3 ms·

False. Inflation was mainly caused by the central banks(especially the US FED but also the ECB who followed suit) devalued the currency by over-issuing it durin

False. Inflation was mainly caused by the central banks(especially the US FED but also the ECB who followed suit) devalued the currency by over-issuing it during the pandemic, not due to the post pandemic high energy prices which are not that high when you adjust for the crazy Inflation the excessive money printing generated. In short, they barrowed money in your name with you as a guarantor and now you're paying for it, it's that simple. The war caused by Russia is just a convenient scapegoat that's easier to sell to the financially illiterate population to deflect the blame. Keep in mind most voters don't understand basic economics and how currency supply affects inflation, but they do understand "Russia dropping bombs = bad". When 80% of the entire world supply of USD (the world reserve currency that the EU also has to use) was printed during the pandemic, how can anyone say that Russia's war caused the inflation? Do people not know arithmetic anymore? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

ttyprintk 2y ago
The European Central Bank said it’s due to energy.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  Of course they'd say that. Did you expect them to just say "yeah, we fucked you over by devaluing the currency causing your wages to be worthless"?. Don't be naive please and look into how much currency was issued during the pandemic and see for yourself.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- johngladtj 2y ago
  The people who caused the problem say they weren't responsible for the problem. Do you see the issue here?
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    That goes both directions, though. Central banks are prone to understating their responsibility for bad things; the gold bugs and crypto hodl folks are prone to overstating it. The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. The US's relatively soft landing post-pandemic seems to demonstrate some use of monetary policy in this fashion works.
sofixa 2y ago
Utter nonsense, and I say this as nicely as I can. Check the price of Russian gas before and after the invasion, and the resulting price of electricity: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... Combine with the fact that Russia and Ukraine are some of the biggest exporters of many critical raw materials, like importantly, foodstuffs (wheat, sunflower oil, etc), and steel, aluminium, oil, gas. Hell, there was a crisis in availability of mustard and snails in France due to the invasion of Ukraine (and on the mustard, a series of bad harvests in Canada which further complicated things). We can even clearly see it in the inflation charts, first there was growth in energy inflation towards the end of 2021 (as things were ramping back up from Covid), then a big spike in 2022 due to Russia's invasion, and then over 2022-2023, related spike in other sectors: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Euro_area_annual_inflation_and_its_main_components,_October_2014_-_October_2024.png https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... To pretend none of this had no impact whatsoever is wilful ignorance.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  Bruh, 80% of all USD in existence was issued during the pandemic alone. How the hell can you tell me with a straight face that that didn't cause the inflation? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
  - sofixa 2y ago
    Bad faith argument again, or at least terrible tunnel vision. So what? In the EU a lot of that money went into the Recovery fund, which released the funds in multiple steps (only the first one was in 2021), and a lot of it is still remaining in the fund. How do you explain the massive inflation in the EU then? And are you seriously that centred on "money printing" that you cannot imagine gas and oil prices raising multiple times, and the disappearance of multiple critical raw material suppliers, had _no impact whatsoever_?
    - 2y ago
Zanfa 2y ago
It would be stupid to discount the effect that artificially limiting energy exports and using it for blackmail before and during the full-blown Russian invasion is naive. IIRC my nat gas prices went up like 10x compared to the previous year.
riffraff 2y ago
Do you think that since M1 is down 13% since peak we should be seeing deflation right now, or does M1 growth only impact inflation one way?
_heimdall 2y ago
While I would also lean towards blaming the US Fed, how can you be so confident in precisely what caused inflation? One of my big issues with economics as a "science" is that they try to boil down massively complex systems into a handful of numbers. When it comes to global economics and geopolitics the system is even more complex. How would we ever be able to say any particular time of inflation was causes by exclusively, or primarily, any one factor? At best looking at historic data and seeing graphs that move together show correlation, they will never show causation.
1986 2y ago
Money supply increased significantly in 2020 for sure but that's NOT what you're seeing in the M1 graph. M1 was revised to include savings accounts at the same time and this is the major source of the discontinuity: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more-liquid-and-part-of-m1-money/ https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more... M2 captures the pandemic influx better and is significantly less dramatic: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
>Do people not know arithmetic anymore? They never knew it.

ttyprintk 2y ago

The European Central Bank said it’s due to energy.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
Of course they'd say that. Did you expect them to just say "yeah, we fucked you over by devaluing the currency causing your wages to be worthless"?. Don't be naive please and look into how much currency was issued during the pandemic and see for yourself.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
johngladtj 2y ago
The people who caused the problem say they weren't responsible for the problem. Do you see the issue here?
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  That goes both directions, though. Central banks are prone to understating their responsibility for bad things; the gold bugs and crypto hodl folks are prone to overstating it. The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. The US's relatively soft landing post-pandemic seems to demonstrate some use of monetary policy in this fashion works.

sofixa 2y ago

Utter nonsense, and I say this as nicely as I can. Check the price of Russian gas before and after the invasion, and the resulting price of electricity: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... Combine with the fact that Russia and Ukraine are some of the biggest exporters of many critical raw materials, like importantly, foodstuffs (wheat, sunflower oil, etc), and steel, aluminium, oil, gas. Hell, there was a crisis in availability of mustard and snails in France due to the invasion of Ukraine (and on the mustard, a series of bad harvests in Canada which further complicated things). We can even clearly see it in the inflation charts, first there was growth in energy inflation towards the end of 2021 (as things were ramping back up from Covid), then a big spike in 2022 due to Russia's invasion, and then over 2022-2023, related spike in other sectors: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Euro_area_annual_inflation_and_its_main_components,_October_2014_-_October_2024.png https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... To pretend none of this had no impact whatsoever is wilful ignorance.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
Bruh, 80% of all USD in existence was issued during the pandemic alone. How the hell can you tell me with a straight face that that didn't cause the inflation? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
- sofixa 2y ago
  Bad faith argument again, or at least terrible tunnel vision. So what? In the EU a lot of that money went into the Recovery fund, which released the funds in multiple steps (only the first one was in 2021), and a lot of it is still remaining in the fund. How do you explain the massive inflation in the EU then? And are you seriously that centred on "money printing" that you cannot imagine gas and oil prices raising multiple times, and the disappearance of multiple critical raw material suppliers, had _no impact whatsoever_?
  - 2y ago

Zanfa 2y ago

It would be stupid to discount the effect that artificially limiting energy exports and using it for blackmail before and during the full-blown Russian invasion is naive. IIRC my nat gas prices went up like 10x compared to the previous year.

riffraff 2y ago

Do you think that since M1 is down 13% since peak we should be seeing deflation right now, or does M1 growth only impact inflation one way?

_heimdall 2y ago

While I would also lean towards blaming the US Fed, how can you be so confident in precisely what caused inflation? One of my big issues with economics as a "science" is that they try to boil down massively complex systems into a handful of numbers. When it comes to global economics and geopolitics the system is even more complex. How would we ever be able to say any particular time of inflation was causes by exclusively, or primarily, any one factor? At best looking at historic data and seeing graphs that move together show correlation, they will never show causation.

1986 2y ago

Money supply increased significantly in 2020 for sure but that's NOT what you're seeing in the M1 graph. M1 was revised to include savings accounts at the same time and this is the major source of the discontinuity: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more-liquid-and-part-of-m1-money/ https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more... M2 captures the pandemic influx better and is significantly less dramatic: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago

>Do people not know arithmetic anymore? They never knew it.