Re:The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of go...
by UncleMeat on Sunday April 17, 2022 @03:12PM
(#31063414)
An important question is "what is inflation?"
A ton of the discussion of inflation ties it in a 1:1 way to money printing. Like the government says "I'd like some more money please", prints money, and this evenly inflates the price of every good and "steals" from people's bank accounts. While this can be a component of inflation, the truth is much more complex.
Looking at the published CPI numbers it becomes extremely clear that inflation is extremely varied. Natural gas way way up. Medical commodities up only a small amount. Prices can rise for an absolutely enormous number of different reasons and the price of a good going up obviously cannot be considered "theft" in the abstract. The people who insist that governments are unjust if they allow any inflation above 0% are being unreasonable, in my opinion.
That said, it is also the case that public policy, especially public policy in authoritarian or failed states, can cause a currency to collapse and wipe out any wealth their citizens hold in that currency. But I'm not even sure I'd call this "theft". It is a different sort of abuse entirely and it comes in many more forms than just devalued currency.
A ton of the discussion of inflation ties it in a 1:1 way to money printing. Like the government says "I'd like some more money please", prints money, and this evenly inflates the price of every good and "steals" from people's bank accounts. While this can be a component of inflation, the truth is much more complex.
Looking at the published CPI numbers it becomes extremely clear that inflation is extremely varied. Natural gas way way up. Medical commodities up only a small amount. Prices can rise for an absolutely enormous number of different reasons and the price of a good going up obviously cannot be considered "theft" in the abstract. The people who insist that governments are unjust if they allow any inflation above 0% are being unreasonable, in my opinion.
That said, it is also the case that public policy, especially public policy in authoritarian or failed states, can cause a currency to collapse and wipe out any wealth their citizens hold in that currency. But I'm not even sure I'd call this "theft". It is a different sort of abuse entirely and it comes in many more forms than just devalued currency.