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I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has

by lowkey 5y ago

I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by any central actors. It is an idea who’s time has come, given the inflationary realities of today.

KarlKemp 5y ago
Have you heard of asking for a raise? Also, last I checked, the price of essential good in Bitcoin, assuming the contra-factual that it were possible to buy such things with Bitcoin, hasn’t exactly been constant for 40 years.
- lowkey 5y ago
  Asking for a raise works for me and you since we have pricing power, but what of those less fortunate? What about those on minimum wage, or fixed salaries or pensions or welfare? They don’t have the ability to continuously increase their prices to match inflation. TL;DR your solution works for the most in-demand workers in society but it causes greater and greater income inequality over time leading those who are most vulnerable to fall further and further behind. For more details, see https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
hiq 5y ago
> Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Does anyone seriously claim that Bitcoin is currently solving inflation? I've heard some claims that it will eventually be the case, but claiming it is already a "solution to inflation" sounds like a stretch even for bitcoin supporters. Bitcoin was apparently at 30kUSD some time in July this year after reaching 60kUSD in June, while it is now at 48kUSD. I don't see how this indicates that bitcoin is any protection against inflation. Or if it is and you're fine with this kind of volatility, I wonder why you discarded other investments such as stocks.
- nicbou 5y ago
  "The brakes are not perfect so we removed them entirely"
- senectus1 5y ago
  if you could wave your magic wand and suddenly BTC was the only currency possible to be used? Yeah that sort of fixes inflation. But the world isn't a computer simulation on a desktop PC and that scenario doesn't and wont ever exist.
chaostheory 5y ago
You’d have a better point if transactions were fast AND cheap. Until crypto gets there, it won’t be viable as an actual currency yet. I’m not saying it’s impossible like this hit piece, but it’s not there yet.
- lowkey 5y ago
  1) Bitcoin isn't about fast and cheap transactions. It is about censorship-resistant transactions and sound money with a fully fixed and transparent monetary policy, protected by the most powerful supercomputer in the history of the world. No other crpyto currency or asset class offers this. 2) Lightning already offers fast AND cheap payments at nation-state scale. The future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed yet.
UncleMeat 5y ago
Inflation is not caused directly and only by printing. But imagine it was. We'd see inflation apply evenly everywhere. So wages would rise too. Inflation would not eat into your earnings in any compounding fashion.
- lowkey 5y ago
  The reason inflation isn’t applied equally everywhere is called the Cantillon Effect. Here are the details https://azizonomics.com/2012/08/07/the-cantillon-effect/ https://azizonomics.com/2012/08/07/the-cantillon-effect/ For a given level of money velocity, what other factors cause inflation - other than money printing? Clearly money printing is the most obvious cause of artificial manipulation of the money supply and in my understanding the primary cause of inflation. What am I missing?
  - haskellandchill 5y ago
    > For a given level of money velocity, what other factors cause inflation - other than money printing? Many economists consider that view a myth by the way: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2021/04/19/myth-busting-money-printing-must-create-inflation/ https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2021/04/19/myth-bust...
    - lowkey 5y ago
      These are the same economists who predicted there would: - be no inflation, then - inflation would be mild, then - inflation would be transitory, then - inflation isn't really a problem Still, I'm waiting for your response on what causes inflation, other than money printing. If we look at correlation, money printing appears to be related to inflation. What am I missing?
jononomo 5y ago
If you make 2% more money every year than you did the year before, then how does that lead to 40% less earnings over 40 years?
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  0.98 ^ 40 = 0.445. But that’s income in the last year, not fraction of the total. You’d have to add up 1 + 0.98 + 0.98^2… to get that, but I’m too stupid to figure out a closed formula or anything else I can solve with the Google calculator. It does get pretty close to 0.6, I believe, making this the least insane part of the post.
nicbou 5y ago
Isn't fiat money much more reliable than cryptocurrencies? We frequently cite the failures that led to hyperinflation, but nobody bats an eye when a cryptocoin fluctuates by a double digit amount in a single day. The central authority that controls the money supply might not be perfect, but I trust it vastly more than a currency with no brakes that's mostly used for speculation. That, and I can buy a hotdog with money. Peer to peer, without it being logged into a permanent record tied to my pseudonym.
md_ 5y ago
I’m always a bit surprised when people seem to imply that there’s a fundamental human right to perfectly stable stores of value (if you could even define such a quality), and that the absence of that—inflation, price fluctuation, etc—is somehow unfair. Gold bugs like to say that “value” is what gold is worth, but if you look at the real value of gold over time—in terms of its ability to be exchanged for things that you might, you know, want—it’s anything but: https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-.... Over a number of multi-decade ranges in the last century, a purchase of gold at the start of the period would leave the buyer the poorer at the end of it. In reality, there just isn’t such a thing as a single “real” definition of “value.” Prices—of commodities, of securities, and, yes, of both fiat and cryptocurrencies fluctuate. A saver who wants to put money away to spend in the future must, unfortunately, make some sort of bet. (Even if such a magical instrument existed, savers who bought it would still be making a bet that the opportunity cost of avoiding growth investments does not outweigh the value of stability!) Keeping all your savings in crypto—or in fiat, or in gold, or in your employer’s stock—isn’t a fantastic idea. But that’s not because someone is scamming you; it’s because there just isn’t such a thing as “the one true value”, and no asset that allows you to safely track it. That’s life.
- lowkey 5y ago
  > I’m always a bit surprised when people seem to imply that there’s a fundamental human right to perfectly stable stores of value If it were not for central bankers printing money into existence, a person could work their life, save a portion for retirement in a bank account or other fixed income product, while enjoying a positive return on their investment, without taking on market risk of loss of funds. I don’t think I am being entitled to believe that this option should exist for those who wish to take advantage of it. Forcing everyone into the stock or real estate markets just to stay ahead of inflation is a crime against the people. > A saver who wants to put money away to spend in the future must, unfortunately, make some sort of bet. This is only true because of the fradulent fractional reserve fiat money system we have been subjected to which allows the central bankers to steal from the populace to enrich their banker friends. If it were not for money printing, the saver would not have to risk their savings just to preserve purchasing power.
twelve40 5y ago
Inflation is not some unfortunate built-in side effect of fiat but a deliberate policy choice by specific organizations and people. Why would they all of a sudden give up those policies and embrace the crypto-land?
- lowkey 5y ago
  Money-printing has enriched a cohort of corrupt central bankers and their cronies such as politicians. I don’t expect them to give up a policy that has unjustly enriched them for so long. Luckily we don’t need their support for Bitcoin to work. Bitcoin operates on the game theory that offers individuals a choice to save in a currency that cannot be manipulated. Over time, more and more individuals will choose the better money.
throw0101a 5y ago
> 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. Try living with deflation. To paraphrase Churchill: an inflationary regime is the worst monetary system, except for all the others that have been tried. > Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by any central actors. Not being able to manipulate the money system is bad thing, as the Great Depression showed. Bitcoin is basically a digital form of gold, which was moved away from for good reasons: * https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/why-the-gold-standard-is-the-worlds-worst-economic-idea-in-2-charts/261552/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/why-the... * https://archive.md/FWKcL https://archive.md/FWKcL
- lowkey 5y ago
  From the article, the two charts referenced don’t say what I think you were hoping they say. The first chart claims to show how CPI fluctuated wildly on the gold standard, except if you read the * and footnote in the article you will see it discloses that the US actually went off the gold standard at the same time as the increase in inflation. The second chart aims to show how low and stable CPI has been under the current fiat standard not backed by gold. However the chart is old and doesn’t include the recent CPI readings of 6.4% and 6.8% annualized inflation that were reported in the most recent 2 months by the BLS. In other words if chart 2 were continued to today they would include spikes of 3x, not exactly the narrative someone arguing in favor of the current system would want to show. I don’t buy your argument that allowing a handful of central bankers to manipulate the money supply and print money out of thin air, is a good thing.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > except if you read the * and footnote …it says: > These restrictions on gold exports continued until June 1919, at which point we returned to the full gold standard. I have started from this last date, because there is no question that we were operating under the gold standard at this point. So the gyrations were occurring when the gold standard was full-on. See also: * https://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5900297/case-against-gold-standard https://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5900297/case-against-gold-stan... > However the chart is old and doesn’t include the recent CPI readings of 6.4% and 6.8% annualized inflation that were reported in the most recent 2 months by the BLS. The chart is "old" because the article was written in 2012. It was written during a period when QE was going on and there was much tearing of garments about 'money printing': > We believe the Federal Reserve's large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called "quantitative easing") should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed's objective of promoting employment. * https://economics21.org/html/open-letter-ben-bernanke-287.html https://economics21.org/html/open-letter-ben-bernanke-287.ht... And for the next decade the CPI was doing not a whole lot. So much for Friedman's "always a monetary phenomenon"—which he was wrong about even in the 1980s when Volcker was doing his thing. Further a spike in inflation was expected and predicted, and that a number of folks said it could last a year, like happened during the Korean War: * https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/inflation-fears-and-biden-stimulus-look-korean-war-not-vietnam https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/in... In the fact last month's numbers were not surprising because of their value, but because they so closely matched predictions: > The consumer price index increased 0.8% last month, the government said Friday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.7% advance. * https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-u-s-consumer-price-index-for-november-11639142278 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-u-s-consumer-pri... * https://www.reuters.com/business/biden-says-inflation-data-due-friday-will-not-reflect-recent-drop-some-prices-2021-12-09/ https://www.reuters.com/business/biden-says-inflation-data-d... > you will see it discloses that the US actually went off the gold standard Being "on" the gold standard will take as much political will as not printing money. Probably more, because of the economic suffering that deflation causes… as was seen Greece in the 2010s (Gold Dawn), and Japan and Germany in the late 1930s. > I don’t buy your argument that allowing a handful of central bankers to manipulate the money supply and print money out of thin air, is a good thing. Not being able to print money when it is needed in the economy can cause depressions: * https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/financial-markets-and-financial-crises/gold-standard-deflation-and-financial-crisis-great-depression-international-comparison https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/financial-markets-an... And the folks who like the gold standard tend to also like balanced budgets and austerity, which is another bad idea: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Dangerous_Idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Da... It should be noted that historically 'printing money' has mostly not the cause of (hyper)inflation, but rather printing money was the effect of something else: * https://clintballinger.com/2021/01/12/the-myth-of-hyperinflation/ https://clintballinger.com/2021/01/12/the-myth-of-hyperinfla... > In this paper I will argue why the common misconception that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” cannot be used to explain most historical hyperinflations. I will argue that “money printing” is often the response to exogenous and unusual events and not the direct cause of the hyperinflation. * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1799102 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1799102 Further, "printing money" isn't what people think it is: > This paper provides a general understanding of the workings of the modern fiat monetary system in the United States within the context of the global economy. The work is primarily descriptive in nature and takes an operational perspective of the monetary system using the understandings of Monetary Realism. * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 If anyone is still thinking about bank reserves and multipliers then they are severely out of date. Tobin described this as the "Old View" in 1963: * https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d01/d0159.pdf https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d01/d0...

by lowkey 5y ago

KarlKemp 5y ago

Have you heard of asking for a raise? Also, last I checked, the price of essential good in Bitcoin, assuming the contra-factual that it were possible to buy such things with Bitcoin, hasn’t exactly been constant for 40 years.

lowkey 5y ago
Asking for a raise works for me and you since we have pricing power, but what of those less fortunate? What about those on minimum wage, or fixed salaries or pensions or welfare? They don’t have the ability to continuously increase their prices to match inflation. TL;DR your solution works for the most in-demand workers in society but it causes greater and greater income inequality over time leading those who are most vulnerable to fall further and further behind. For more details, see https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

hiq 5y ago

> Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Does anyone seriously claim that Bitcoin is currently solving inflation? I've heard some claims that it will eventually be the case, but claiming it is already a "solution to inflation" sounds like a stretch even for bitcoin supporters. Bitcoin was apparently at 30kUSD some time in July this year after reaching 60kUSD in June, while it is now at 48kUSD. I don't see how this indicates that bitcoin is any protection against inflation. Or if it is and you're fine with this kind of volatility, I wonder why you discarded other investments such as stocks.

nicbou 5y ago
"The brakes are not perfect so we removed them entirely"
senectus1 5y ago
if you could wave your magic wand and suddenly BTC was the only currency possible to be used? Yeah that sort of fixes inflation. But the world isn't a computer simulation on a desktop PC and that scenario doesn't and wont ever exist.

chaostheory 5y ago

You’d have a better point if transactions were fast AND cheap. Until crypto gets there, it won’t be viable as an actual currency yet. I’m not saying it’s impossible like this hit piece, but it’s not there yet.

lowkey 5y ago
1) Bitcoin isn't about fast and cheap transactions. It is about censorship-resistant transactions and sound money with a fully fixed and transparent monetary policy, protected by the most powerful supercomputer in the history of the world. No other crpyto currency or asset class offers this. 2) Lightning already offers fast AND cheap payments at nation-state scale. The future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed yet.

UncleMeat 5y ago

Inflation is not caused directly and only by printing. But imagine it was. We'd see inflation apply evenly everywhere. So wages would rise too. Inflation would not eat into your earnings in any compounding fashion.

lowkey 5y ago
The reason inflation isn’t applied equally everywhere is called the Cantillon Effect. Here are the details https://azizonomics.com/2012/08/07/the-cantillon-effect/ https://azizonomics.com/2012/08/07/the-cantillon-effect/ For a given level of money velocity, what other factors cause inflation - other than money printing? Clearly money printing is the most obvious cause of artificial manipulation of the money supply and in my understanding the primary cause of inflation. What am I missing?
- haskellandchill 5y ago
  > For a given level of money velocity, what other factors cause inflation - other than money printing? Many economists consider that view a myth by the way: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2021/04/19/myth-busting-money-printing-must-create-inflation/ https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2021/04/19/myth-bust...
  - lowkey 5y ago
    These are the same economists who predicted there would: - be no inflation, then - inflation would be mild, then - inflation would be transitory, then - inflation isn't really a problem Still, I'm waiting for your response on what causes inflation, other than money printing. If we look at correlation, money printing appears to be related to inflation. What am I missing?

jononomo 5y ago

If you make 2% more money every year than you did the year before, then how does that lead to 40% less earnings over 40 years?

KarlKemp 5y ago
0.98 ^ 40 = 0.445. But that’s income in the last year, not fraction of the total. You’d have to add up 1 + 0.98 + 0.98^2… to get that, but I’m too stupid to figure out a closed formula or anything else I can solve with the Google calculator. It does get pretty close to 0.6, I believe, making this the least insane part of the post.

nicbou 5y ago

Isn't fiat money much more reliable than cryptocurrencies? We frequently cite the failures that led to hyperinflation, but nobody bats an eye when a cryptocoin fluctuates by a double digit amount in a single day. The central authority that controls the money supply might not be perfect, but I trust it vastly more than a currency with no brakes that's mostly used for speculation. That, and I can buy a hotdog with money. Peer to peer, without it being logged into a permanent record tied to my pseudonym.

md_ 5y ago

I’m always a bit surprised when people seem to imply that there’s a fundamental human right to perfectly stable stores of value (if you could even define such a quality), and that the absence of that—inflation, price fluctuation, etc—is somehow unfair. Gold bugs like to say that “value” is what gold is worth, but if you look at the real value of gold over time—in terms of its ability to be exchanged for things that you might, you know, want—it’s anything but: https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-.... Over a number of multi-decade ranges in the last century, a purchase of gold at the start of the period would leave the buyer the poorer at the end of it. In reality, there just isn’t such a thing as a single “real” definition of “value.” Prices—of commodities, of securities, and, yes, of both fiat and cryptocurrencies fluctuate. A saver who wants to put money away to spend in the future must, unfortunately, make some sort of bet. (Even if such a magical instrument existed, savers who bought it would still be making a bet that the opportunity cost of avoiding growth investments does not outweigh the value of stability!) Keeping all your savings in crypto—or in fiat, or in gold, or in your employer’s stock—isn’t a fantastic idea. But that’s not because someone is scamming you; it’s because there just isn’t such a thing as “the one true value”, and no asset that allows you to safely track it. That’s life.

lowkey 5y ago
> I’m always a bit surprised when people seem to imply that there’s a fundamental human right to perfectly stable stores of value If it were not for central bankers printing money into existence, a person could work their life, save a portion for retirement in a bank account or other fixed income product, while enjoying a positive return on their investment, without taking on market risk of loss of funds. I don’t think I am being entitled to believe that this option should exist for those who wish to take advantage of it. Forcing everyone into the stock or real estate markets just to stay ahead of inflation is a crime against the people. > A saver who wants to put money away to spend in the future must, unfortunately, make some sort of bet. This is only true because of the fradulent fractional reserve fiat money system we have been subjected to which allows the central bankers to steal from the populace to enrich their banker friends. If it were not for money printing, the saver would not have to risk their savings just to preserve purchasing power.

twelve40 5y ago

Inflation is not some unfortunate built-in side effect of fiat but a deliberate policy choice by specific organizations and people. Why would they all of a sudden give up those policies and embrace the crypto-land?

lowkey 5y ago
Money-printing has enriched a cohort of corrupt central bankers and their cronies such as politicians. I don’t expect them to give up a policy that has unjustly enriched them for so long. Luckily we don’t need their support for Bitcoin to work. Bitcoin operates on the game theory that offers individuals a choice to save in a currency that cannot be manipulated. Over time, more and more individuals will choose the better money.

throw0101a 5y ago

> 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. Try living with deflation. To paraphrase Churchill: an inflationary regime is the worst monetary system, except for all the others that have been tried. > Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by any central actors. Not being able to manipulate the money system is bad thing, as the Great Depression showed. Bitcoin is basically a digital form of gold, which was moved away from for good reasons: * https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/why-the-gold-standard-is-the-worlds-worst-economic-idea-in-2-charts/261552/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/why-the... * https://archive.md/FWKcL https://archive.md/FWKcL

lowkey 5y ago
From the article, the two charts referenced don’t say what I think you were hoping they say. The first chart claims to show how CPI fluctuated wildly on the gold standard, except if you read the * and footnote in the article you will see it discloses that the US actually went off the gold standard at the same time as the increase in inflation. The second chart aims to show how low and stable CPI has been under the current fiat standard not backed by gold. However the chart is old and doesn’t include the recent CPI readings of 6.4% and 6.8% annualized inflation that were reported in the most recent 2 months by the BLS. In other words if chart 2 were continued to today they would include spikes of 3x, not exactly the narrative someone arguing in favor of the current system would want to show. I don’t buy your argument that allowing a handful of central bankers to manipulate the money supply and print money out of thin air, is a good thing.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > except if you read the * and footnote …it says: > These restrictions on gold exports continued until June 1919, at which point we returned to the full gold standard. I have started from this last date, because there is no question that we were operating under the gold standard at this point. So the gyrations were occurring when the gold standard was full-on. See also: * https://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5900297/case-against-gold-standard https://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5900297/case-against-gold-stan... > However the chart is old and doesn’t include the recent CPI readings of 6.4% and 6.8% annualized inflation that were reported in the most recent 2 months by the BLS. The chart is "old" because the article was written in 2012. It was written during a period when QE was going on and there was much tearing of garments about 'money printing': > We believe the Federal Reserve's large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called "quantitative easing") should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed's objective of promoting employment. * https://economics21.org/html/open-letter-ben-bernanke-287.html https://economics21.org/html/open-letter-ben-bernanke-287.ht... And for the next decade the CPI was doing not a whole lot. So much for Friedman's "always a monetary phenomenon"—which he was wrong about even in the 1980s when Volcker was doing his thing. Further a spike in inflation was expected and predicted, and that a number of folks said it could last a year, like happened during the Korean War: * https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/inflation-fears-and-biden-stimulus-look-korean-war-not-vietnam https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/in... In the fact last month's numbers were not surprising because of their value, but because they so closely matched predictions: > The consumer price index increased 0.8% last month, the government said Friday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.7% advance. * https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-u-s-consumer-price-index-for-november-11639142278 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-u-s-consumer-pri... * https://www.reuters.com/business/biden-says-inflation-data-due-friday-will-not-reflect-recent-drop-some-prices-2021-12-09/ https://www.reuters.com/business/biden-says-inflation-data-d... > you will see it discloses that the US actually went off the gold standard Being "on" the gold standard will take as much political will as not printing money. Probably more, because of the economic suffering that deflation causes… as was seen Greece in the 2010s (Gold Dawn), and Japan and Germany in the late 1930s. > I don’t buy your argument that allowing a handful of central bankers to manipulate the money supply and print money out of thin air, is a good thing. Not being able to print money when it is needed in the economy can cause depressions: * https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/financial-markets-and-financial-crises/gold-standard-deflation-and-financial-crisis-great-depression-international-comparison https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/financial-markets-an... And the folks who like the gold standard tend to also like balanced budgets and austerity, which is another bad idea: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Dangerous_Idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Da... It should be noted that historically 'printing money' has mostly not the cause of (hyper)inflation, but rather printing money was the effect of something else: * https://clintballinger.com/2021/01/12/the-myth-of-hyperinflation/ https://clintballinger.com/2021/01/12/the-myth-of-hyperinfla... > In this paper I will argue why the common misconception that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” cannot be used to explain most historical hyperinflations. I will argue that “money printing” is often the response to exogenous and unusual events and not the direct cause of the hyperinflation. * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1799102 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1799102 Further, "printing money" isn't what people think it is: > This paper provides a general understanding of the workings of the modern fiat monetary system in the United States within the context of the global economy. The work is primarily descriptive in nature and takes an operational perspective of the monetary system using the understandings of Monetary Realism. * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 If anyone is still thinking about bank reserves and multipliers then they are severely out of date. Tobin described this as the "Old View" in 1963: * https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d01/d0159.pdf https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d01/d0...