[gitfan86]

You get to live in a functioning economy.

If you want to live in a society were the banks and wealthy individuals can make significant income by doing literally nothing, that is fine, but the rest of us would like to live in a world where goods and services are produced at a rate similar to how they are produced today.

[carlosjobim]

> You get to live in a functioning economy.

Young people who have worked hard their whole lives cannot afford a home to start a family. In what way does "the economy" function?

> If you want to live in a society were the banks and wealthy individuals can make significant income by doing literally nothing

You just described exactly how current society works.

[imtringued]

You don't seem to understand what literally nothing means.

When there is deflation you do nothing. You don't even go to work. You don't even look at your bank account or the money. You don't think about it. You just wait and do nothing. It is the equivalent of taking a drug that makes you feel good. You won't find the need to actually accomplish anything.

If there is inflation, then banks actually have to do their bank related tasks to earn the money, people actually have to sit at their desks.

[carlosjobim]

What you're describing is the exact way that large swatches of the population live. They were smart enough to make themselves be born earlier than other people and they can spend decades or even their whole life doing literally nothing, taking out another mortgage on their real estate as the value continues to increase.

This is not a tiny 1% of the population. I would wager that most people reading this thread has at least one person among their friends or family who live a good life without having contributed much to the economy, or even having never contributed anything at all. Riding the wave of inflation in real estate.

Tell me again why I and others should contribute to the economy to support these people's lifestyle?

[gitfan86]

No one is saying that we think you should support someone else's lifestyle. We are saying that if all currency went up in purchasing power all the time, that the problem of people doing nothing would be worse than it is today.

What you are talking about is something different, some sort of work police or something that forces everyone to work the same amount or something like that.

[gitfan86]

Function means that most people that want jobs have jobs and most people that want to purchase goods and services are able to purchase goods and services.

Imagine if you went to a grocery store and it was completely empty. That is the situation in Haiti currently. That is a nonfunctional economy.

Functional does not mean that everyone has everything they want at the price they want.

[carlosjobim]

We have whole generations who are extremely productive in the economy, but are being denied the basic necessity of having their own home. That is a non-functioning economy. Well, of course it functions greatly for those who are in the position to exploit such an arrangement.

It's like a sheep farmer thinking he is successful because he decided to kill all lambs every spring instead of letting them grow to adults. Sure, the meat tastes nice now, but he has destroyed his future for short term gains.

> Functional does not mean that everyone has everything they want at the price they want.

Nobody is demanding anything close to that, people want the basic necessities and have no way of getting them. Or should they just keep working hard and be grateful that they're not in Haiti.

The absolute best thing a young, enterprising person from a Western country can do today is to move out of that hemisphere and establish themselves in another country. That step gives a massive increase in quality of life, as well as a much better prospects for the future.