[thaumasiotes]

> An increase in supply is not a debasement. That is measured post-facto based on its impact.

An increase in supply is always a debasement.

It's true that you might see the following chronology:

1/1/2020: value of the currency measured

6/6/2020: supply of the currency increased

1/1/2021: value of the currency measured; it's higher than it was last year!

But that doesn't mean the issue on 6/6/2020 wasn't a debasement. It definitely was, and the reason it doesn't look that way is your very low-resolution measurement of value. If the supply increase hadn't happened, the value on 1/1/2021 would have been even higher.

[arcticbull]

An increase in supply alone isn't debasement. A higher supply doesn't imply a lower value, because what you do with that new supply matters. If you mint a $10T coin and throw it under your mattress, then you haven't decreased the value of anything even though the supply has increased dramatically.

This is why we measure, and why Austrian economics fell out of favor decades ago.

See Japan for a concrete example. [1, 2] Their M2 money supply is almost 2.5X higher since 1990 but their CPI is dead flat over the same time period. It's actually seriously problematic for them.

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

[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/money-supply-m2

[thaumasiotes]

> If you mint a $10T coin and throw it under your mattress, then you haven't decreased the value of anything even though the supply has increased dramatically.

How has the supply increased in this scenario? What if, instead of minting the coin, you just tell people that you've done so?

The supply of money has only increased if you're able to spend the putative addition to the money supply.

[arcticbull]

You can tell them all you want, but as Japan shows us, it doesn't actually matter. What matters is what you do with the supply which is why we measure.

[thaumasiotes]

Let's focus on the opening question, "how has the supply increased in this scenario?".

[arcticbull]

I'm sorry I don't understand the question.

Are you asking how supply works in my hypothetical, simplified example where the point I'm trying to make is that new supply in isolation doesn't matter - what you do with it does?

Or as you asking how it happens in the real-world example of Japan, where their supply increased from 400000B JPY to 1200000B JPY between 1990 and present, while everything remained the same price? And how this is seriously problematic in their economy?

[thaumasiotes]

You claimed that minting a coin with face value $10T increased the money supply. I'm saying this is not true, because that coin cannot be spent and therefore doesn't contribute to the money supply. It doesn't matter what you write on the coin.

What matters isn't what you do with "money"; it's what you can do with it.