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> In California, people fitting certain economic criteria are now being issued $1000 checks for inflation relief. This is beyond ludicrous. Its not. Its happen

> In California, people fitting certain economic criteria are now being issued $1000 checks for inflation relief. This is beyond ludicrous. Its not. Its happening in Europe too. Its a way to try to get people through the winter and avoid the energy crisis impacting ordinary people. That's what a government should do - take care of its people during extraordinary times.

stingraycharles 4y ago
Yeah in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t impact inflation all that much, but it does help the people that need it most. Just like increasing the minimum wage to keep up with inflation does. Over the past year businesses have increased their prices all over the board, you can’t then just simply say “but inflation!!” when you want to help the people with some amount of compensation for this.
- vladimirralev 4y ago
  If you take it just one step further, the people "that need it most" really only need it in order to instantly donate it to the megacorps with pricing power at ever-increasing prices. The handouts help only in that instant and at the very next clock cycle that money is now in the hands of the megacorps. Printing money and handouts only help the top of the top in the pricing power hierarchy. If you want to actually help people you'd be doing taxes on excess. Everything else ends up in gigantic accumulation of wealth at the top in just a few steps down the game.
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    From that perspective, anything always ends up in the top of the top of megacorps, and I find it not a very compelling argument to not help people just because they’re at the mercy of megacorps. You want to tax these megacorps additionally yes, especially if they’re profiting from the current situation. But at the same time, it’s also important to redestribute that wealth towards those who have the biggest problems right now.
    - babarock 4y ago
      Megacorps will get away with keeping their prices this high, as long as the gov keeps funding these "relief" payments. It's using taxpayer money to artificially maintain prices high.
      - stingraycharles 4y ago
        But we used taxpayer money to first inject trillions into the top of the economy. And then when the inevitable happens, we can’t just throw our arms in the air “because inflation!” — that’s a great way to make sure that the bottom of the economy will suffer tremendously due to all this. Because their income hasn’t increased nearly as much as the amount of inflation that occurred.
    - vladimirralev 4y ago
      With handouts, you only redistribute the wealth for an instant and you need to keep printing to sustain it. On top of that, the stability of this system becomes dependent on active approach of handing out money (i.e. tight dependency on central government). And I am not saying not to help the poor people. I am saying printing money doesn't help poor people, it helps the rich. If you want to help poor people like I said you can tax the excess, or you can provide a specific minimal food/energy/shelter. But again, handing out money for free only helps the top of top. As a side note, you know a lot of the poorest people in EM and frontier markets save money in USD either to escape their own inflating currency or as a dollar peg in their country. These people are poor and suffer the inflation in global markets, but they do not benefit from the US handouts. They can never outbid a money printer. And that's in fact the likely cause of the riots across the world in countries that don't have swap lines with the Fed.
ALittleLight 4y ago
That doesn't make sense though. You can't create energy by printing money. You just redistribute the value of your money. Maybe that's good - not clear to me why it's better to use inflation, which risks destabilizing the currency and punishes people who saved money, rather than straightforward taxes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- badlucklottery 4y ago
  > You can't create energy by printing money. Yes but the energy crisis isn't evenly distributed across the world. NA, for example, is still doing relatively well. While Europe is being hit relatively hard by the shortage and will likely have to import from more expensive sources than previous years to make it through the winter.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    How would European governments printing more of their own currencies to give handouts to their citizens, resulting in inflation, resulting in their currencies becoming weaker, help buying energy from NA?
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Not everyone gets the same amount of money, so that poorer people benefit from the scheme while richer people are more affected by the increased inflation.
      - ALittleLight 4y ago
        Rich people are less affected by inflation because they have access to investment opportunities that aren't as affected - for example, I'm sure German billionaires have money in American hedge funds. The middle class are most negatively affected by the tax of inflation because they have enough money that having the value of it reduced by inflation is meaningful, but they don't have sophisticated investment instruments to hedge against inflation. This takes us back to what I wrote originally - why is inflation the way to do this as opposed to just tax and spend? That is, why not create a specific tax and implement that and use the proceeds to pay for poor people's energy? Money printing is just a dishonest way to sneak a tax in on people who might not recognize it as a tax.
JohnSmitty32 4y ago
- tchaffee 4y ago
  Then try getting paid outside of civilized society. Unemployment will never be zero. An economy can't be 100% efficient. Taking care of those who cannot find work due to an imperfect system is a part of a civilized society.
  - youainti 4y ago
    Also, it would be inefficient to have an unemployment rate near 0. People in a good job market need to leave bad jobs, and sometimes that means that they are unemployed.

stingraycharles 4y ago

Yeah in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t impact inflation all that much, but it does help the people that need it most. Just like increasing the minimum wage to keep up with inflation does. Over the past year businesses have increased their prices all over the board, you can’t then just simply say “but inflation!!” when you want to help the people with some amount of compensation for this.

vladimirralev 4y ago
If you take it just one step further, the people "that need it most" really only need it in order to instantly donate it to the megacorps with pricing power at ever-increasing prices. The handouts help only in that instant and at the very next clock cycle that money is now in the hands of the megacorps. Printing money and handouts only help the top of the top in the pricing power hierarchy. If you want to actually help people you'd be doing taxes on excess. Everything else ends up in gigantic accumulation of wealth at the top in just a few steps down the game.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  From that perspective, anything always ends up in the top of the top of megacorps, and I find it not a very compelling argument to not help people just because they’re at the mercy of megacorps. You want to tax these megacorps additionally yes, especially if they’re profiting from the current situation. But at the same time, it’s also important to redestribute that wealth towards those who have the biggest problems right now.
  - babarock 4y ago
    Megacorps will get away with keeping their prices this high, as long as the gov keeps funding these "relief" payments. It's using taxpayer money to artificially maintain prices high.
    - stingraycharles 4y ago
      But we used taxpayer money to first inject trillions into the top of the economy. And then when the inevitable happens, we can’t just throw our arms in the air “because inflation!” — that’s a great way to make sure that the bottom of the economy will suffer tremendously due to all this. Because their income hasn’t increased nearly as much as the amount of inflation that occurred.
  - vladimirralev 4y ago
    With handouts, you only redistribute the wealth for an instant and you need to keep printing to sustain it. On top of that, the stability of this system becomes dependent on active approach of handing out money (i.e. tight dependency on central government). And I am not saying not to help the poor people. I am saying printing money doesn't help poor people, it helps the rich. If you want to help poor people like I said you can tax the excess, or you can provide a specific minimal food/energy/shelter. But again, handing out money for free only helps the top of top. As a side note, you know a lot of the poorest people in EM and frontier markets save money in USD either to escape their own inflating currency or as a dollar peg in their country. These people are poor and suffer the inflation in global markets, but they do not benefit from the US handouts. They can never outbid a money printer. And that's in fact the likely cause of the riots across the world in countries that don't have swap lines with the Fed.

ALittleLight 4y ago

That doesn't make sense though. You can't create energy by printing money. You just redistribute the value of your money. Maybe that's good - not clear to me why it's better to use inflation, which risks destabilizing the currency and punishes people who saved money, rather than straightforward taxes.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
badlucklottery 4y ago
> You can't create energy by printing money. Yes but the energy crisis isn't evenly distributed across the world. NA, for example, is still doing relatively well. While Europe is being hit relatively hard by the shortage and will likely have to import from more expensive sources than previous years to make it through the winter.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  How would European governments printing more of their own currencies to give handouts to their citizens, resulting in inflation, resulting in their currencies becoming weaker, help buying energy from NA?
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Not everyone gets the same amount of money, so that poorer people benefit from the scheme while richer people are more affected by the increased inflation.
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      Rich people are less affected by inflation because they have access to investment opportunities that aren't as affected - for example, I'm sure German billionaires have money in American hedge funds. The middle class are most negatively affected by the tax of inflation because they have enough money that having the value of it reduced by inflation is meaningful, but they don't have sophisticated investment instruments to hedge against inflation. This takes us back to what I wrote originally - why is inflation the way to do this as opposed to just tax and spend? That is, why not create a specific tax and implement that and use the proceeds to pay for poor people's energy? Money printing is just a dishonest way to sneak a tax in on people who might not recognize it as a tax.

JohnSmitty32 4y ago

tchaffee 4y ago
Then try getting paid outside of civilized society. Unemployment will never be zero. An economy can't be 100% efficient. Taking care of those who cannot find work due to an imperfect system is a part of a civilized society.
- youainti 4y ago
  Also, it would be inefficient to have an unemployment rate near 0. People in a good job market need to leave bad jobs, and sometimes that means that they are unemployed.