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by blululu 777 days ago
Nah, inflation sucks across the board. The human mind and human society don’t really react well to things changing so fast. And since losses weigh higher than gains, and everything needs to be renegotiated, nobody feels good about the outcome even if they come up even. This holds for people at the top and people at the bottom.
2 comments

I'm not sure how much the high end of households whose assets have appreciated with inflation are feeling the suck. I think there are a fair number of households at the top that are feeling better off as reflected in their spending increases in spending in sectors such as travel which can be attributed to a wealth effect[1], as older and wealthier households see their assets increase in value and their confidence increase.

Increases in asset prices spurn consumer spending in wealthier households relative to their proportion of assets owned - the top 10% of households own 62% of the assets.[2]

[1]https://apnews.com/article/inflation-economy-wealth-rates-fe...

[2]https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

You’re talking past the point I made. Losses weigh heavier than gains in human psychology. This is a pretty robust finding. Inflation necessarily means losses for everyone. These can be offset but people don’t necessarily come away feeling good about it. You can say that on average people are better off after the reshuffle (though not necessarily everyone), but even if wages are universally up people will not necessarily feel good about it.
> Inflation necessarily means losses for everyone.

This is the thing you're disagreeing with parent on, because it's not true if you can afford to hold the assets that are inflating.

Inflation doesn't happen in a vacuum: it's inflation-in-terms-of-____.

If you happen to own a lot of ____, because you have disposable income and can afford to invest, then your net worth "inflates" too.

Simple example: how does inflation of the price of gasoline at the pump impact you, if you own a refinery and a filling station? Certainly not in the same way it does to someone who owns neither and commutes to work daily in an ICE vehicle.

Wages have outpaced inflation for like a year now, it's really not a huge deal anymore.