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>If your $1000 becomes $1600, and prices went up 30%, then you can buy more stuff then before. Again, your money does not increase like this. Only assets do. S

>If your $1000 becomes $1600, and prices went up 30%, then you can buy more stuff then before. Again, your money does not increase like this. Only assets do. Stocks in particular go up in price due to inflation and naturally-occurring profit. You're the one asserting that assets ought to be brought into it, and I've been telling you that assets do not avoid the consequences of inflation. >I don't care what you define profit as. >The comment I replied to didn't use the word profit, and I didn't use the word profit in my reply. You brought the word profit into the conversation. I didn't use the word profit the way you wanted, I guess. So I will stop using the word profit. Problem solved. Look, I don't think the original comment mentioned stocks either. You're the one who brought that into the equation. They did not gain because of inflation. They at best held value despite inflation. The reason they went up in terms of dollars is largely due to the depreciation of the dollar, and secondarily because of profits (using the dollar-based definition or purchasing-power definition, it doesn't matter). You're pointing to stocks as if they are a life hack for beating inflation, or even something to be taken for granted, and I'm here to tell you that they're not. >You mentioned fixed incomes increased based on official CPI numbers earlier, right? That's enough to prove the point I was making. The cost of living adjustment just has to be more than 0 for my argument to be correct. When they say the number is 6-8% and inflation is raging at 20%, your "point" is not helpful. Even if you're right, it's a pointless observation. Inflation is still bad mmmkay? >Lagging doesn't affect my point as long as the lag is less than four years. Gaslit too-small numbers don't affect my point as long as the gaslit numbers are still above 0. What does 4 years have to do with it? With even one year of high prices, you will lose a hell of a lot of money. >Let's have an example number. For this example let's pretend prices went up 30%. If I say "relative to your income and savings, you're paying 25% more", I'm not saying "it's not so bad". That situation is really bad. I'm just saying it's not 30%. > >And it's important to realize that those numbers are different if we want to do accurate calculations about inflation. I'm not pointing out the difference for the sake of pedantry. You are getting awfully pedantic. We talk about inflation in terms of price hikes because that's something that affects everyone. Accounting for all the inflation avoidance schemes and possible wage increases that people get to cope with inflation would require a different statistic. Those coping mechanisms are a red herring when it comes to the actual performance of our currency, which is what people actually care about.

Dylan16807 3y ago
They were complaining about being able to buy 30% less. I gave some reasons that isn't the case, that decreasing in spending power would be less than 30%. I'm not saying anything "avoids" inflation, I'm saying they're exaggerating the problem. And stop saying it doesn't matter. Those numbers being different values does matter. A huge portion of your text is acting like it's a binary bad/not-bad, and then acting like I said it's not bad. I'm not saying that. > Again, your money does not increase like this. You don't have a significant amount of money. You have income, you have assets, you have debt. Only the literal money changes 1:1 with inflation. If you talk about what your "money" can buy when complaining about inflation, that's not literally the $500 in your checking account. It's not a complaint that you lost a few hundred dollars, one time, and nothing else changed. "money" in this sense is also talking about the bigger group of income and assets. > You are getting awfully pedantic. We talk about inflation in terms of price hikes because that's something that affects everyone. Accounting for all the inflation avoidance schemes and possible wage increases that people get to cope with inflation would require a different statistic. Those coping mechanisms are a red herring when it comes to the actual performance of our currency, which is what people actually care about. This comes so close to agreeing with me. Yes, "different statistic". That's my fundamental argument. My entire point is that ein0p was conflating "inflation" with measurements of how much they can buy when those are different in a few important ways. And by "schemes" I'm talking about a couple things that together affect the majority of people, not edge/corner cases. Using accurate numbers is good mmmkay?
- wakawaka28 3y ago
  >I'm not saying anything "avoids" inflation, I'm saying they're exaggerating the problem. I can see why you might think that, but the problem isn't that they're stating it wrong. If they had $1000 that now buys $700, that is literally 30% less. You're bringing a bunch of tangential factors into this to try to say that the problem isn't that bad, but it is. >A huge portion of your text is acting like it's a binary bad/not-bad, and then acting like I said it's not bad. I'm not saying that. Well, your intention is certainly a binary for/against this idea. You're being extremely pedantic and persistent about saying essentially "It's not as bad as you think". Well, it actually is as bad as I think, and I have been thinking about it almost daily for like 4 years now. >If you talk about what your "money" can buy when complaining about inflation, that's not literally the $500 in your checking account. It's not a complaint that you lost a few hundred dollars, one time, and nothing else changed. "money" in this sense is also talking about the bigger group of income and assets. You're wrong to count other things besides currency as money. Inflation stats are specifically about currency. Roping anything else into it is a red herring. So far you have done two things that are distracting from this: 1. Grouping other assets into "money" that may go up because of inflation itself, or because of other factors like risk or business operations. 2. Wage or benefit increases that may or may not come, and certainly aren't guaranteed. >Yes, "different statistic". That's my fundamental argument. My entire point is that ein0p was conflating "inflation" with measurements of how much they can buy when those are different in a few important ways. There are too many individual circumstances to account for to come up with a statistic like that, and at that point you're measuring properties of individuals and not the monetary system. Even CPI, which measures sampling of prices in many categories, is very complicated. It is also heavily manipulated IMO. >And by "schemes" I'm talking about a couple things that together affect the majority of people, not edge/corner cases. I think you might have good intentions but ultimately you're ignoring a number of circumstances that do affect most people differently, as I have pointed out. The only thing that applies universally to all people is prices, and even then prices in different categories affect different people differently. I think the sampling for CPI is supposed to represent the typical consumer already. What is the goal of these "better" stats which dodge the root of the problem for a majority of people, if not to understate the harm of reckless monetary policy? I'm of the opinion that the statistic that you want is pointless and would also be harmfully misleading if it was created. It might be ok if buried in some report for economists, but it isn't relevant to most people.

Dylan16807 3y ago

They were complaining about being able to buy 30% less. I gave some reasons that isn't the case, that decreasing in spending power would be less than 30%. I'm not saying anything "avoids" inflation, I'm saying they're exaggerating the problem. And stop saying it doesn't matter. Those numbers being different values does matter. A huge portion of your text is acting like it's a binary bad/not-bad, and then acting like I said it's not bad. I'm not saying that. > Again, your money does not increase like this. You don't have a significant amount of money. You have income, you have assets, you have debt. Only the literal money changes 1:1 with inflation. If you talk about what your "money" can buy when complaining about inflation, that's not literally the $500 in your checking account. It's not a complaint that you lost a few hundred dollars, one time, and nothing else changed. "money" in this sense is also talking about the bigger group of income and assets. > You are getting awfully pedantic. We talk about inflation in terms of price hikes because that's something that affects everyone. Accounting for all the inflation avoidance schemes and possible wage increases that people get to cope with inflation would require a different statistic. Those coping mechanisms are a red herring when it comes to the actual performance of our currency, which is what people actually care about. This comes so close to agreeing with me. Yes, "different statistic". That's my fundamental argument. My entire point is that ein0p was conflating "inflation" with measurements of how much they can buy when those are different in a few important ways. And by "schemes" I'm talking about a couple things that together affect the majority of people, not edge/corner cases. Using accurate numbers is good mmmkay?

wakawaka28 3y ago
>I'm not saying anything "avoids" inflation, I'm saying they're exaggerating the problem. I can see why you might think that, but the problem isn't that they're stating it wrong. If they had $1000 that now buys $700, that is literally 30% less. You're bringing a bunch of tangential factors into this to try to say that the problem isn't that bad, but it is. >A huge portion of your text is acting like it's a binary bad/not-bad, and then acting like I said it's not bad. I'm not saying that. Well, your intention is certainly a binary for/against this idea. You're being extremely pedantic and persistent about saying essentially "It's not as bad as you think". Well, it actually is as bad as I think, and I have been thinking about it almost daily for like 4 years now. >If you talk about what your "money" can buy when complaining about inflation, that's not literally the $500 in your checking account. It's not a complaint that you lost a few hundred dollars, one time, and nothing else changed. "money" in this sense is also talking about the bigger group of income and assets. You're wrong to count other things besides currency as money. Inflation stats are specifically about currency. Roping anything else into it is a red herring. So far you have done two things that are distracting from this: 1. Grouping other assets into "money" that may go up because of inflation itself, or because of other factors like risk or business operations. 2. Wage or benefit increases that may or may not come, and certainly aren't guaranteed. >Yes, "different statistic". That's my fundamental argument. My entire point is that ein0p was conflating "inflation" with measurements of how much they can buy when those are different in a few important ways. There are too many individual circumstances to account for to come up with a statistic like that, and at that point you're measuring properties of individuals and not the monetary system. Even CPI, which measures sampling of prices in many categories, is very complicated. It is also heavily manipulated IMO. >And by "schemes" I'm talking about a couple things that together affect the majority of people, not edge/corner cases. I think you might have good intentions but ultimately you're ignoring a number of circumstances that do affect most people differently, as I have pointed out. The only thing that applies universally to all people is prices, and even then prices in different categories affect different people differently. I think the sampling for CPI is supposed to represent the typical consumer already. What is the goal of these "better" stats which dodge the root of the problem for a majority of people, if not to understate the harm of reckless monetary policy? I'm of the opinion that the statistic that you want is pointless and would also be harmfully misleading if it was created. It might be ok if buried in some report for economists, but it isn't relevant to most people.