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Yeah I could see why you would say that. I linked the article to exorbitant privilege which states some of those advantages. If you are responsible with your l

Yeah I could see why you would say that. I linked the article to exorbitant privilege which states some of those advantages. If you are responsible with your levels of corruption, then fiat currency is generally very beneficial. So it ends up being like a drug. Appropriate amounts can improve your life, but abuse, which the drug will promote, can destroy it. It's a form of power, and if you can use it responsibly it's good, and if you abuse it it's bad. Rampant shortermism promoted by shareholder supremacy especially when compounded by government funded bailouts really amplifies our ability to damage our future with our monetary system. If you can think in the long term then it's very net beneficial, but if you allow short term interests to dominate... the hangover will be devastating. Thinking about it more, lack of inflation makes savings valuable and potentially implies deflation where saving/not spending money gives you more buying power than investing it. This takes money out of the market and reduces "dollar velocity"/the sum total of market activity which can devastate your economy.

hayst4ck 1y ago
The elephant in the room is that rich people need to be taxed and their wealth redistributed. If that happens, then there is a mechanism that prevents systems of compounding power, and the wages "stolen" by inflation are put back into the economy rather than becoming part of someone's hoard. If wealth is redistributed then that allows for monetary inflation without changing power relationships. If that does not happen, then power compounds and those with power will enact systems that benefit themselves since they will never have to experience the long term consequences of their looting of tomorrow for today. The poor will continue to get poorer and the rich will get richer, until the rich have so much power and poor have so little power, that law, the prevention of arbitrary exercises of power by the powerful, becomes meaningless and the rich will take what they wish unopposed. Some people will get so powerful that when a government says "you can't fish all the fish in the sea because we need to have fish next year" they pay enough money to replace that government's politicians with politicians that say you can, then next year there are no more fish left to fish. Money is a note that denotes buying power, but that note is meaningful because there is a law that says it is meaningful and people with guns enforce that it is meaningful. So if people get powerful enough to subordinate people with guns it means that power is more effective at acquiring resources than money since someone with power can just take what they want without consequence. So inflationary monetary policy is good because it means more money is active in the economy, but inflationary policy is bad because it also concentrates money/power and you must have a system to prevent the power concentration that inflation causes by default if you want the system to remain coherent.
- greenavocado 1y ago
  That sounds nice in theory but the practical reality is that this so-called redistributed wealth is funneled back to "the people" through corrupt departments and NGOs because a corrupt system will stop at nothing to perpetuate the production through whatever mechanisms available. The only way this can be stopped is with a moralistic social movement.
  - hayst4ck 1y ago
    I don't follow what you're saying. If you're saying that people must empower themselves (by unionizing or the like) first because redistribution must follow power rather than power following redistribution, then I agree. If you're saying something else then I don't understand.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- scrubs 1y ago
  Since Reagan the upper 10% and corporations have been in the ascendancy. Add out sourcing of supply chains to cheaper countries without consequent benefit to the employees --- but a hell of a good time with stock buy backs and profit --- tack on stupid inflation in US health care, US housing, and US education ... and the pendulum has gone too far in favor of the upper 5% where all real income gains have gone. I do not want redistribution; America is equality of opportunity not outcomes. It's politically unsellable smacking of far left politics. I could not care less that some guy has $10M or $10B. I'm happy in my life ... however I am pissed I am getting squeezed in the middle. I damn sure want the upper 15% + all corporations to pay the same percentage of taxes per dollar I do. I'm near the top end but not enough to have a coterie of CPAs playing paperwork games. I'm with 100% with Buffet on this. I've been in the Cisco/HP/whatever corporate buildings in SV; ditto Apple. I was both surprised and not surprised (knowing corporations) to hear Apple was Irish in some sense for tax purposes. That's BS. Finally, Congress is going to have to get off its butt and do something to make them credible again on spending what they take in. This is another serious up-hill climb before selling ``higher" e.g. fairer taxes. At least as far as rhetoric goes --- but not reality --- it's hard to move the GOP to fair I mean ``higher" taxes when the top ~10% already pay something like 40% of all tax income. That's just a hard sell.

hayst4ck 1y ago

The elephant in the room is that rich people need to be taxed and their wealth redistributed. If that happens, then there is a mechanism that prevents systems of compounding power, and the wages "stolen" by inflation are put back into the economy rather than becoming part of someone's hoard. If wealth is redistributed then that allows for monetary inflation without changing power relationships. If that does not happen, then power compounds and those with power will enact systems that benefit themselves since they will never have to experience the long term consequences of their looting of tomorrow for today. The poor will continue to get poorer and the rich will get richer, until the rich have so much power and poor have so little power, that law, the prevention of arbitrary exercises of power by the powerful, becomes meaningless and the rich will take what they wish unopposed. Some people will get so powerful that when a government says "you can't fish all the fish in the sea because we need to have fish next year" they pay enough money to replace that government's politicians with politicians that say you can, then next year there are no more fish left to fish. Money is a note that denotes buying power, but that note is meaningful because there is a law that says it is meaningful and people with guns enforce that it is meaningful. So if people get powerful enough to subordinate people with guns it means that power is more effective at acquiring resources than money since someone with power can just take what they want without consequence. So inflationary monetary policy is good because it means more money is active in the economy, but inflationary policy is bad because it also concentrates money/power and you must have a system to prevent the power concentration that inflation causes by default if you want the system to remain coherent.

greenavocado 1y ago
That sounds nice in theory but the practical reality is that this so-called redistributed wealth is funneled back to "the people" through corrupt departments and NGOs because a corrupt system will stop at nothing to perpetuate the production through whatever mechanisms available. The only way this can be stopped is with a moralistic social movement.
- hayst4ck 1y ago
  I don't follow what you're saying. If you're saying that people must empower themselves (by unionizing or the like) first because redistribution must follow power rather than power following redistribution, then I agree. If you're saying something else then I don't understand.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
scrubs 1y ago
Since Reagan the upper 10% and corporations have been in the ascendancy. Add out sourcing of supply chains to cheaper countries without consequent benefit to the employees --- but a hell of a good time with stock buy backs and profit --- tack on stupid inflation in US health care, US housing, and US education ... and the pendulum has gone too far in favor of the upper 5% where all real income gains have gone. I do not want redistribution; America is equality of opportunity not outcomes. It's politically unsellable smacking of far left politics. I could not care less that some guy has $10M or $10B. I'm happy in my life ... however I am pissed I am getting squeezed in the middle. I damn sure want the upper 15% + all corporations to pay the same percentage of taxes per dollar I do. I'm near the top end but not enough to have a coterie of CPAs playing paperwork games. I'm with 100% with Buffet on this. I've been in the Cisco/HP/whatever corporate buildings in SV; ditto Apple. I was both surprised and not surprised (knowing corporations) to hear Apple was Irish in some sense for tax purposes. That's BS. Finally, Congress is going to have to get off its butt and do something to make them credible again on spending what they take in. This is another serious up-hill climb before selling ``higher" e.g. fairer taxes. At least as far as rhetoric goes --- but not reality --- it's hard to move the GOP to fair I mean ``higher" taxes when the top ~10% already pay something like 40% of all tax income. That's just a hard sell.