[lowkey]

I’m furious about the existence of inflation. I think it should really be called monetary debasement instead of inflation. Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin in part to provide an alternative inflation free money option.

Why am I being naive or foolish to be furious about the existence of inflation? Is it a good thing that I simply misunderstand?

I am genuinely curious. Please help me understand.

[EugeneG]

I believe the accurate answer here is twofold: - money is perpetually not supposed to be a great perpetual store of value relative to goods and services. Government policy aims for some inflation, fears too much and fears too little. Why? Because a bit of inflation is an incentive to use your money on more productive asset - eg don’t hold on to it but instead invest in a startup or go use someone’s services or goods (go to a restaurant!). The issues happen when inflation is so high that the money melts away before you have time to figure out how to use it productively. Deflation is also bad because then people stop spending on services, stop investing - and just hold onto money. (“No I don’t want to invest in this startup! I have the best investment I need, just holding onto my cash!”) That slows down the economy. - either way Bitcoin doesn’t solve inflation in any way. It’s just another asset - that can go up or down or whatever, and happens to have gone up for a long time (just like Facebook stock) and then dropped a lot. Just like any stock or any asset, Bitcoin can have higher-than-inflation real returns or lower-than-inflation. And more recent returns have definitely been lower. What will happen in the future? Who knows. Same answer applies to the S&P500 and to Gold and to the new condo in my neighborhood.

[ben_w]

Curiously, I was just thinking how I personally am often wrong about inflation right before logging back in to see what responses I’ve had to this comment.

One of the important things I tend to forget, is that effective rate of inflation is different for different people within the same economy.

For example, the official rate of inflation in the U.K. right now is 5.4%, but if you’re poor, you’re likely to be constrained by fuel prices (which just went up ten times that: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/uk-faces-record-rise-in...) and food (which has done worse, but unevenly and over the whole year: https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1483778776697909252).

This is because inflation isn’t just caused by just governments printing money, it’s also caused by a reduction in the availability of things to spend that money on and even the rate at which money changes hands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money).

There’s also a totally unrelated argument that I can follow but not adequately repeat about the impact of various levels of inflation on consumer spending and the feedback that has on employment etc., but that’s not an argument that I expect to do anything at all to reduce anger.

[JohnHaugeland]

> I think it should really be called monetary debasement instead of inflation.

That suggests that you don't know what inflation is.

.

> I am genuinely curious. Please help me understand.

You say this too much. You can't understand from fly-by comments on the internet, which is why you're in the state that you're in.

If you're actually as genuinely curious as you pretend to be three times a day, go to the library and read a book.

All you're doing is chattering on the web. You will never understand anything this way.

[lowkey]

> All you're doing is chattering on the web. You will never understand anything this way.

Is that why you feel justified throwing insults instead of engaging like an adult? This isn’t the only comment where you’ve directed insults my way. It seems you are only capable of name calling, not substantive discussion.