[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.

[arcticbull]

> They won't. That's all I'm telling you. Believe what you want to believe.

This is tinfoil hat economics. It's no better than the man at the corner yelling that I should repent before the rapture. It's coming this time, I swear, he yells into his megaphone. This time is different, he repeats more and more aggressively.

> I believe that when things get really out of hand (which is where they seem to be headed at the moment)...

Again, you have no basis to make that claim other than the big bad fed making the number of money in circulation go up and you believe they can't make the number go down even though they can.

> 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.

Yes the magical power of belief. Which is all you have, as Bitcoin only supports 2-3 transactions per second, enough to support a small Costco, not a global economy.

> Truly stratospheric real estate and land prices for one thing (hence Gates and Black Rock), as well as stratospheric price of crypto.

Again, Gates is buying farms and you're speculating about Blackrock even though I provided you a much more reasonable alternate narrative. They're buying fundamentally different kinds of land for fundamentally different reasons and purposes.

> 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.

Ok cool, so no evidence of this either, just your gut. I'm not saying it can't, anything can happen. I'm saying there's no reason to believe it will, certainly not in the next 2-3 years, just as folks said in 2008. But instead of a cataclysm we got bailout loans repaid for substantial profits - and a Fed happily unwinding its balance sheet without issue until, you know, COVID.

> You can't do what the Fed did and experience no repercussions.

Again, no basis for this assertion. And they can reduce the supply at their discretion. Because there's no printer. They control the demand for fractional reserve loans by managing interest rates, and they control the supply by adjusting reserve rates. They brought the money into the world and they can just as well take it back out.

> Keep believing what you believe, I'll take the other end of your bets.

Ok, again.

You haven't refuted a single point I've made, just re-asserted yours each time with less basis.

It's some combination of Gish gallop and a motte-and-bailey I think.