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There would be better outcomes if the money were used to pay down debt, to reduce future inflation, or give rebates, to boost growth somewhere.

marcosdumay 2y ago
> to pay down debt Government debt? That one is not clear at all. My best guess is that it depends on lots and lots of factors. > to reduce future inflation There exist an optimum number for inflation, making it smaller makes things worse. That optimum number is almost always greater than 0. > or give rebates Nope, sending the money to poor people is almost always better than rebating taxes. (Taxes rebates is such a weird concept. I've only seen it discussed on the US.) > to boost growth somewhere Giving money to poor people is a very effective way of achieving this.
- immibis 2y ago
  Fun fact: There's actually no solid evidence that 2% is a good level of inflation. For all we know it could be 1%, 0% or -2%. The computer industry has been experiencing inflation around -10% a year for almost a century - if deflation is such a problem, why hasn't it collapsed yet? People delay their purchases a few months, but the foreseen total dry-up of purchasing just doesn't happen. (Except to Osbourne.)
  - 1attice 2y ago
    possibly, and this is just a thought, because it is an industry, and not a country? 90s-10s Japan seems a better comparand, and it does not support your thesis
  - ben_w 2y ago
    For many computation tasks, the purchaser needs the answer today, not the same calculation done twice as fast for hardware bought 2 years from now. For very computationally expensive tasks such as the Human Genome Project, the answer is indeed to delay the purchase. (This does lead to an interesting question on the motivations for current very-expensive AI training runs today: for those who are convinced their specific model is the future, is there really so much value in doing this right now rather than next year at 70% of the price?)
    - immibis 2y ago
      And the same is true for most things in the world. If money deflated, people wouldn't put off purchases forever, especially because it wouldn't be expected to keep deflating. Really what keeps economies stable is broken expectations. If a certain thing was guaranteed to make lots of money, everyone would do it, but because no financial games can be reliably expected to, even the things that are making lots of money at a certain point in time (like holding it during deflation) they don't.

marcosdumay 2y ago

> to pay down debt Government debt? That one is not clear at all. My best guess is that it depends on lots and lots of factors. > to reduce future inflation There exist an optimum number for inflation, making it smaller makes things worse. That optimum number is almost always greater than 0. > or give rebates Nope, sending the money to poor people is almost always better than rebating taxes. (Taxes rebates is such a weird concept. I've only seen it discussed on the US.) > to boost growth somewhere Giving money to poor people is a very effective way of achieving this.

immibis 2y ago
Fun fact: There's actually no solid evidence that 2% is a good level of inflation. For all we know it could be 1%, 0% or -2%. The computer industry has been experiencing inflation around -10% a year for almost a century - if deflation is such a problem, why hasn't it collapsed yet? People delay their purchases a few months, but the foreseen total dry-up of purchasing just doesn't happen. (Except to Osbourne.)
- 1attice 2y ago
  possibly, and this is just a thought, because it is an industry, and not a country? 90s-10s Japan seems a better comparand, and it does not support your thesis
- ben_w 2y ago
  For many computation tasks, the purchaser needs the answer today, not the same calculation done twice as fast for hardware bought 2 years from now. For very computationally expensive tasks such as the Human Genome Project, the answer is indeed to delay the purchase. (This does lead to an interesting question on the motivations for current very-expensive AI training runs today: for those who are convinced their specific model is the future, is there really so much value in doing this right now rather than next year at 70% of the price?)
  - immibis 2y ago
    And the same is true for most things in the world. If money deflated, people wouldn't put off purchases forever, especially because it wouldn't be expected to keep deflating. Really what keeps economies stable is broken expectations. If a certain thing was guaranteed to make lots of money, everyone would do it, but because no financial games can be reliably expected to, even the things that are making lots of money at a certain point in time (like holding it during deflation) they don't.