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3 million children lifted out poverty but chicken wings are now more expensive. Impossible to say if it was a good policy. Seriously, how do weigh the conseque

3 million children lifted out poverty but chicken wings are now more expensive. Impossible to say if it was a good policy. Seriously, how do weigh the consequences of actions like this? On the one hand you have a certainty: many children plunged into deprivation by an unavoidable pandemic. On the other hand you have an almost unknowable risk of influencing worldwide macroeconomic trends. Is the second worth more to you than the first?

wolverine876 5y ago
Sorry if you are being sarcastic, but to respond literally, there is almost no inflation impact from this amount of money. Are we going to ask that for every expense? I imagine some people will - a great way to push small government and against any investment in our country. > almost unknowable We know quite a lot about economics, especially inflation and the money supply. > many children plunged into deprivation Many children were in deprivation already, and by investing in them we not only help them, we end up with more productive citizens later. Poverty can be devastating.
- neilwilson 5y ago
  "We know quite a lot about economics, especially inflation and the money supply." That isn't the case. There's an awful lot of beliefs and curve fitting to them. Hence why QE didn't cause the 2% inflation they believed it would.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > That isn't the case. It is absolutely the case; we just don't know everything. Using modern economics, we have managed inflation and other economic phenomena highly effectively. High inflation (well beyond what is happening now - look at history and at places that ignore economics), depressions, bank runs, etc. are a thing of the past. Look at economic history before the post-war era; look at places that ignore economics and embrace ideology or political priorities instead; there is no comparison. It's trendy to attack them for their imperfections, but to suggest that economics is powerless is not only ignorant, it's yet another rejection of our human agency, of the power of knowledge, of our ability to determine our destiny, and another baby-and-bathwater attack on our institutions.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      Just the view of someone whose family is from Argentina, and who lived there during two bouts of severe inflation of >50%. To me, it's never "solved" and one thing I really fear is that the US is starting to look more and more like Argentina in both its populist political rhetoric and its abuse of institutions to produce short-term political gains at the expense of longer-term prosperity. You could say that the Roman Republic had inflation solved for several hundred years before it became an empire, and emperors started debasing the currency out of what they viewed, myopically, as political necessity. I think there's a deep irony in the interplay between political trends, monetary policy, and inflation. The more populist the government, left or right, (or in Argentina, Peronist) the more it chases its own economic tail. Inflation is a regressive tax on the poor, because anyone with foreign bank accounts and property can ride it out. Inflation is a funnel that sucks money from the poor to the wealthy. But it's one that's aggravated by populist policies that seemed initially designed to help the poor (or at least to get their votes). On a social level, the cost of the instability it causes is also a bad bet for the rich, because like a tornado it eats everything in its path. No sane rich person wants inflation for their country, even if they would get richer by playing it correctly. It can happen in America, now, because we've crossed a bunch of red lines. We're in an almost unprecedented position as a teetering economic superpower in world history and there is nowhere to go but down. The more politicians pile onto policies that inflate the currency, like the $16/hr minimum wage, the more quickly those small decisions will turn into a spiral.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        > Just the view of someone whose family is from Argentina, and who lived there during two bouts of severe inflation of >50%. To me, it's never "solved" and one thing I really fear is that the US is starting to look more and more like Argentina in both its populist political rhetoric and its abuse of institutions to produce short-term political gains at the expense of longer-term prosperity. That is a consequence of bad decisions, not economics. In fact, economics does every well: It predicts the outcome of the bad decision. And you call it a bad decision because it prioritizes politics over reality, i.e., the economics. If the doctor says, 'take this pill or you will have a heart attack', and you don't take the pill and have a heart attack, then the problem is you, not the doctor, who actually did very well (unfortunately). > Inflation is a funnel that sucks money from the poor to the wealthy. That's a separate question, but that's not really true either afaik: Argentina's inflation level and the current US inflation level are on entirely different magnitudes; the US has never had hyperinflation (what you describe in Argentina), at least since the advent of modern economics around WWII. US inflation is well under 10% (last I checked), an order of magnitude less than the 50%+ you are discussing. It's like comparing a scraped knee to an severed femoral artery. Also, the inflation is from entirely different causes. US inflation is due largely to supply chain issues caused by the pandemic. For poorer people, inflation's effect depends on whether your wages and, if you have savings, whether the interest rate the bank pays on your deposit are inflating at a similar rate. Note that most Americans have no meaningful savings: One recent study said that something like 60% didn't have even $500 saved for an emergency. Generally, inflation helps those in debt, including poor people, by inflating away the value of their debt. It hurts those who own and lend money - mostly the wealthy. If you have a billion saved and it's That's why the American reactionaries are so up in arms about it - I agree about the irony, but reactionary policies almost always to favor the wealthy. 'Populists' are about manipulating the populace, not serving them. (They also are making a big deal about it because, 1) they function by creating crises - imagine them not being outraged; 2) it is a way to attack non-reactionaries. Both of those are the reasons for their existence.)
pmorici 5y ago
You seem to be trying to trivialize inflation by implying it is only effecting goods that are not essential, ie: chicken wings. The reality is the inflation has been broad across a lot of essential goods that a family needs. So to the extent that rising costs of food, energy, and housing have driven families on the bubble into poverty it seems like a reasonable thing to discuss.

wolverine876 5y ago

Sorry if you are being sarcastic, but to respond literally, there is almost no inflation impact from this amount of money. Are we going to ask that for every expense? I imagine some people will - a great way to push small government and against any investment in our country. > almost unknowable We know quite a lot about economics, especially inflation and the money supply. > many children plunged into deprivation Many children were in deprivation already, and by investing in them we not only help them, we end up with more productive citizens later. Poverty can be devastating.

neilwilson 5y ago
"We know quite a lot about economics, especially inflation and the money supply." That isn't the case. There's an awful lot of beliefs and curve fitting to them. Hence why QE didn't cause the 2% inflation they believed it would.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > That isn't the case. It is absolutely the case; we just don't know everything. Using modern economics, we have managed inflation and other economic phenomena highly effectively. High inflation (well beyond what is happening now - look at history and at places that ignore economics), depressions, bank runs, etc. are a thing of the past. Look at economic history before the post-war era; look at places that ignore economics and embrace ideology or political priorities instead; there is no comparison. It's trendy to attack them for their imperfections, but to suggest that economics is powerless is not only ignorant, it's yet another rejection of our human agency, of the power of knowledge, of our ability to determine our destiny, and another baby-and-bathwater attack on our institutions.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Just the view of someone whose family is from Argentina, and who lived there during two bouts of severe inflation of >50%. To me, it's never "solved" and one thing I really fear is that the US is starting to look more and more like Argentina in both its populist political rhetoric and its abuse of institutions to produce short-term political gains at the expense of longer-term prosperity. You could say that the Roman Republic had inflation solved for several hundred years before it became an empire, and emperors started debasing the currency out of what they viewed, myopically, as political necessity. I think there's a deep irony in the interplay between political trends, monetary policy, and inflation. The more populist the government, left or right, (or in Argentina, Peronist) the more it chases its own economic tail. Inflation is a regressive tax on the poor, because anyone with foreign bank accounts and property can ride it out. Inflation is a funnel that sucks money from the poor to the wealthy. But it's one that's aggravated by populist policies that seemed initially designed to help the poor (or at least to get their votes). On a social level, the cost of the instability it causes is also a bad bet for the rich, because like a tornado it eats everything in its path. No sane rich person wants inflation for their country, even if they would get richer by playing it correctly. It can happen in America, now, because we've crossed a bunch of red lines. We're in an almost unprecedented position as a teetering economic superpower in world history and there is nowhere to go but down. The more politicians pile onto policies that inflate the currency, like the $16/hr minimum wage, the more quickly those small decisions will turn into a spiral.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      > Just the view of someone whose family is from Argentina, and who lived there during two bouts of severe inflation of >50%. To me, it's never "solved" and one thing I really fear is that the US is starting to look more and more like Argentina in both its populist political rhetoric and its abuse of institutions to produce short-term political gains at the expense of longer-term prosperity. That is a consequence of bad decisions, not economics. In fact, economics does every well: It predicts the outcome of the bad decision. And you call it a bad decision because it prioritizes politics over reality, i.e., the economics. If the doctor says, 'take this pill or you will have a heart attack', and you don't take the pill and have a heart attack, then the problem is you, not the doctor, who actually did very well (unfortunately). > Inflation is a funnel that sucks money from the poor to the wealthy. That's a separate question, but that's not really true either afaik: Argentina's inflation level and the current US inflation level are on entirely different magnitudes; the US has never had hyperinflation (what you describe in Argentina), at least since the advent of modern economics around WWII. US inflation is well under 10% (last I checked), an order of magnitude less than the 50%+ you are discussing. It's like comparing a scraped knee to an severed femoral artery. Also, the inflation is from entirely different causes. US inflation is due largely to supply chain issues caused by the pandemic. For poorer people, inflation's effect depends on whether your wages and, if you have savings, whether the interest rate the bank pays on your deposit are inflating at a similar rate. Note that most Americans have no meaningful savings: One recent study said that something like 60% didn't have even $500 saved for an emergency. Generally, inflation helps those in debt, including poor people, by inflating away the value of their debt. It hurts those who own and lend money - mostly the wealthy. If you have a billion saved and it's That's why the American reactionaries are so up in arms about it - I agree about the irony, but reactionary policies almost always to favor the wealthy. 'Populists' are about manipulating the populace, not serving them. (They also are making a big deal about it because, 1) they function by creating crises - imagine them not being outraged; 2) it is a way to attack non-reactionaries. Both of those are the reasons for their existence.)

pmorici 5y ago

You seem to be trying to trivialize inflation by implying it is only effecting goods that are not essential, ie: chicken wings. The reality is the inflation has been broad across a lot of essential goods that a family needs. So to the extent that rising costs of food, energy, and housing have driven families on the bubble into poverty it seems like a reasonable thing to discuss.