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by surgical_fire 1140 days ago
> Does this seem normal to you?

Yes. Currency is a mean of exchange, nothing more.

Economy is essentially how to satisfy the needs of its participants with the limited resources available. For the graph that you linked in a somewhat alarmist fashion to make sense, you need to compare it with a plethora of other information for it to make sense.

What is the productivity of people and corporations? What are the level of imports and exports? What is the cost of living? How much in taxes did the government earn? How adequate are the expenses in infrastructure? What is the level of debt held by the public and private sectors? Is that debt sustainable?

All those are just questions that I haphazardly put together while writing this reply, and they all tell other facets about the state of the economy that the money supply won't tell you.

>>Since 2007, wealth has declined for all but the top 20%.

>Oddly (or not oddly) enough that’s when the monetary base graph starts skyrocketing.

A deflationary economy would massively widen wealth inequality, as it heavily favors capital holders (as money itself gets more expensive over time).

A lot other things happened after 2007 that helped increase wealth inequality. I see the "skyrocketing" money supply as a side-effect of those things.

Correlation does not mean causation.

2 comments

Wealthy people don't own money, they own assets. And they're usually in debt. Inflationary currency massively benefits wealthy people. Inflation is a transfer of buying power from poor people to rich people. That's the function of inflation. That's exactly the mechanism by which it makes poor people work harder, and makes the economy "grow".

Inflation makes people work harder, but it's not the right thing to do, and not good for the economy in the long term. Economy is not just the GDP; it's also happiness, freedom and mental health.

All productivity increases in the economy should belong to the people who are working and saving their money. They made the decision to limit their consumption and wait for cheaper products.

Inflationary currency is very unethical, and will result in total centralization of wealth when productivity keeps increasing.

Bitcoin will be the poor man's inflation hedge. Eventually others will wake up- see bhutan quietly mining it, and even family and private wealth offices (traditionally very conservative investors) are buying it.
Bitcoin is a complete failure as a currency. Your argument, not mine.

For all the talk and posture of it being a return to "hard money", all it is used for is as another investment tool for the wealthy.

And that is me giving it the benefit of doubt.