[gnode]

> rising prices disproportionately affects the poor who must spend a greater percentage of their income on needed goods.

Inflation has a cause, and often that cause is beneficial to the working class. For instance, a rise in the minimum wage or increased workers' union power would increase prices, and disproportionately benefit the poor. If assets don't increase in value, inflation erodes the wealth of the investor class.

[blevo]

>inflation erodes ... wealth

a good thing?

> inflation has a cause

that was #1 in my comment: monetary stimulus

as for other causes: you are arguing minimum wage benefits the poor but raises prices as does increase in union power. I don't quite follow...

Minimum Wage: It seems you are ignoring ("the forgotten man") workers displaced by minimum wage (and increased barrier to entry of no/low-skill labor). Then arguing that the increased income for those who receive it as a raise either offsets the inevitable price increase in consumer goods or is worth it due to the time it takes for the consumer goods to find equilibrium with the new minimum. You may well say this is preferable to monetary stimulus which the banks and rich receive first and get the benefit of the time it takes for a new equilibrium to be reached.

Union power: benefit to protected union workers, subsidized by all consumers (who must pay the increased price of goods the union effects). this works out to just be special treatment. Granted, some may prefer we treat this class (working-poor, low-middle class) as special as opposed to that class (ie rich, upper-middle class). To each their own.

Am I missing something?

[mindslight]

> Inflation has a cause, and often that cause is beneficial to the working class

While what you are saying might be applicable at other times, it does not follow that inflation can only be caused by things good for the working class.

Current inflation seems to be the result of an ongoing housing bubble, and other mandatory finance-based expenses. This is decidedly bad for the working class, or really everybody who doesn't already own the inflating assets.

This inflation also seems like the direct result of the overt policy to erase the natural deflation of manufacturing and technology to keep everyone working "full time", when human labor is needed less and less.

[gnode]

> This inflation also seems like the direct result of the overt policy to erase the natural deflation of manufacturing and technology to keep everyone working "full time", when human labor is needed less and less.

A low minimum wage combined with in-work welfare benefits essentially subsidises labour for employers, and is deflationary. Inflation would be naturally higher if not for such government policy.

[wahern]

Indeed. The Great Depression was precipitated by deflation in Europe, with deflation being a side-effect of the gold standard. Deflation leads to labor cuts (why invest if you can get richer sitting on your money?), which Europe struggled with throughout the 1920s. And eventually the Europeans deflated themselves into poverty; they stopped buying American goods and stopped investing in American stocks, and the whole house of cards came crumbling down.

We've had modern capitalism for, what, 150-200 years, now? And the one consistent thing we know about capitalism is that money accumulates at the top. Moderate inflation is one way to counter that dynamic, albeit an increasingly ineffective one. Inflation makes people feel insecure, but like with everything else the "security" of a very low inflation or deflationary environment will benefit capitalists far more than labor.

[blevo]

How does moderate inflation counter money clustering at the top?

It seems to me that it exacerbates the problem as 'the top' are fixated on assets and inflation tends to inflate those: "The rich get richer."

The working class, on the other hand, faces higher consumer prices with a delay in increasing wages and, having less 'disposable' income, is strongly affected. "and the poor get poorer"

Also, the lower-to-middle class must somehow navigate stocks or some assets in a 401k/IRA just to protect the purchasing power of whatever nestegg they try to grow (whether it's retirement, or putting kids thru college). Can't just keep that money safe in a savings account (paying 0.1%), it will erode.

[wahern]

> How does moderate inflation counter money clustering at the top?

Because inflation creates a use-it-or-lose-it scenario. With inflation you have to invest your money, otherwise your net wealth will decrease.

Returns from investments are also delayed for investors. Inflation can be difficult for everybody, but no matter what the situation is wealthy investors will have an easier time accumulating and holding wealth than others. This is no surprise, so saying that inflation can hurt the poor is not saying anything. What matters is that deflation is even worse for labor, as is the instability from naive attempts to keep things at 0%.

The point is that if you want to maximize the redistribution of wealth, you need to coax the investor class to actually invest in things. Moderate inflation is one tool in that toolbox. It's not the only tool, and maybe not even the best tool, but moderate inflation has that function. The problem is that there are many other dynamics at play, too.

Showing that wealth inequality has exploded since the 1970s-1980s, overlaying graphs that show a contemporaneous correlation with inflation targets or whatever your boogeyman, and then suggestively wiggling your eyebrows, doesn't prove anything causative. It may suggest that your inflation targets are ineffective, but doesn't tell you why. (Don't forget that the Bretton Woods systems ended because of the pressure increasing global trade was putting on the dollar and the American economy.)

A multitude of things have been ongoing since the 1970s and 1980s--explosions in global trade and the global economy, massive tax decreases for the wealthy, dismantling of pension systems, etc. All of these things are known and were expected to put downward pressure on wages. They're more than sufficient to explain the trend, and there's no reason to believe that the trend contradicts what we know about the basics of economics. What we are learning is that there are other systemic forces that were previously unknown or poorly understood and which are more powerful than believed.

People keep banging on QE, QE, QE. But global asset wealth is about $300 trillion. QE in both the U.S. and Europe at best injected a few trillion. Why is so much cash just sitting around? Maybe because there's $300 trillion of it! Where is most of it coming from? The industrialization of the so-called third-world. Why is so much of it sitting in the U.S. and European countries? Because of dollar-denominated trade, corruption, risk averseness, and a host of other complex factors.

The labor class is intrinsically vulnerable. It doesn't take much of a change in investor behavior to really screw them over, and you don't need wild conspiracy theories or new physics to explain it. The explanations are out in the open.

[eli_gottlieb]

The lower class are usually net debtors, and the real value of debts is eroded by inflation.