Doesn't PoS generate money out of thin air? It's just a matter of putting your dollars into stake vs hardware and electricity.

Only for the largest account holders, whom statistically will receive most of the newly generated money (and even more as they continue to accumulate newly printed PoS tokens).

PoW distributes block rewards proportionally to hash power and these proceeds can be used to buy more hash power to achieve a compounding effect. From what I understand all of the viable PoS systems offer a fixed rate of return on the stake. This is like PoW forcing everybody to use the exact same hardware; a benefit to the little guy at the expense of the large account holders.

I'm confused - what's your objection? Should capital put into PoS not provide a constant reward?

Or are you under the impression that larger pools of capital provide disproportionate rewards?

5% a year. You're better off keeping it on an exchange in case of a pump.

What's this 5% figure from?

Casper atleast says it is going to be a linear return model, without the asymmetrical return you get with large scale efficiencies.

Transitioning from PoW to PoS seems like a possible solution. Or shortcut the PoW phase by seeding your coin with snapshots of one or more existing coins that had a “fair” distribution phase.