Reminder that inflation isn’t a phenomenon that’s beyond our understanding or ability to control. Inflation is the result of business owners choosing to raise prices in order to increase their rate of profit. That’s all it is.
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If the main cause is increased monetary supply, it’s going to get far worse as the world de-dollarizes.
The USD enjoys an exorbitant privilege because its the world’s premier reserve and trading currency. Under the old rules, if the Fed printed more money, other countries would buy it to settle their international trade and as a safe harbor for their wealth.
The extraordinary sanctions against Russia have caused countries to shift to other currencies to settle trade since they still want/need to buy oil, gas, and food from Russia. That means that there’s going to be a lot more USD with no foreign escape valve.
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I think it’s telling that even during the worst period of US-Chinese relations in recent memory, the US sent Yellen over to Beijing to beg China to buy more dollar bonds.
There’s a faction in Washington that knows the US economy is on the ropes but their appeals for cooperation are being drowned out by the other faction just chanting “WAR! WAR! WAR!”
I don’t think the US knows any other economic recovery options besides war.
We haven’t really changed it up since WW2.
I don’t think WW3 would actually help the US economy. WW2 pulled the US out of the Depression because the manufacturing capacity was there but there wad a crisis of confidence and liquidity. The government pumping tons of money into military spending solved both of those problems.
Nowadays, the US doesn’t have enough manufacturing. Even the weapons America supposedly builds are riddled with imported Chinese parts. Go to war with China or any major power and the US Government will flood weapons makers with money but that money has nowhere to go so it’ll just drive up inflation even more.
I agree that WW3 won’t save the economy this time, I just think the US doesn’t have another answer.
Although I’m sure they’ll keep throwing money at consulting companies to research the issue and give them the same answer back.
Nothing really changed, business have been jacking up prices while suppressing wages this whole time. It’s not really a new phenomenon. The fed printing money created more liquidity, but that doesn’t directly create inflation which is the rise in prices of goods and service. That’s done by people who control pricing which are the business owners.
. The fed printing money created more liquidity, but that doesn’t directly create inflation which is the rise in prices of goods and service. That’s done by people who control pricing which are the business owners.
It absolutely affects inflation because there’s more money chasing the same number of goods/services.
If business owners don’t raise their prices at all, the real price of those goods would drop, because each dollar is worth less when you pump up the money supply.
It absolutely affects inflation because there’s more money chasing the same number of goods/services.
Since the money is going predominatly to the wealthy then there isn’t more money chasing goods and services. The average consumer is not benefiting from QE as you yourself pointed out.
Business owners are raising prices in way that’s increasing their profits, they’re not doing it to keep up their rate of profit steady. https://thehill.com/business/3756457-corporate-profits-hit-record-high-in-third-quarter-amid-40-year-high-inflation/
The wealthy don’t just put it under the mattress.
If they do some big ego projects, the people they hire take that money and increase their own consumption.
If they park it in investments, some company takes the capital injection and increases their spending.
All that money chases labor, and labor can be reapportioned to meet different needs. A billionaire can buy a slightly bigger yacht with their share of the Fed printing. That bigger yacht needs a little more labor, and someone ends up building more cabinets for the interior rather than building housing for the poor.
The billionaire doesn’t blame themselves for inflation, and someone at the bottom can’t figure out why suddenly a full time job doesn’t pay for housing. But that Fed decision moved labor from benefiting the poor, to benefiting the 1%.
They don’t put it under their mattress, but the projects they invest into aren’t resulting into wealth being generated by the working class. When these people create a new business ventures, they still pay subsistence wages. So, you get more employment, but it’s low quality employment. Any actual wealth produced ends up going to the capital owning class.
So again, people who own capital are the ones who decide the prices and the wages. These are the people in control of what we call inflation.
the projects they invest into aren’t resulting into wealth being generated by the working class.
Irrelevant, because I never claimed it did. I only said that money ends up competing for labor and other resources.
If they could just raise prices, they would have done it before. So why didn’t they?
Because what actually changed was an increase to the money supply.
This!
Not that I disagree with you at all, but we all want raises every year too. For you to get paid more you either need to take a higher level job or get a raise.
If course, inflation has exceed wage growth for a long time, but it’s not quite as simple as business owners just raising prices.
You’re thinking about this from an individualistic perspective, but the problem is systemic. As long as somebody has to do thejobb that means somebody is getting fucked. If majority of jobs aren’t paying enough then most people are being screwed.
And yes it is literally as simple as business owners choosing to raise prices while keeping wages down.
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lol that explains a lot
If we continued to do the same job, and the cost of living remained the same, most people wouldn’t think much of it. The problem still comes back to the business owners – they expect you to do more for the same pay, including firing someone and expecting you to also do that second job on top of your regular work for the same paycheck. Then when people demand a raise the business owner justifies raising their costs under the umbrella of “people just don’t want to work any more” when the reality is that what changed is the huge increase in how much that business owner is taking home themselves while delegating their own job to underlings.
Don’t make excuses for their terror
Bold of this article to think the fundamentals of the economy will survive the coming climate apocalypse. Where the hell can I invest my money in growth when everything is either burning or flooding. Coffins?!?
Yeah, the future looks pretty bleak for young people. I’m in my 30’s and my retirement plan is fighting for survival or, preferably, dying.
The good news is death is great for the environment.
Don’t worry, you will die of starvation long before your die of fire and flood.
Can you do me next? How do I die?
Anal fissures.
Ok, me next. What’s gonna do me in?
The world’s most intractable case of dandruff.
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My retirement plan is for a NATO-backed fascist paramilitary death squad to gun me down for harboring trans people
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My last words are going to be “Nice Walther PPK, NEEEEERD.”
Retirement? My “retirement plan” is subsistence rat hunting in a bombed out Walmart, what good will money do me? Campfire tinder?
No worries. I’m poor now but I’m going to be a billionaire next week anyway.
Capitalism works!
These comments read like /r/collapse
Welcome to America
The rest of the world has the same problem but is not ready for eating rats and feces yet.
Or a crowbar and some comrades
: “At least porky wasn’t told what to do, better dead than red!”God dang Porkys butthole. Every time Looney Toons come on, y’all put Porky’s Butthole on. I figure last night and the second cartoon come on, it was Porky’s friggin’ ol’ Butthole. I said surely y’all ain’t gonna put last till Porky’s freakin’ Butthole. I don’t see why in the heck you think these dang ol’ youngins are - cause they gonna Porky’s dang ol’ Butthole time after time, after time, after that time, and don’t ever get tired of it.
I’m a millennial, and I’d just like for my knee to stop buzzing and my wrists to stop hurting so that I can be prepared for the Impending revolt. Because all of this gestures broadly while wincing is bullshit.
that’s the neat part; humanity has done this so many times that we keep getting better at letting it get really, really, REALLY bad before people take action and we’re very far away from enough of us taking action to accomplish anything.
so… like the rest of us have already found out - they can never retire unless they choose to do so in poverty.
that’s too much, where’s jack kevorikian?
You could just move to Canada where their wonderful system will cure you of your poverty with a prescription of “Just kill yourself”.
i need an eeyore emote
Do you guys want to agree to do some mass suicide cult thing instead of retirement?
Let’s suicide the billionaires first and we’ll go from there
I will agree to it but not follow through. Close enough?
Which one of us is going to be the first to commercialise the suicide booth?
Y’all need any beta testers?
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