It has long been a rule of thumb to have $1 million saved for a comfortable retirement; but, thanks to inflation, the youngest generation of workers likely will need three times as much. According to...
Yeah this is not really what’s happening. QE went on for a long time before inflation really took off and mostly served to inflate asset prices without any meaningful effect on the price of consumer goods. As has been said, this is because that’s where the lion’s share of rich people’s money goes.
I think the key data point here is the increase in profits recently. Which would not be happening if this was all down to bog standard supply and demand throughout supply chains. Parking money in assets like stocks and real estate doesn’t cause consumer price inflation. But if businesses all realized that the talk of supply chain disruptions and COVID causing prices to go up was a good excuse to raise prices further together, that would exacerbate an otherwise minor bout of consumer price inflation. Which is exactly what happened.
And although it’s pretty damn close to collusion/price fixing in many cases, there is no real enforcement against that sort of thing. There is software that is used throughout industries that basically does the price fixing for you using data from other users/firms. Makes it easy and plausibly deniable because it was just an algorithm that told you to do it. Big part of rent inflation in particular. If there’s no competitor willing to undercut you, even though they could, the Econ 101 bullshit doesn’t really apply. It’s basically just class solidarity among capitalists. Circling the wagons because unusual circumstances temporarily drove wages up, and they weren’t having it.
Anyway, the main point is, if profit rates are going up, it’s not money supply causing the inflation.
I feel like we’re just going in circles here. Unless workers get higher wages, their capacity to pay rent does not change.
I’m saying they will need to spend more to get land/labor/raw materials.
And that doesn’t change the situation for the workers in any way because their wages are not rising.
It’s not magic, currency represent wealth. If the wealth stays the same, and the amount of currency goes up then each unit of currency has less purchasing power.
Currency does not represent wealth, and if anything currency only impacts financial wealth. When currency starts depreciating in value then people who own significant portion of financial wealth simply transfer it into physical assets or move it to other currencies. All this has little to do with internal inflation mechanics of the country.
Are you going to ignore that a 4th time now and just repeat the same line?
I didn’t ignore this, I’ve addressed this multiple times in my replies. I’ll address it for the 4th time I guess. Capitalists spending more on land/labor/raw materials does not translate into increased wages or increased spending power of the workers. Let me know if you need me to clarify that further for you.
So yes, eating different food still bids up prices.
You evidently missed the point being made.
Any economist would disagree with you. This is hardly a controversial idea in academics.
How many people agree with an idea says nothing about the merit of the idea. Plenty of western economists agree that neoliberal economics work and that you can do QE indefinitely.
When the total resources stay the same, but the currency representing that wealth is inflated, the price of everything goes up.
Once again, prices go up as a result of people who own businesses choosing to raise them. It’s incredible that you continue to refuse to acknowledge this simple fact.
We really are going in circles here. However, one thing I will point out is that billionaires didn’t lack liquid assets to buy up things like housing before money printing started. What facilitated that was the fact that lots of people ended up becoming insolvent during the pandemic. Businesses went under, people weren’t able to afford their mortgages, and so on. This forced people to put their assets up on the market at which point the billionaires started buying them up.
For money printing to affect general spending, the money has to go to regular people. There was a brief period during the start of the pandemic when that happened, and that did end up heating up the economy briefly. That’s when a lot of the inflation happened because businesses realized they could now jack up prices since people had cash to spend.
deleted by creator
Yeah this is not really what’s happening. QE went on for a long time before inflation really took off and mostly served to inflate asset prices without any meaningful effect on the price of consumer goods. As has been said, this is because that’s where the lion’s share of rich people’s money goes.
I think the key data point here is the increase in profits recently. Which would not be happening if this was all down to bog standard supply and demand throughout supply chains. Parking money in assets like stocks and real estate doesn’t cause consumer price inflation. But if businesses all realized that the talk of supply chain disruptions and COVID causing prices to go up was a good excuse to raise prices further together, that would exacerbate an otherwise minor bout of consumer price inflation. Which is exactly what happened.
And although it’s pretty damn close to collusion/price fixing in many cases, there is no real enforcement against that sort of thing. There is software that is used throughout industries that basically does the price fixing for you using data from other users/firms. Makes it easy and plausibly deniable because it was just an algorithm that told you to do it. Big part of rent inflation in particular. If there’s no competitor willing to undercut you, even though they could, the Econ 101 bullshit doesn’t really apply. It’s basically just class solidarity among capitalists. Circling the wagons because unusual circumstances temporarily drove wages up, and they weren’t having it.
Anyway, the main point is, if profit rates are going up, it’s not money supply causing the inflation.
I feel like we’re just going in circles here. Unless workers get higher wages, their capacity to pay rent does not change.
And that doesn’t change the situation for the workers in any way because their wages are not rising.
Currency does not represent wealth, and if anything currency only impacts financial wealth. When currency starts depreciating in value then people who own significant portion of financial wealth simply transfer it into physical assets or move it to other currencies. All this has little to do with internal inflation mechanics of the country.
I didn’t ignore this, I’ve addressed this multiple times in my replies. I’ll address it for the 4th time I guess. Capitalists spending more on land/labor/raw materials does not translate into increased wages or increased spending power of the workers. Let me know if you need me to clarify that further for you.
You evidently missed the point being made.
How many people agree with an idea says nothing about the merit of the idea. Plenty of western economists agree that neoliberal economics work and that you can do QE indefinitely.
Once again, prices go up as a result of people who own businesses choosing to raise them. It’s incredible that you continue to refuse to acknowledge this simple fact.
Finally, since you clearly just ignore what I say, maybe you can listen to an economist explain this instead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH1tT4NW8NI
deleted by creator
We really are going in circles here. However, one thing I will point out is that billionaires didn’t lack liquid assets to buy up things like housing before money printing started. What facilitated that was the fact that lots of people ended up becoming insolvent during the pandemic. Businesses went under, people weren’t able to afford their mortgages, and so on. This forced people to put their assets up on the market at which point the billionaires started buying them up.
For money printing to affect general spending, the money has to go to regular people. There was a brief period during the start of the pandemic when that happened, and that did end up heating up the economy briefly. That’s when a lot of the inflation happened because businesses realized they could now jack up prices since people had cash to spend.