4 ms·

Why has the US seen so little inflation in the last 30 years?

by pama 3y ago

Spivak 3y ago
Like ~100% inflation since 1994 sounds bad until you look at the 30 years prior to that which was ~380% inflation.
- pama 3y ago
  It also doesn’t sound bad if one calculates that 2.4% annual inflation would exceed 100% over 30 years, and one considers that below about 2% is often harmful to the economy.
  - geraldhh 3y ago
    'exponential doubling time' is the effect that devalues money by 3/4th's within a average 'work life' effectively putting a lower limit on profit in order to actually grow wealth
BirAdam 3y ago
It saw tremendous inflation, just less than the 70s and 80s, and this due to two different things. First, companies just began making shitty products. Use glued and compressed pulp instead of wood, use fructose instead of glucose, use bleached and desiccated wheat, use chips instead of anything mechanical, use cheaper less pure and thinner metals, etc. in the realm of food there was also shrinkflation. Second, the USA exported much of its inflation as dollar imperialism. Today, making products of less quality is nearly impossible without sacrificing sales, and the USA has run out of countries to add to its empire while simultaneously having sanctioned enough countries that they’ve now formed their own trading bloque. All of this means that dollars are staying at home after printing and that dollars are starting to come home from the rest of the world. This follows after the government shutdown parts of the economy and concomitantly printed trillions. So, there’s now rather high inflation once again. Deregulation actually played less important a part of all of the financialization of the economy than did the transition to debt-based economics. The inversion of time in money is a dance with the devil, and the devil usually wins that dance.
- ted_bunny 3y ago
  Wonder if anyone's written anything about the inevitability of the decline of profit.
  - smallmancontrov 3y ago
    They have, extensively, but it's not a story the Jedi would tell you.
    - NhanH 3y ago
      Can you please share some authors or sources from the Empire that I can read?
      - smallmancontrov 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut I may have exaggerated slightly, but it's a touchy subject because investment is the legitimate way by which rich people get paid for being rich, which is how class works in capitalist societies. The long term sustainability of investment supply / demand dynamics have deep implications for the legitimacy of this enterprise, its winners and losers, and the policies that prop them up (or don't).
      - ted_bunny 3y ago
        You're not going to find many good critiques of the empire from within the empire.
smallmancontrov 3y ago
Because everyone wants to bank/invest with the US. The money is being pushed in, not pulled in. If it were being pulled in, rates would have to be relatively high to pull it in, but they are not, so it is being pushed in. Why is money being pushed in? Put yourself in the shoes of a wealth-weighted non-US citizen. Wealth weighting is critical for understanding many aspects of economics yet systematically under-discussed to make the economy seem more altruistic than it is, but that's another story. So you have a bunch of money and you're outside the US. You want to preserve or grow your wealth, but your local government keeps devaluing the currency to pump the real economy, or hiking taxes, or there's a labor party that you think might get in power and do those things, or your government is literally called the Chinese Communist Party and is ideologically predisposed to confiscating your wealth tomorrow. Where do you put your savings? Some of it you still keep locally, for practical reasons, but the rest you invest abroad. Where? A peer country with the same issues? A developing country where investment never comes back? A small banking haven that will fold at the first sign of hard power? Or do you send it to the rabidly capitalist country with a 50 year track record of delivering investor returns and dozens of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to put between your bank account and the New Workers Collective of Yourlandia? That's right. You send it to the USA. What happens when the money lands in the USA? It pumps assets, because that's what the money buys, and it dumps exports, which now must compete with a literal money printer for access to talent and resources. Asset holders do great. People who sell services to the asset holders do OK. People who build shit for export, though, oof. Software, chip designs, and movies might be lucrative enough that they don't have to care (thus far) but in general, oof. "We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now all we do is put our hand in the next guy's pocket." - The Wire That's exactly right, but it's extremely important to understand the macro that drives this so that you can understand how the macro affects you and make informed guesses about where it is headed. For example, I wouldn't bet on this dynamic collapsing tomorrow.

Why has the US seen so little inflation in the last 30 years?

by pama 3y ago

Why has the US seen so little inflation in the last 30 years?

Spivak 3y ago

Like ~100% inflation since 1994 sounds bad until you look at the 30 years prior to that which was ~380% inflation.

pama 3y ago
It also doesn’t sound bad if one calculates that 2.4% annual inflation would exceed 100% over 30 years, and one considers that below about 2% is often harmful to the economy.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  'exponential doubling time' is the effect that devalues money by 3/4th's within a average 'work life' effectively putting a lower limit on profit in order to actually grow wealth

BirAdam 3y ago

It saw tremendous inflation, just less than the 70s and 80s, and this due to two different things. First, companies just began making shitty products. Use glued and compressed pulp instead of wood, use fructose instead of glucose, use bleached and desiccated wheat, use chips instead of anything mechanical, use cheaper less pure and thinner metals, etc. in the realm of food there was also shrinkflation. Second, the USA exported much of its inflation as dollar imperialism. Today, making products of less quality is nearly impossible without sacrificing sales, and the USA has run out of countries to add to its empire while simultaneously having sanctioned enough countries that they’ve now formed their own trading bloque. All of this means that dollars are staying at home after printing and that dollars are starting to come home from the rest of the world. This follows after the government shutdown parts of the economy and concomitantly printed trillions. So, there’s now rather high inflation once again. Deregulation actually played less important a part of all of the financialization of the economy than did the transition to debt-based economics. The inversion of time in money is a dance with the devil, and the devil usually wins that dance.

ted_bunny 3y ago
Wonder if anyone's written anything about the inevitability of the decline of profit.
- smallmancontrov 3y ago
  They have, extensively, but it's not a story the Jedi would tell you.
  - NhanH 3y ago
    Can you please share some authors or sources from the Empire that I can read?
    - smallmancontrov 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_saving_glut I may have exaggerated slightly, but it's a touchy subject because investment is the legitimate way by which rich people get paid for being rich, which is how class works in capitalist societies. The long term sustainability of investment supply / demand dynamics have deep implications for the legitimacy of this enterprise, its winners and losers, and the policies that prop them up (or don't).
    - ted_bunny 3y ago
      You're not going to find many good critiques of the empire from within the empire.

smallmancontrov 3y ago

Because everyone wants to bank/invest with the US. The money is being pushed in, not pulled in. If it were being pulled in, rates would have to be relatively high to pull it in, but they are not, so it is being pushed in. Why is money being pushed in? Put yourself in the shoes of a wealth-weighted non-US citizen. Wealth weighting is critical for understanding many aspects of economics yet systematically under-discussed to make the economy seem more altruistic than it is, but that's another story. So you have a bunch of money and you're outside the US. You want to preserve or grow your wealth, but your local government keeps devaluing the currency to pump the real economy, or hiking taxes, or there's a labor party that you think might get in power and do those things, or your government is literally called the Chinese Communist Party and is ideologically predisposed to confiscating your wealth tomorrow. Where do you put your savings? Some of it you still keep locally, for practical reasons, but the rest you invest abroad. Where? A peer country with the same issues? A developing country where investment never comes back? A small banking haven that will fold at the first sign of hard power? Or do you send it to the rabidly capitalist country with a 50 year track record of delivering investor returns and dozens of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to put between your bank account and the New Workers Collective of Yourlandia? That's right. You send it to the USA. What happens when the money lands in the USA? It pumps assets, because that's what the money buys, and it dumps exports, which now must compete with a literal money printer for access to talent and resources. Asset holders do great. People who sell services to the asset holders do OK. People who build shit for export, though, oof. Software, chip designs, and movies might be lucrative enough that they don't have to care (thus far) but in general, oof. "We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now all we do is put our hand in the next guy's pocket." - The Wire That's exactly right, but it's extremely important to understand the macro that drives this so that you can understand how the macro affects you and make informed guesses about where it is headed. For example, I wouldn't bet on this dynamic collapsing tomorrow.