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So something I don't quite get is this. (some) economist postulate that pumping metric fucking shit-tons of money into the economy will cause inflation, because
by wronglyprepaid 4y ago
So something I don't quite get is this. (some) economist postulate that pumping metric fucking shit-tons of money into the economy will cause inflation, because there is literally more money chasing the same amount of goods, and this creates a quite expected upwards pressure in prices.
Other economists and politicians posit this won't happen and then proceed to do it, and then inflation happens, and then all of a sudden nobody could have predicted it, it is transitory (until it clearly is not), it is caused by Putin (except not according to the fed chair), it is because the economy is in transition, etc etc.
How about, don't pump metric shit-tons of money into the economy and see how that works.
And while you are at it, maybe don't make a campaign promise to end fossil fuels and act all surprised when the prices for fossil fuels go through the roof. I'm as happy as the next person to see the end to carbon emissions, but I don't do everything I can to end it and then whine about it ending .
- pharmakom 4y agoThe governments of the world decided to prop up businesses, employment and asset wealth by printing loads of money. The alternatives were to seize wealth and redistribute it or let it all burn. I can see why they did what they did, although I think history will not be kind.
- Hellbanevil 4y ago1. I agree with you kinda. 2. Why did prices for pretty much everything go up the week, or two, after the media started talking about the war, supply chain problems, and government spending? Prices were pretty steady during Covid, at least on food, and gas, and most consumer products, except building materials, and appliances. I personally think corporations used the war, and Covid, to raise prices seemingly overnight. My Chevron station went from $4.29 to $6.25 in a day. These companies made record profits during Covid, but poof in a couple of weeks just blew up their pricing? I think they used found a few good excuses to raise prices; and they all fell in line. Kinda like my $5.49 rebate on my $800/yr. insurance policy at the beginning of Covid. Mercury by the way, and they used to be fair. Yea, I was uncomfortable with Powell throwing money at the stock market, and buying all those mortgage backed securities, when housing and the stock market thrived during Covid. His response was, 'I kept my agreement with the financial sector.' Weird times for sure.
- viraptor 4y agoSo it looks like an overreaction, but the prices are going to be correlated with future expectations, not with prices obtainable right now. Price jumped now because the whole supply chain for X predicted the price on the market will raise soon. Since the revenue pays for future production, this makes sense - what you pay now pays for what you buy again in a month.
- djbebs 4y agoOil companies did not make record profits during covid, they made record losses.
- _0ffh 4y agoThey did seize a lot of wealth, by diluting everyone's fiat money positions.
- pharmakom 4y agoIn real terms yes but most people think in nominal terms.
- jbverschoor 4y agoWell they stopped doing that.. Result: S&P500 down 20%, interest rates up, the whole economy is grinding to a halt.
- cloutchaser 4y agoRemember summer 2021 when they said, eh, we have some inflation now, but let’s carry on with QE, inflation is transitory anyway?
- grey-area 4y agoThey should have stopped a decade ago, that was the fatal error, and now we're in a spiral of stagflation and the crash will be much worse. An everlasting asset bubble and money at 0% is not sustainable and never has been.
- chasd00 4y agoYes, in 2009 there was lots of talk of “we’re just kicking the can down the road” when it came to TARP and other measures. But even then, kicking the can became regular policy. I think we’re at the end of the road and reality is going to fix the issue for us whether we like it or not.
- _0ffh 4y agoYeah, look at interest rates long term. Money got looser and looser with every downturn. After the last one, the rates went more or less to zero. Everyone had to know that next time we'd be hitting the wall.
- wronglyprepaid 4y agoWould it be better to keep S&P high with inflation at highest levels in 40 years? And if so why?
- danuker 4y ago> pumping metric fucking shit-tons of money into the economy will cause inflation Only if velocity stayed constant. Problem is, velocity plummeted with the lockdowns. But now it might be coming back up. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V Edit: nope. Looks like GDP Now shows the GDP is still dropping. https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow?panel=3 https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow?panel=3
- cloutchaser 4y agoOk, but how can you as a fed say that if you double the money supply the velocity will stay the same forever? This is the ridiculous issue with this MMT theory. How the hell can you be so stupid to assume that just because money velocity is slow now, and you pump lots of money into the system (actually you give it to financial companies, another red flag), it won’t cause inflation in a few years when things pick up? Especially after a pandemic?
- wronglyprepaid 4y ago> Ok, but how can you as a fed say that if you double the money supply the velocity will stay the same forever? It went up by 500% since March 2020 btw, not just 100%, or 200%: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
- bowsamic 4y ago> How about, don't pump metric shit-tons of money into the economy and see how that works. As far as I can tell, economists believe that pumping money into the economy only explains hyper inflation, not low or moderate inflation
- wronglyprepaid 4y agoWell they surely are doing a stellar job running shit into the ground, so I guess they clearly know what they are doing.
- bowsamic 4y agoActually I think they are generally doing a pretty good job at keeping the inflation within a reasonable range, compared to other historic failures
- chasd00 4y agoCorrect me if I’m wrong but inflation has done nothing but go up (at least in the US). If they’re keeping it in a range then that range has no upper bound.
- bowsamic 4y agoYes you are wrong, look at the graph here https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/inflation-rate-cpi https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/infl... Inflation in the US has been pretty stable for the last few decades
- wronglyprepaid 4y agoI'm pretty sure people are mostly upset with the current inflation level, not the inflation level back when it was low. But I guess those people should just be grateful it was not higher before, and just be less greedy.
- 4y ago
- midasuni 4y agoInflation is happening now because oil demand is higher than supply, food demand is higher than supply, electronic chip demand is higher than supply. The causes of the supply drought is due to covid reducing supply and it not recovering fast enough, and of course the whole Russia invasion of Ukraine.
- kzrdude 4y agoTo what extent do we have saturation of some parts of the system? We expect growth in all areas including how much stuff the can be delivered from manufacturing, but investments in capacity might be missing
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> Inflation is happening now because oil demand is higher than supply, food demand is higher than supply, electronic chip demand is higher than supply. But none of that is sufficient for inflation to occur. Inflation is a fall in the value of a unit of currency. In your terms, it can only occur when currency supply is higher than currency demand.[1] But in other terms, while it is true that shortfalls in the supply of food, oil, and circuitry lower the value of a dollar, it is not true that they are able to cause inflation; if the number of dollars is lowered commensurately with the loss in value, that will offset the effect.
- mjburgess 4y agoInflation is a general rise in prices. A fall in currency value is one reason that would occur.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoNo, a general rise in prices and a fall in currency value are one and the same thing. The meaning of "a fall in currency value" is nothing other than "a general rise in prices".
- mjburgess 4y ago
- themitigating 4y agoWhat evidence do you have that campaign promises to end fossil fuels caused an increase in oil prices. Especially since there is the ukraine war, the end of covid, and inflation?
- wronglyprepaid 4y ago> What evidence do you have that campaign promises to end fossil fuels caused an increase in oil prices. If you create policy that deter investment in fossil fuels, and reduce production, would you expect prices to go up or down? And if you don't create policy to deter investment and reduce production, then how will you end fossil fuels? Maybe a better question to ask is, do you think there is any way to end fossil fuels other than having it be more expensive than alternatives? Why would the government resume leasing for oil and gas drilling on federal lands if they don't think stopping it affected the supply [1]? Is it just because they really want to mess the climate up some more and break campaign promises? [1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/biden-administration-resume-leasing-oil-gas-drilling-federal-lands-rcna24646 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/biden-adminis...
- themitigating 4y agoYou didn't respond with any evidence you just asked me to prove you wrong which is not how it works. As for ending fossil fuels , I never commented on that nor am I an expert in the field so I won't make any claim
- wronglyprepaid 4y agoAll I see is promise made, promise kept ... or well not quite but at least they were trying their best up til recently when the Biden administration took a anti climate policy turn for some reason which I don't get. I will still vote for them, but I just wish they would not have broken this particular campaign promise. I think they are right when they said people should just stop being greedy and buy electric cars. If people did this the price of oil will be irrelevant. But I guess the media has been incredibly negative towards the Biden administration and not giving him credit for the good things he has done, so I'm not surprised that people don't recognize or appreciate the work he has done to end fossil fuels.
- captainmuon 4y agoIt's not just the amount of money, it is the amount of money available vs the amount of goods available. I'm not an enconomist, so I don't know exactly why, but somehow all the additionally money (which is in form of credits) doesn't end up in the hand of consumers. I think what is going on is that it is harder and harder to get return on investment, which makes it harder to get money through "organic" investments, so they make money cheaper and lower the interest rates, which makes it even harder to get ROI. So all the money they pump in just goes around and keeps the wheels turning artificially. (Meanwhile all the capital flees into housing, crypto and similar markets and inflates them like crazy.) Anyway, I think the reason behind the inflation is not that the amount of cash is to high. Wages have not grown accordingly and demand has not gone up. But due to Covid, supply chain issues (related and incidental), international conflict, etc., we have just been producing less stuff. So I would say the inflation of some goods (housing) is due to the simmering financial crisis, and the inflation of others (like wheat, cooking oil, electronics) is due to political strife and economic instability.
- wronglyprepaid 4y ago> It's not just the amount of money, it is the amount of money available vs the amount of goods available. Okay, but ... if you just pumping money into the economy, are you not by definition just pumping money into the economy, as opposed to goods and money? If congress could by decree make goods why would anyone need to work?
- captainmuon 4y agoIf people (companies) just use that money to buy financial products, pay off other debt, and so on, and it just kinda circulates in the banks, but most of it doesn't end up in consumer's hands - then there is no reason that the prices for consumer goods should go up, right? I'm not sure demand driven inflation (= money supply driven) is a relevant problem at the moment. On the contrary I sometimes suspect it is a bogeyman used to justify not raising wages.
- wronglyprepaid 4y ago
- mypastself 4y agoI’ll add that conspicuous consumption, risky investments, and high indebtedness could at least partly be explained by government currency devaluations and low interest rates. It is rational to consume sooner rather than later and take on debt if you’re living in a society that penalizes saving your money. I don’t know how sustainable modern advanced economies’ obsession with growth is.
- brodo 4y agoThere is a lot to unpack here. I can’t go into details, maybe read a book on MMT. (I can only recommend German resources…) Some points: Deflation is bad for the economy, you want moderate inflation. Increasing the money supply is a prerequisite for inflation, but not the cause. The euro zone increased it‘s money supply enormously for mor than a decade and - until last year - had problems meeting it‘s 2% a year inflation goal. Increasing the money supply allows for cheap investments for both the state and private business. If the investments provide a net benefit to the economy (e.g. infrastructure) you should just do them. “Anything we can actually do we can afford.” - Keynes
- mmarq 4y ago> There is a lot to unpack here. I can’t go into details, maybe read a book on MMT. (I can only recommend German resources…) I would recommend people start with some normal economics before they get into the economic homologue of urine therapy.
- dools 4y agoThis recent episode of the Macro n Cheese podcast is very instructive https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-173-inflation-the-feds-crash-landing-with-l-randall-wray/ https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-173-inf...
- viraptor 4y ago> maybe don't make a campaign promise to end fossil fuels and act all surprised when the prices for fossil fuels go through the roof There's a well sourced explanation in this video regarding the price of fuel that I really enjoyed. https://youtu.be/QnBqAzJXVGo https://youtu.be/QnBqAzJXVGo There's also previous ones dealing with oil drilling. The tldr idea is that the US could drill more to satisfy the supply right now, but oil corps like money and high oil prices give them that. And that's regardless of the demand going down over years - the drilling rights are already in place.
- wronglyprepaid 4y agoHopefully it also incentivizes people to stop being selfish and buy an electric car.
- puranjay 4y agoIf you observed the absolute insanity that has been happening in asset prices, venture funding, equities, and crypto, there is absolutely no way you'd think that money printing doesn't lead to inflation (at best) and the complete Mickey-Mousification of the economy (at worst). Money has started feeling like a joke. It's thrown around for anything and everything. An ERC-20 memecoin called Shiba Inu hit a market cap of $41B. A dying video game retailer hit a market cap of nearly $30B. A taxi aggregator swallowed $33B in funding and never turned a dime in operational profit in 12 years of its existence. A house bought in 2019 doubled in price in under 2 years. Its complete and utter insanity.
- forthefuture 4y agoThe way it’s supposed to work is that the government sells bonds and the money goes away. Much like your original premise, it doesn’t much make sense that people think modern monetary policy only thought up quantitative easing and not quantitative tightening. Can’t speak to how it will end up working, but its definitely not a surprise.