In Canada we now have a solution for the despondent “day-to-day consumption machines”. MAID, the Medical Assistance In Dying has been bureaucratically suggested to some despondent individuals as a viable option to complaining about a lack of funds or work.
A question for you -- I usually tell people I'm talking to about inflation they should look at it as an erosion of the purchasing power of their money rather than a price increase. Would you consider that inaccurate?
I think the right definition of inflation (in the economic context) is an undue increase in the quantity of money. Upon more refinement, that will resolve to "an increase in the quantity of money caused by government." There is a whole discussion behind that. Basically, I think if we had free banking (and therefore money chosen by the market) there would not be any such thing as "too much money," at least not as a permanent condition. Your "erosion of purchasing power" identification is pretty good and closer to the mark than price increases. But I believe the more fundamental definition - undue increase in the quantity of money - allows you to fit all the phenomena we associate with inflation under one definition. So "undue increase in money" allows you to see not only widespread price increases, erosion of purchasing power, malinvestment, loss of productivity, growing government intrusion, unjust wealth redistribution, all the moral issues, and so on as important elements of the inflation phenomenon. Again, ilike money creation, this is an example of knowledge that has been "lost."
Is that not the fundamental issue, destroy the language, the conceptual links and both the power to think and communicate will be compromised?
Thanks, I'll add unwarranted or manipulative increases in the money supply. The one caveat - I hate using the term money to describe what we have today and often say paper currency or some such related thing instead, leaving money's definition to Ayn Rand. :-)
BTW. probably in the mid '80's I read one Franz Pick, a gold bug that I enjoyed reading, and he mentioned that the dollar was actually worth $0.02 if compared to the purchasing power it had in 1900 when high value good were added to the CPI index barrel. What fools we have been to trust elected politicians with a printing press.
I'm very sympathetic to your aversion to referring to bank deposits "money." I use the term for a couple of reasons. First, money is primarily a medium of exchange, and the fact is bank deposits are the primary medium of exchange used by most everyone, so you could say I am bending to reality. Second, Mises himself (and Reisman, too) distinguish between "forms of money,." "Standard money" (gold or, in our world, fiat paper cash) represents full and final payment, whereas "fiduciary media" is a promise to pay standard money. Both standard money and fiduciary media fall under the general category "money." so I feel justified in referring to both as "money."
BTW, I think I still have an old Franz Pick volume on my bookshelf somewhere.
In Canada we now have a solution for the despondent “day-to-day consumption machines”. MAID, the Medical Assistance In Dying has been bureaucratically suggested to some despondent individuals as a viable option to complaining about a lack of funds or work.
A question for you -- I usually tell people I'm talking to about inflation they should look at it as an erosion of the purchasing power of their money rather than a price increase. Would you consider that inaccurate?
I think the right definition of inflation (in the economic context) is an undue increase in the quantity of money. Upon more refinement, that will resolve to "an increase in the quantity of money caused by government." There is a whole discussion behind that. Basically, I think if we had free banking (and therefore money chosen by the market) there would not be any such thing as "too much money," at least not as a permanent condition. Your "erosion of purchasing power" identification is pretty good and closer to the mark than price increases. But I believe the more fundamental definition - undue increase in the quantity of money - allows you to fit all the phenomena we associate with inflation under one definition. So "undue increase in money" allows you to see not only widespread price increases, erosion of purchasing power, malinvestment, loss of productivity, growing government intrusion, unjust wealth redistribution, all the moral issues, and so on as important elements of the inflation phenomenon. Again, ilike money creation, this is an example of knowledge that has been "lost."
Is that not the fundamental issue, destroy the language, the conceptual links and both the power to think and communicate will be compromised?
Thanks, I'll add unwarranted or manipulative increases in the money supply. The one caveat - I hate using the term money to describe what we have today and often say paper currency or some such related thing instead, leaving money's definition to Ayn Rand. :-)
BTW. probably in the mid '80's I read one Franz Pick, a gold bug that I enjoyed reading, and he mentioned that the dollar was actually worth $0.02 if compared to the purchasing power it had in 1900 when high value good were added to the CPI index barrel. What fools we have been to trust elected politicians with a printing press.
I'm very sympathetic to your aversion to referring to bank deposits "money." I use the term for a couple of reasons. First, money is primarily a medium of exchange, and the fact is bank deposits are the primary medium of exchange used by most everyone, so you could say I am bending to reality. Second, Mises himself (and Reisman, too) distinguish between "forms of money,." "Standard money" (gold or, in our world, fiat paper cash) represents full and final payment, whereas "fiduciary media" is a promise to pay standard money. Both standard money and fiduciary media fall under the general category "money." so I feel justified in referring to both as "money."
BTW, I think I still have an old Franz Pick volume on my bookshelf somewhere.