[zhoujianfu]

Not arguing too hard but people do have to spend some money to live regardless… it could be said people are less careful with their money when they feel like it’s losing value, so they spend more and save less. Yes it results in more spending but on what?

[llamaimperative]

Yes, it would drive consumption toward the barest minimum to live and investment toward zero.

This is bad.

> Yet it results in more spending but on what?

Well near target inflation rates (which is a positive non-zero number) it results in a mix between consumption and investment.

This is good.

[tasuki]

Are you saying low consumption is bad and high consumption is good?

High consumption has been improving the economy, and destroying the earth. I'm not saying I have the answers, but it's not so simple.

[llamaimperative]

No, I'm saying that consumption at subsistence levels and investment opportunities having to overcome a deflation hurdle is bad.

It is very good that the default thing to do with excess money is invest it.

[pshan]

I'm not trying to strawman the opposing side, but I always found it ironic that many of the cryptocurrency proponents I talk to think that starting a business is amazing and innovation is important, but also hate inflation, which encourages those two things.

[llamaimperative]

They'd have to think at least one or two steps further than chart-go-up.

[motorest]

> Not arguing too hard but people do have to spend some money to live regardless…

This isn't about a decision to buy bread and milk for your breakfast. It's about the decision on whether you invest in a grocery store vs let your money sit in a bank. If doing nothing is more profitable than doing something then society as a whole will gravitate towards generating no economic activity. This has disastrous consequences because the majority of people in a society do not have the luxury of having investments to live off their dividends.

[derangedHorse]

> If doing nothing is more profitable than doing something then society as a whole will gravitate towards generating no economic activity.

You're operating off a false premise. Do you think all economic activity would be less profitable than the interest rate offered by deflation?

The whole point of investing in any business is to make a return. Giving businesses competition in the form of deflationary currencies will not eradicate businesses from being formed, and there's no evidence to suggest these businesses will be less profitable than holding a deflationary currency.

We see this in various cryptocurrencies claiming to be deflationary with the concept of 'yield', which shows investing to be a function of their wealth, interest, and expectation of return. Inflation does not need to be in the equation for this type of development.