America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars

Re:America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars by geysersam on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @06:21AM (#35259021)

Thank you for this.

The ill-defined nature of inflation is an extremely important and often overlooked fact.

Another interesting problem with the concept of inflation:

Thirty years ago, what would've been the "consumer price" of a modern smartphone? Millions, easily.

Same goes for many other technologies that have fallen in price rapidly. (Big screen TVs, speakers, computers, anything with a screen, a CPU or a wireless communication chip really.)

Is this deflation?

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Re:America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars by naasking on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @09:29AM (#35260691)

> Thirty years ago, what would've been the "consumer price" of a modern smartphone? Millions, easily.

Sure, but how many of them were there? Zero. Volume has to be accounted for.

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Re:America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars by geysersam on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:47AM (#35262890)

But how are you going to compare prices between two periods if you don't include the same items in the "market basket"?

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Re:America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars by naasking on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @12:05PM (#35263182)

By comparing median total living costs to reflect what's typical. A cell phone and computer are indispensable today, a land line not so much, for instance.

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Re:America’s banks are missing hundreds of billions of dollars by geysersam on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @01:35PM (#35264415)

With that definition, won't you conflate inflation with changes to income distribution and economic growth?

Having a 2% inflation target would in practice mean having a target for median living cost increase.

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