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> What if I were to tell you that the average worker who works for wages for 40 years will lose 40% I'd point out that this was true only of workers who stored

> What if I were to tell you that the average worker who works for wages for 40 years will lose 40% I'd point out that this was true only of workers who stored all their earnings over those 40 years in cash, and approximately 0% of workers do this. The actual average worker spends a portion of their income pretty quickly on goods and sticks savings into some combination of pension, savings accounts and a house. > Why is it bad for workers to have another option for storing their savings? Because "workers" aren't the people with vast reserves of wealth, they're the people who are paid by people with vast reserves of wealth. Make the vast reserves of wealth a zero or negative sum game, and they'll store that wealth in deflationary currency instead of businesses that generate less revenue each year, and the workers will find that their ability to get paid goes down every year.

throwaway248329 5y ago
The workers, unlike capitlists, earn a fixed salary. Inflation makes this salary have increasingly less buying power. This way workers are forced to negotiate a raise every year just to keep up with inflation and don't become poorer. So, to be able to save, workers are forced to buy real estate that they don't need, making it less affordable for people who actually need to buy a house or get exposed to stock market risks. All these problems caused by absence of hard money.
- notahacker 5y ago
  "Workers are forced to buy real estate that they don't need" No, the average worker definitely isn't forced to buy more houses than they live in :D I mean, it's always been obvious that the "lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor" is an astroturf movement by the ultra rich who have successfully lobbied for tax breaks for the rich and elimination of worker protections to blame something else [which removing would further benefit them] for the logical consequences of their actions, but the complete failure to understand what an average worker actually does with money is particularly amusing in this subthread. Strong people who don't work for a living cosplaying people who do energy here... Since falling wage levels literally are deflation it's a bit hard to argue with a straight face that what the workers really need to be better off is a good old dose of deflationary currency.
  - throwaway248329 5y ago
    Do you disagree that real estate is used as a hedge against inflation, which artificially increases the prices? And you can call "lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor" an astroturf, but it's something that actually makes sense to me when I look at the arguments.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      To the extent capitalist speculation on housing as an inflation hedge drives up the prices of assets workers store much of their wealth in, it benefits them a lot more than "not bothering to invest in anything at all, least of all job creation" being the rich's hedge against deflation If it "makes sense to you" that the lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor, it probably helps to consider that workers were much poorer for the vast majority of human history with a Gold Standard...
      - throwaway248329 5y ago
        >If it "makes sense to you" that the lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor, it probably helps to consider that workers were much poorer for the vast majority of human history with a Gold Standard... That doesn't tell much. Anyone was much poorer for the vast majority of human history. How do you explain the wealth inequality trend change starting from 1971? https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
        notahacker 5y ago
        It doesn't, for the most part. In most of the graphs its pretty obvious the rich getting richer bit happened in the 1980s, not the 1970s. It's also obvious their share of wealth was particularly large in the 1920s, when there was a very pure gold standard. (And of course back when most people were so much poorer there wasnt even enough food to go around, the rich still had palaces, servants and mountains of gold to fund wars to engage in the most profitable economic activity of capturing other people's gold) But obviously the people who advocated the tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s are highly, highly motivated to pretend it was leaving Gold Standard several years earlier that did it. Not least because going back to a gold standard would allow them to make that gap even bigger - the 1% could HODL the 30% their wealth in risk free, liquid, appreciating coins instead of having to take actual risks and create actual jobs. But the deflation that preserves their wealth as they withdraw from funding productive activity is - quite literally - everyone else's wages and sales revenues going down.
lowkey 5y ago
Under a fiat system those workers were forced to put their hard earned life savings into the stock market or real estate in order to escape the ravages of inflation. Despite all the talk about the time value of money in finance, under a fiat regime it is impossible to save your earnings for the future in a bank account or Certificate of Deposit such that you come out ahead after inflation over time. The fact that there is no option to save an enjoy positive inflation-adjusted returns without taking on market risk is an indication of what a scam the current system of fractional reserve banking and artificially manipulated interest rates is. > Because "workers" aren't the people with vast reserves of wealth, they're the people who are paid by people with vast reserves of wealth. Really? Workers have less wealth than rich people so it’s okay to steal their wages via inflation? /s Please explain your reasoning further.
- notahacker 5y ago
  > Really? Workers have less wealth than rich people so it's OK to steal their wages via inflation. No, workers have less wealth than rich people (no wealth, in the case of a sizeable fraction of the population)so it's not OK for rich people to steal their wages by getting "positive inflation adjusted returns without taking on market risk". I mean, where do you think "risk adjusted returns without taking on market risk" come from? They come from other people doing more work for the same cash payment.
  - lowkey 5y ago
    An FDIC insured bank account is already limited to a specific amount in order to prevent the 'rich' from free-riding. It still isn't clear to me why you would try to justify a system that doesn't allow an average wage earner or pensioner the mere possibility of earning a positive inflation adjusted (not risk-adjusted) return on savings? Why are risk-free inflation-adjusted savings options for the working class a negative thing? That's all Bitcoin really is, on a long-term basis for most people.

throwaway248329 5y ago

The workers, unlike capitlists, earn a fixed salary. Inflation makes this salary have increasingly less buying power. This way workers are forced to negotiate a raise every year just to keep up with inflation and don't become poorer. So, to be able to save, workers are forced to buy real estate that they don't need, making it less affordable for people who actually need to buy a house or get exposed to stock market risks. All these problems caused by absence of hard money.

notahacker 5y ago
"Workers are forced to buy real estate that they don't need" No, the average worker definitely isn't forced to buy more houses than they live in :D I mean, it's always been obvious that the "lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor" is an astroturf movement by the ultra rich who have successfully lobbied for tax breaks for the rich and elimination of worker protections to blame something else [which removing would further benefit them] for the logical consequences of their actions, but the complete failure to understand what an average worker actually does with money is particularly amusing in this subthread. Strong people who don't work for a living cosplaying people who do energy here... Since falling wage levels literally are deflation it's a bit hard to argue with a straight face that what the workers really need to be better off is a good old dose of deflationary currency.
- throwaway248329 5y ago
  Do you disagree that real estate is used as a hedge against inflation, which artificially increases the prices? And you can call "lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor" an astroturf, but it's something that actually makes sense to me when I look at the arguments.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    To the extent capitalist speculation on housing as an inflation hedge drives up the prices of assets workers store much of their wealth in, it benefits them a lot more than "not bothering to invest in anything at all, least of all job creation" being the rich's hedge against deflation If it "makes sense to you" that the lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor, it probably helps to consider that workers were much poorer for the vast majority of human history with a Gold Standard...
    - throwaway248329 5y ago
      >If it "makes sense to you" that the lack of Gold Standard is the real reason workers are poor, it probably helps to consider that workers were much poorer for the vast majority of human history with a Gold Standard... That doesn't tell much. Anyone was much poorer for the vast majority of human history. How do you explain the wealth inequality trend change starting from 1971? https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
      - notahacker 5y ago
        It doesn't, for the most part. In most of the graphs its pretty obvious the rich getting richer bit happened in the 1980s, not the 1970s. It's also obvious their share of wealth was particularly large in the 1920s, when there was a very pure gold standard. (And of course back when most people were so much poorer there wasnt even enough food to go around, the rich still had palaces, servants and mountains of gold to fund wars to engage in the most profitable economic activity of capturing other people's gold) But obviously the people who advocated the tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s are highly, highly motivated to pretend it was leaving Gold Standard several years earlier that did it. Not least because going back to a gold standard would allow them to make that gap even bigger - the 1% could HODL the 30% their wealth in risk free, liquid, appreciating coins instead of having to take actual risks and create actual jobs. But the deflation that preserves their wealth as they withdraw from funding productive activity is - quite literally - everyone else's wages and sales revenues going down.

lowkey 5y ago

Under a fiat system those workers were forced to put their hard earned life savings into the stock market or real estate in order to escape the ravages of inflation. Despite all the talk about the time value of money in finance, under a fiat regime it is impossible to save your earnings for the future in a bank account or Certificate of Deposit such that you come out ahead after inflation over time. The fact that there is no option to save an enjoy positive inflation-adjusted returns without taking on market risk is an indication of what a scam the current system of fractional reserve banking and artificially manipulated interest rates is. > Because "workers" aren't the people with vast reserves of wealth, they're the people who are paid by people with vast reserves of wealth. Really? Workers have less wealth than rich people so it’s okay to steal their wages via inflation? /s Please explain your reasoning further.

notahacker 5y ago
> Really? Workers have less wealth than rich people so it's OK to steal their wages via inflation. No, workers have less wealth than rich people (no wealth, in the case of a sizeable fraction of the population)so it's not OK for rich people to steal their wages by getting "positive inflation adjusted returns without taking on market risk". I mean, where do you think "risk adjusted returns without taking on market risk" come from? They come from other people doing more work for the same cash payment.
- lowkey 5y ago
  An FDIC insured bank account is already limited to a specific amount in order to prevent the 'rich' from free-riding. It still isn't clear to me why you would try to justify a system that doesn't allow an average wage earner or pensioner the mere possibility of earning a positive inflation adjusted (not risk-adjusted) return on savings? Why are risk-free inflation-adjusted savings options for the working class a negative thing? That's all Bitcoin really is, on a long-term basis for most people.