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by rrreese 5058 days ago
It's not just that, while devaluation alters import prices local prices like rent and service costs don't fluctuate. So a 30% devaluation doesn't make people 30% poorer.
1 comments

Of course it would: in your example, the landlords would be poorer because they would collect less rent. Likewise for service providers. Perhaps you could argue for public services, but for those the government could just lower the fees instead of devaluing the currency.

But thanks to your example I see it has more subtleties: it is also a question who to take the money from. Making landlords poorer might be an easy sell to the majority of the population - if the population would have any idea of what is going on, which I doubt.

Services might just go away if they make less money.

No, landlords would NOT be poorer, they're taking in exactly the same as before devaluation. Devaluation directly effects ONLY imports (more expensive) and exports (cheaper): it effects the local economy only based on how much it depends on each.
That is simply false. Think it through.
I am being paid a number of arbitrary denominators of value per time period.

Government declares that the arbitrary denominators of value now buy half the number of a different arbitrary denominators of value they did previously.

Because I am a locovore Luddite (for the sake of the argument), everything I buy is made in the country, with materials produced in the country.

How does the devaluation effect me?