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There's two causes for inflation I think everybody agrees, too little supply and too much demand. The demand-caused inflation would seem to be self-correcting

There's two causes for inflation I think everybody agrees, too little supply and too much demand. The demand-caused inflation would seem to be self-correcting problem: When things cost more, people buy less of them. Then suppliers will have to lower their prices or at least stop increasing them, if nobody buys their product because of too high prices. In other words if people having too much money causes inflation, people will soon NOT have too much money, because it is used up by the higher prices. So the real problem to focus on would seem to be supply-side inflation. How can we produce more cheaper and distribute the products to people cheaper? Isn't that the problem governments should be trying to solve, to get rid of inflation?

Helmut10001 4y ago
> How can we produce more cheaper and distribute the products to people cheaper? Please replace cheaper with sustainable, otherwise the world will be flooded with even more plastic.
xapata 4y ago
> There's two causes for inflation I think everybody agrees, too little supply and too much demand. Price increases aren't always inflation. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published, "Strictly speaking, inflation refers only to a drop in the purchasing power of money that results when a central bank creates more money than its public wants to hold. Inflation manifests itself as a rise in all prices and wages—not just some subset of prices. ... relative-price changes—no matter how uncomfortable they are for consumers or producers—transmit vital information necessary for the efficient allocation of resources throughout any market economy. Inflation, by contrast, contributes no information useful to our consumption, production, or labor choices. If anything, inflation can temporarily distort vital relative-price signals ..." https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/economic-commentary-archives/2008-economic-commentaries/ec-20080601-rising-relative-prices-or-inflation-why-knowing-the-difference-matters.aspx https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publicat...
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  But isn't inflation measured by some kind of average price index? If the consumer-price-index goes up we call it inflation whether it's caused by " central bank creating more money than its public wants to hold." or not? Is it possible to measure "how much money public will want to hold"?
  - xapata 4y ago
    > But isn't inflation measured by some kind of average price index? CPI (Consumer Price Index) is often used to measure inflation, but is an imperfect measure. First, it only measures the prices of household consumption, not wages, business expenses, etc. Second, as this BLS article says: "The CPI has been criticized for having both an upward bias (overstating inflation) and a downward bias (understating inflation). Much of the criticism asserting an upward bias comes from the academic community. In 1995, Congress, aware of such criticism, commissioned a group of academic economists, led by Michael Boskin, to study and report on the CPI. The resulting study, titled "Toward A More Accurate Measure Of The Cost Of Living" (but often referred to as the Boskin Report), summarized the viewpoint that the CPI was upwardly biased. The report asserted that the CPI overstated inflation because of three main reasons: it omitted consumer substitution, did not fully account for quality change, and failed to properly reflect the addition of new goods. BLS has introduced some methodological changes since the report came out in 1996. Although these changes were intended to make the CPI more accurate, some think that they have introduced a downward bias." https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/consumer-price-index-data-quality-how-accurate-is-the-us-cpi.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/consumer-price-index-d... > Is it possible to measure "how much money public will want to hold"? No, not directly. We can only measure proxies, then debate how useful the proxies are. The more holistic a metric is, the better a gauge of inflation it is. To the extent it measures relative price changes, rather than total-market price changes (including the price of labor), it may incorporate economic effects other than inflation. One flaw of the CPI for serving as a complete measure of inflation is right there in the name: Consumer Price.

Helmut10001 4y ago

> How can we produce more cheaper and distribute the products to people cheaper? Please replace cheaper with sustainable, otherwise the world will be flooded with even more plastic.

xapata 4y ago

> There's two causes for inflation I think everybody agrees, too little supply and too much demand. Price increases aren't always inflation. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published, "Strictly speaking, inflation refers only to a drop in the purchasing power of money that results when a central bank creates more money than its public wants to hold. Inflation manifests itself as a rise in all prices and wages—not just some subset of prices. ... relative-price changes—no matter how uncomfortable they are for consumers or producers—transmit vital information necessary for the efficient allocation of resources throughout any market economy. Inflation, by contrast, contributes no information useful to our consumption, production, or labor choices. If anything, inflation can temporarily distort vital relative-price signals ..." https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/economic-commentary-archives/2008-economic-commentaries/ec-20080601-rising-relative-prices-or-inflation-why-knowing-the-difference-matters.aspx https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publicat...

galaxyLogic 4y ago
But isn't inflation measured by some kind of average price index? If the consumer-price-index goes up we call it inflation whether it's caused by " central bank creating more money than its public wants to hold." or not? Is it possible to measure "how much money public will want to hold"?
- xapata 4y ago
  > But isn't inflation measured by some kind of average price index? CPI (Consumer Price Index) is often used to measure inflation, but is an imperfect measure. First, it only measures the prices of household consumption, not wages, business expenses, etc. Second, as this BLS article says: "The CPI has been criticized for having both an upward bias (overstating inflation) and a downward bias (understating inflation). Much of the criticism asserting an upward bias comes from the academic community. In 1995, Congress, aware of such criticism, commissioned a group of academic economists, led by Michael Boskin, to study and report on the CPI. The resulting study, titled "Toward A More Accurate Measure Of The Cost Of Living" (but often referred to as the Boskin Report), summarized the viewpoint that the CPI was upwardly biased. The report asserted that the CPI overstated inflation because of three main reasons: it omitted consumer substitution, did not fully account for quality change, and failed to properly reflect the addition of new goods. BLS has introduced some methodological changes since the report came out in 1996. Although these changes were intended to make the CPI more accurate, some think that they have introduced a downward bias." https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/consumer-price-index-data-quality-how-accurate-is-the-us-cpi.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-1/consumer-price-index-d... > Is it possible to measure "how much money public will want to hold"? No, not directly. We can only measure proxies, then debate how useful the proxies are. The more holistic a metric is, the better a gauge of inflation it is. To the extent it measures relative price changes, rather than total-market price changes (including the price of labor), it may incorporate economic effects other than inflation. One flaw of the CPI for serving as a complete measure of inflation is right there in the name: Consumer Price.