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by mikeash 3256 days ago
I don't understand what the big deal is there. I can understand it in a hyperinflation situation, but when inflation is ~2%, surely this hidden tax is insignificant compared to the more visible, explicit taxes?
2 comments

That 2% may seem little compared to your yearly income-tax. However, it's a tax on all your capital that you own, and it gets applied every year. So it's a tax on all amassed wealth, not earnings. It implies that you can't just keep what you've earned, and that if you were to put it away for your children/grandchildren, it'll magically get eaten away slowly until it is practically nothing.

In addition to that, it makes it painfully obvious that someone out there, is through some means, conjuring money out of thin air. The thing each of us sweats and toils every day to earn? Someone gets the privilege of printing it and injecting it into the economy. I simplify it a bit, but that's essentially the gist of the criticism.

It's a tax on all your cash that you own. There are lots of other places to keep wealth. For example, a lot of people own a mortgaged house, and inflation makes them wealthier every year because it increases the value of their house without increasing the associated debt.

That last part sounds like an appeal to emotion. Being able to do things the rest of us aren't allowed to do is pretty much the whole point of having a government. They get to create money, levy taxes, imprison people, wage war, etc. Looking at all the special privileges the government has, the privilege to create new money doesn't seem particularly special.

let's do some assumptions:

- the 2% inflation number is completely wrong and real inflation is around 5%~10%

- with no government monetary intervention we should have deflation let's assume around 5%

the delta is now 10%~15% looks less insignificant.

How long does it take for new money to get into the hands of the average person? I'd think a couple of months. A 15% inflation delta then means an "invisible tax" of maybe 3%. Not very important. And that's ignoring the highly questionable nature of those stated assumptions.
I have seen studies where it could take up to 2 years for the new money to completely penetrate the economic system.

Unfortunately currently don't have the links, I will try to post it later.

> the 2% inflation number is completely wrong and real inflation is around 5%~10%

I can't find any evidence-based reason to believe that.