[m0zg]

As an asset not really subject to inflation (AKA tax on the poor), it could be helpful for those of moderate means to protect themselves against losing what little they have.

I've experienced hyperinflation first hand some 25 years ago - it's not fun. I protected myself somewhat by buying (and then gradually selling) dollars, but that won't work if the dollar starts circling down the shitter, which it might.

Going into foreign currencies is also not ideal because they are not legal tender, so you'll have to exit into your local currency, and to protect _themselves_ against inflation the currency exchanges pretty dramatically increase the spread, so you lose some money converting back and forth. BTC is not legal tender either, but it could be used "under the table" in lieu of cash if shit hits the fan, much like silver, gold, or ammo.

With a modicum of lawmaking it could also be used for payments between companies, which in hyper-inflationary economy based on fiat currencies make inflation even worse, because there's a latency between the time the company gets supplies and the time it ships product, and the company must be able to afford the new batch of supplies, so they eyeball what the prices will be, say, 2 weeks from now and set their prices accordingly (and sandbag on top of that as well). Do this 10 times through the supply chain and you get eye watering prices for final product on the shelves. BTC would fix that. It did not exist at the time, so people would barter instead, but that's pretty horrible, since you don't always have the stuff the other side needs, so you end up with horrendous chains of exchanges which fall through from time to time, causing a cascade of problems.

TL;DR: BTC could come in handy when printer goes brrrr.

[arcticbull]

People who have little, have little to lose in an inflationary environment. People who have any meaningful quantity of means invest them, and any investment other than holding a fist full of cold hard dollars isn't affected by inflation, although its real return may vary depending on how the underlying performs.

Further lower income folks tend to have a disproportionate amount of their net worth in debt instruments, and debt holders win in an inflationary environment.

> TL;DR: BTC could come in handy when printer goes brrrr.

That's not generally speaking what causes hyperinflation. It's caused by the population rejecting the currency.

[m0zg]

Actually, no, that's exactly what causes hyperinflation, _by definition_ - a drastic increase in money supply, done to mask the fact that the economy is contracting. You don't go from this [1] to this [2] without the use of a printer.

And there are only so many "assets" you'll be able to buy if there's a run on assets - their prices launch into the stratosphere immediately in this situation, and then they just disappear. Besides, people of moderate means spend a large chunk of their disposable income/savings on necessities: gas, housing, groceries, car repair, healthcare, all of which are going to also launch into the stratosphere in this scenario. Some of them you can cut down on, others not so much. What will happen to the stocks (which most people on this site feel "protected" by owning) I don't even know.

[1] https://en.numista.com/catalogue/photos/transnistrie/5eb1ed1...

[2] https://dic.academic.ru/pictures/wiki/files/66/Banknote_5000...

[arcticbull]

That's not an accepted definition anymore. An increase in the money supply is just that - an increase in the money supply. Inflation is a measured increase in prices of a basket of goods. Those two are not the same thing - although the former can contribute to the latter. It does not have to, though, and certainly not 1:1. There's many reason prices go up: supply chain disruptions, for instance, and change in tastes/demand profile - or externalities like taxes, zoning and regulation. The idea that a supply increase alone represents inflation is a long-discarded Austrian economics principle.

In part because what you do with that money matters. Personal saving rates are near all-time highs, and velocity near all-time lows, meaning that new money? It's not actually moving through the economy and therefore not contributing to a secular increase in prices, or a reduction in purchasing power. This is why measurement matters. [1, 2]

The money supply wasn't increased to "mask" a contraction in the economy, it was done to avoid a deflationary spiral thereby preventing the economy from contracting further and allowing it to recover. The economy did in fact recover in part as a result of the influx of capital. You can see this in reduced unemployment rates and increased GDP in real dollar terms.

The money supply today is controlled via fractional reserve lending wherein a loan creates both new money in circulation and an obligation to repay that debt. That means all new money that's created is fully backed by demand for that same money. As that loan is repaid the money blinks out of existence. The Fed has the capability therefore to reduce the money supply by simply increasing interest rates. This in turn decreases demand for new loans, and causes a net reduction in outstanding supply as the existing loans are repaid.

What you're describing isn't a bet that an increase in the supply will lead to hyperinflation but rather a bet against the Fed's tool chest. That's not one I'd personally take, but to each their own.

What you saw in your [1] and [2] isn't an isolated increase in supply leading to massive inflation - after all, they'd just, you know stop - but rather political instability causing the population to reject the currency as I described in the post to which you responded. It's far more nuanced than you're making it out to be as you can see for yourself. The M2 supply doubled in 2020 but prices are up, what, 5% YoY - even after massive supply chain disruptions and tons of re-opening demand chasing limited supply? The M2 supply exploded after 2008 but inflation once again did not. The M2 supply is something like 30X now what it was in the 1970s but prices are 8X higher. Your model cannot account for this, and is such, it is broadly no longer accepted as it is obviously, observably incomplete.

> What will happen to the stocks (which most people on this site feel "protected" by owning) I don't even know.

You can research this, as there are countless examples in other world economies. Companies that provide necessities will continue to exist, as they do in Venezuela, and they will retain some value - or even grow in real dollar terms, depending on the industry. Some will collapse. Venezuela has a stock exchange, after all.

However, at the end of the day, it's incredibly, incredibly unlikely that hyperinflation will occur in any primary reserve currency anywhere in the world due to demand for that currency both at home and abroad. If it did, guns, ammo, canned food and potentially gold would the be the currency of choice. Requiring an internet connection and all the world's power and semiconductors to transact? Not so much, in a Mad Max-esque dystopia. You can't use Bitcoin in NK right? What makes you think you'd be able to use it in post-apocalyptic Kansas?

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V

[m0zg]

We are in uncharted waters here. Never before has so much money been printed so quickly in a major economy (China printed _even more_ money by the way). So no, you can't "research" this, and your historical stuff and definitions won't be any good when hyperinflation arrives, which is what's about to happen. You can already see it in the stock market and real estate. It's not like Google is worth twice as much as a year ago. Where you don't see it is the bullshit metrics that the federal government pumps out to make themselves look good. I mean, sure if you exclude all the things that get more expensive, you get "5% YoY", but you don't need to be a Nobel laureate to see that this figure is already bullshit as of today - you just need to go to a grocery store once.

>> incredibly unlikely that hyperinflation will occur

Au contraire. It _will_ almost certainly occur, though maybe not to the extent of Venezuela or Zimbabwe. I'm scratching my head at the moment trying to figure out what to do about that. Can't really think of anything other than borrowing a ton of money and buying real estate and land somewhere far away from population centers, which is what Bill Gates and Black Rock seem to be doing. They certainly know something we don't.

[arcticbull]

> Never before has so much money been printed so quickly in a major economy (China printed _even more_ money by the way).

The Yuan is not a reserve currency and entirely out of scope of this conversation.

However, I strongly suggest you look at Japan's money supply, its debt levels and its actual inflation.

> So no, you can't "research" this, and your historical stuff and definitions won't be any good when hyperinflation arrives, which is what's about to happen.

Wait hold on, you're referencing historical trends including "hyperinflation" so remind me again why you can refer to history but I cannot? How would you know my definition won't be any good, for a fact, unless you're referencing a historical basis?

> You can already see it in the stock market and real estate.

Nah, an increase in asset prices isn't necessarily inflation, as 1 share of AAPL will buy you a lot more this year than it did last year. You have to compare it adjusted for inflation - not just shoot from the hip and say big number bad, and it must be the Fed! This is called a return on investment, and is generally what investors... want from an investment is it not?

Real estate is mostly a zoning issue, where city councils refuse to permit sufficient new construction to meet demand - and also a lot of demand chasing limited supply. This is a demand-pull increase in price, not one caused by an increase in money supply entirely - although a reduction in interest rates does allow a property substantially more expensive to be more affordable, too.

Some things will always be above CPI, some below - it's an average. Tech goods for instance keep getting cheaper and cheaper. The divide between below-CPI and above-CPI tends to, roughly, be "things that require human labor cost more now" and "things that don't cost less now." Like TVs.

> It's not like Google is worth twice as much as a year ago.

Why not? They actually made 63% more money in Q2 of 2021 as compared to Q2 of 2020 [1]. Combined with a lower cost of borrowing, high margin debt, and a shift in investor sentiment towards tech companies in our new work-from-home world, I'd say their valuation is actually quite fair.

> Where you don't see it is the bullshit metrics that the federal government pumps out to make themselves look good.

They publish their calculations and methods, and you're free to disagree but a blanked, un-backed, un-substantiated "it's bullshit because it doesn't align with my preconceived notions" is definitely insufficient.

> I mean, sure if you exclude all the things that get more expensive, you get "5% YoY", but you don't need to be a Nobel laureate to see that this figure is already bullshit as of today - you just need to go to a grocery store once.

Groceries aren't the sole component of the CPI. They're a contributor, but some things went up and some thing went down. Please use some rational thinking here. I suspect this a cost-push price increase due to supply chain issues.

> Au contraire. It _will_ almost certainly occur, though maybe not to the extent of Venezuela or Zimbabwe.

You said there's no historical basis so how can you be so sure? It seems like you just have a gut feeling of some sort and no backing for it.

> ...which is what Bill Gates and Black Rock seem to be doing. They certainly know something we don't.

Really? Bill Gates is buying up a ton of farmland, which is a productive asset, and something Buffett has advocated forever. As for Black Rock, I suspect they're betting that folks are willing to be long-term renters, but again, I think that's a function of zoning constraining supply and making housing inaccessible to more and more people. In Japan where they have national zoning rules, a new, 3-bedroom house in downtown Tokyo costs $300K USD, right around the cost of construction. Cost of construction in the US is about $150/sqft, and if you're paying more than that, it's the manifestation of an externality.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue...

[m0zg]

You're making the same mistake as everyone else: thinking that your in-domain predictions will hold out-of-domain. They won't. That's all I'm telling you. Believe what you want to believe. I believe that when things get really out of hand (which is where they seem to be headed at the moment), all your best case predictions are almost certainly wrong, and the fundamental inflation-protected value discussion moves to the forefront. That is, paper is worth nothing. Physical assets are worth something. And this time around, non-inflationary digital assets might be worth something too, as long as enough people believe in them enough to use them as a payment instrument. If dollar starts crapping out, that money has to go somewhere. It can go into assets (inconvenient, poorly fungible), or blockchain (convenient, more fungible), or, realistically, a combination of both. What can we predict from this? Truly stratospheric real estate and land prices for one thing (hence Gates and Black Rock), as well as stratospheric price of crypto.

But most important issue at hand is your insistence that it "can't happen here". It can. You will see it for yourself over the next 2-3 years. You can't do what the Fed did and experience no repercussions. Keep believing what you believe, I'll take the other end of your bets.