Well I think a big issue with that is monetary policy. Which bids up the price of goods using debt, as everything becomes financialized. It used to be a mortgage had a real physical cost as a lump of gold moved around, now its just numbers in a computer created out of the ether, and this bids up the cost of living in order to derive what we call economic growth. A transfer from the young to the old essentially.
The 2% inflation we attempt to achieve is after hedonic adjustments, substitutions, and investments are taken out, and so the money supply grows at 10% a year as people are clinging by the skin of their teeth to eek out more aggregate demand to attempt to infinitely grow an economy.
The 2% inflation was decided in the 90s with no real logic put forth as to where it would lead, and its obviously lead to huge bubbles and asset inequality as people try to profit off the first mover advantage of their debt being debased, as the CPI was progressively modified to loosen the money supply to promote more economic growth over time.
In the late 80’s they removed housing appreciation from the CPI for instance, and what do you expect that did to home prices? They did that to fix another problem with the CPI, which was that raising interest rates raised inflation during Volcker, making it a feedback loop that lead to the double digit increase in rates. So it was already broken and it was then patched like it was a car held together with duct tape.
Well I think a big issue with that is monetary policy. Which bids up the price of goods using debt, as everything becomes financialized. It used to be a mortgage had a real physical cost as a lump of gold moved around, now its just numbers in a computer created out of the ether, and this bids up the cost of living in order to derive what we call economic growth. A transfer from the young to the old essentially.
The 2% inflation we attempt to achieve is after hedonic adjustments, substitutions, and investments are taken out, and so the money supply grows at 10% a year as people are clinging by the skin of their teeth to eek out more aggregate demand to attempt to infinitely grow an economy.
The 2% inflation was decided in the 90s with no real logic put forth as to where it would lead, and its obviously lead to huge bubbles and asset inequality as people try to profit off the first mover advantage of their debt being debased, as the CPI was progressively modified to loosen the money supply to promote more economic growth over time.
In the late 80’s they removed housing appreciation from the CPI for instance, and what do you expect that did to home prices? They did that to fix another problem with the CPI, which was that raising interest rates raised inflation during Volcker, making it a feedback loop that lead to the double digit increase in rates. So it was already broken and it was then patched like it was a car held together with duct tape.