> * AKA stealing from the elderly to fund today’s excesses.* I appreciate a good appeal to pity, but unfortunately you got it completely wrong. Even though pension funds use investments to complement their investment pool, they are primarily funded through contributions from the employer and existing members as an income redistribution scheme[1]. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pensionplan.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pensionplan.asp

fsflover 5y ago

> The only people bitten by inflation in the long run are those who stockpile cash and intend to perpetually live off capital gains without contributing anything to society. This is completely missing the point. People with big amounts of cash never keep it, they invest in something to avoid inflation. The only people who suffer are poor people who happen to have a small amount of USD saved for a rainy day.

argentinian 5y ago

> This is in fact one of the often ignored aspects of inflation, as well as taxes: a way to mitigate or avoid concentrations of wealth detrimental to society. As somebody living in Argentina, a country with usual double digit inflation, your argument is complete bullshit. Here the wealthy are not affected by inflation: they can save in real state, strong currencies, shares... And the same rich families stay rich for generations. We also have very high taxes. Inflation harms the poor more than the rich. Try living in Argentina for some years and you will learn.

nuerow 5y ago
> As somebody living in Argentina, a country with usual double digit inflation, your argument is complete bullshit. The only bullshit I spot is this idea to use Argentina, or Zimbabwe or Venezuela, as the posterchild of responsible monetary and economic policies, when they are actually the result of gross and perpetual mismanagement. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-argentina-faces-an-economic-crisis-again-11569422388 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-argentina-faces-an-economic... Meanwhile most of the world reaps the benefits of sane and responsible monetary policies, and thus is free from hyperinflation, and somehow that's supposed to mean nothing? Only your cherry-picked appeals to emotion matter? Even the European Union, which has been subjected to quantitative easing policies from around a whole decade and thus has been seeing their central banks print money like crazy, at most only complains about low inflation and mild economic stagnation.
- argentinian 5y ago
  I agree, the inflation here is the effect of the perpetual and gross mismanagement. What about your idea regarding inflation as a way to avoid concentrations of wealth? (the idea I quoted and I replied to). That one is unsustainable.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > What about your idea regarding inflation as a way to avoid concentrations of wealth? (the idea I quoted and I replied to). That one is unsustainable. You're free to discuss the facts I've pointed out, instead of going off on a tangent with a non-sequitur regarding Argentina's hyperinflation. It's undeniable that stockpiling cash out of the economy has a deeply negative social, economic, and even fiscal impact on a nation. Inflation provides an incentive to actually put the money to use, and interest rates for the most conservative investments, like risk-free bonds, are then used to provide incentives to couple investments with economic cycles.