<story><title>Inflation wiped out America&apos;s pay raises</title><url>https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/10/business/raises-inflation-wages/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>webinvest</author><text>Inflation:&lt;p&gt;-Causes people to pay taxes on capital gains even when their purchasing power hasn’t risen.&lt;p&gt;-Causes borrowers to get ahead of savers and lenders.&lt;p&gt;-Allows governments to spend more than drunken sailors.&lt;p&gt;-Causes the wealth of the rich to be eroded less than the wealth of the poor (who don’t own any assets).&lt;p&gt;-Causes both the wealth of the rich, middle class, and poor to be eroded away at different rates.&lt;p&gt;-Erodes away the middle class and makes them feel like wage slaves.&lt;p&gt;-Caused Satoshi Nakamoto to release Bitcoin.&lt;p&gt;-Isn’t stopping anytime soon.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AnthonyMouse</author><text>Nearly all of those aren&amp;#x27;t true.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; -Causes people to pay taxes on capital gains even when their purchasing power hasn’t risen.&lt;p&gt;This one is actually true. We could easily fix it by calculating capital gains as adjusted for inflation (and make up the revenue by using the ordinary income rate instead of the capital gains rate).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; -Causes borrowers to get ahead of savers and lenders.&lt;p&gt;Savers who don&amp;#x27;t stupidly hold their savings in cash are unaffected, since securities prices increase with inflation.&lt;p&gt;Lenders are affected, but most lenders are banks, who are lending using fractional reserve banking, i.e. the money they lend is created when they make the loan and destroyed when it&amp;#x27;s paid back. The fact that it&amp;#x27;s worth less when it&amp;#x27;s paid back doesn&amp;#x27;t really affect them.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; -Allows governments to spend more than drunken sailors.&lt;p&gt;This is generally the cause rather than the consequence.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; -Causes the wealth of the rich to be eroded less than the wealth of the poor (who don’t own any assets).&lt;p&gt;The primary thing it erodes is contracts (i.e. loans) denominated in nominal dollars. In other words, it devalues nominal debts. This is generally good for the poor and bad for any rich lenders who aren&amp;#x27;t lending using fractional reserve banking.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; -Causes both the wealth of the rich, middle class, and poor to be eroded away at different rates.&lt;p&gt;This is true of nearly anything, but who comes out ahead depends more on factors like &amp;quot;are you a net borrow or lender&amp;quot; than your annual income or net worth.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; -Erodes away the middle class and makes them feel like wage slaves.&lt;p&gt;This is caused by low interest rates more than inflation, though they&amp;#x27;re somewhat related. The basic problem is that if money is cheap to borrow, people borrow it and bid up asset prices, and then people who don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;already have&lt;/i&gt; assets (e.g. a home) are forced to buy high.</text></comment>
<story><title>Inflation wiped out America&apos;s pay raises</title><url>https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/10/business/raises-inflation-wages/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>webinvest</author><text>Inflation:&lt;p&gt;-Causes people to pay taxes on capital gains even when their purchasing power hasn’t risen.&lt;p&gt;-Causes borrowers to get ahead of savers and lenders.&lt;p&gt;-Allows governments to spend more than drunken sailors.&lt;p&gt;-Causes the wealth of the rich to be eroded less than the wealth of the poor (who don’t own any assets).&lt;p&gt;-Causes both the wealth of the rich, middle class, and poor to be eroded away at different rates.&lt;p&gt;-Erodes away the middle class and makes them feel like wage slaves.&lt;p&gt;-Caused Satoshi Nakamoto to release Bitcoin.&lt;p&gt;-Isn’t stopping anytime soon.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Spooky23</author><text>The poor have no wealth. Jeff Bezos lost more money to inflation this quarter than the sum of wealth of the 50th percentile of Americans.&lt;p&gt;We’re overdue for inflation and higher rates. Too many stupid businesses are thriving, and too many industries have consolidated into little cartels due to cheap money.</text></comment>