Clarification of Inflation according to Forbes
I think you're missing Simon Moore's point. His point is that, due to low inflation, the returns on almost all asset classes should be less than they have been historically, so we shouldn't rebalance our portfolio or withdraw from the market and hold cash based on the assumption that stocks (or any other asset) seem to be underperforming relative to historical trends.  His last paragraph is written in case someone might misunderstand him, he is not advocating to hold cash, just that investors should not expect as good returns as has happened historically, since those happened in higher inflation environments. To explain: If the inflation rate historically has been 5% and now it's 2%, and the risk-free-market return should be about 2%, then historically the return on a risk-free asset would be 7% (2%+5%), and now it should be expected to be 4% (2%+2%). So, if you have had a portfolio over some time you might be concerned that the rate of return is worsening, but Simon's point is that before you sell off your stocks / switch investment brokers, you should try to figure out if inflation is the cause of the performance loss. On the subject  of cash: cash always loses value over time from inflation, since inflation is a measure of the increase in prices over time-- it's a part of the definition of what inflation is.  That said, cash holdings lose value more slowly when inflation is lower, so they are relatively less worse than before. The future value of cash doesn't go up in low inflation (you'd need deflation for that), it just decreases at a lower rate, that is, it becomes less expensive to hold- but there still is a price. As an addendum, unless a completely new economic paradigm is adopted by world leaders, we will always see cash holdings decrease in value over time, since modern economics holds that deflation is one of the worst things that can happen to an economy. Inflation can be a misleading indicator. Partly because it is not measured as a function of the change in prices of everything in the economy, just the basket of goods deemed essential. The other problem is that several things operate on it, the supply of money,  the total quantity of goods being exchanged, and the supply of credit. Because the supply of goods divides - as more stuff is available prices drop - it's not possible to know purely from the price level, if prices are rising because there's an actual shortage (say a crop failure), or simply monetary expansion. At this point it also helps to know that the total money supply of the USA (as measured by total quantity of money in bank deposits) doubles every 10 years, and has done that consistently since the 1970's.  USA Total Bank Deposits So I would say Simon Moore manages to be right for the wrong reasons. Despite low inflation, cash holdings are being proportionally devalued as the money supply increases. Most of the increase, is going into the stock market. However, since shares aren't included in the measures of inflation, then it doesn't influence the inflation rate. Still, if you look at the quantity of shares your money will buy now, as opposed to 5 years ago, it's clear that the value of your money has dropped substantially.  The joker in the pack is the influence of the credit supply on the price level.
Well, there are also cases where inflation actually helps you, individually, as a consumer. For example, if you have a mortgage or any other debt, debtors benefit from the value of a dollar today decreasing tomorrow.  In a very general sense, psychologically you want to avoid deflationary periods as well as it tends to seize up an economy (why would I spend a dollar today if it will be worth more tomorrow?).  Sure, the absolute value of a dollar decreases over time, but this is intentionally designed to diminish the value of hoarding cash today. Standard income should rise approximately with the rate of inflation, so from an absolute purchasing power standpoint you should remain approximately neutral. It's rather evident that, despite the nay-sayers, food prices will go down due to this deal. Amazon is laser-focused on two things: making things cheaper and getting things to you faster. They've developed/ are developing a strong base of knowledge and development in machine learning, robotics, and blockchain, which would greatly facilitate these two tasks. However, as stated in the article, this will not have a significant effect on inflation due to the fact that the economy makes up for it in other respects (*cough* rising tuition and oil prices *cough*). It's interesting to note that food inflation was warned against by several experts within the past two years but this deal might change that (see: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings.aspx ). But has inflation went up ? The only reason jobs would be lost would be if the cities economy couldn't absorb the inflation .  Since you are now increasing the incomes of every one at the bottom , the city will likely be able to absorb the inflation . The question really is have the people at the bottom increased there spending power over all  and have there been winners and losers for example maybe servers are doing better but retirees and others on a fixed income worse . "Curious if anyone has any insight here, but isn't it too soon to tell if this will lead to inflation, and purely speculative that we could ""do the same"", given that we are in a very different set of circumstances?" I'm no expert, but this is my understanding.  Not necessarily. For example, the Canadian dollar has jumped up recently because people are expecting a rate hike at the central bank this week some time. That is, the Canadian dollar is being traded for more because people expect that the currency will be harder to get later. This deflation (or decelerated inflation) is being priced in before it even happens.  For inflation to propagate through an entire domestic supply chain of a good or service takes time. Raises aren't tied to inflation, nor the price of a Big Mac or price of a movie ticket or toaster that has been sitting on the shelf for a month.  The price of the good in foreign currency will however hit the export as soon as it crosses the border. Yes, asset inflation is still inflation.   Economy = consumption + investment + government - net exports.   So you increase the money supply to the wealthy what happens? Not in increase in consumption, their basic needs are met so they invest it. Everyone invests their extra money, what happens? Price goes up for stock and real estate while the yield on those investments goes down. You have people buying really expensive assets with great leverage because their is no alternative. So inflation has increased, you are just to poor to notice it.   We also live on a deflationary world. Production increases while demand remains constant. So what happens? Price goes down and marginal companies go out of business. Leading to more consolidation, lower prices due to greater market share, more companies cannot compete and the cycle continues.   The only inflation comes from overseas, where you have growing economies. Here we have almost no population or wage growth, so that is deflationary . "I knew before I clicked that this was going to refer to Saez. I don't mean to disparage his scholarship, but he's clearly a guy with an agenda. For example, the reason this number is so outrageous is because 2010 was a *terrific* year for the stock market, and a middling to bad year for employment and wage growth. Stocks tend to be a leading indicator, while job growth is a trailing one. In fact, Saez also tries to make hay by comparing the first two years of this ""recovery"" with the entirety of the (much longer) '90's and '00's booms. If you target your analysis at years when the market has recovered but jobs haven't, of course you'll see greater income gains for the investor class.  But by that same token, Saez could have been putting out press releases for studies in 2008 showing how the rich were getting absolutely screwed by losing the lion's share of their income as the market tanked, while ordinary folks were perhaps losing only a little because the full force of job losses hadn't hit yet. But he didn't, AFAIK." let's define inflation as an increase in m1 relative to the goods and services in the dollar economy. twist doesn't change m1 because it is sterilized.  it does make tsys attractive since it supports their prices.  that means de-risking flows are to the u.s.  that means dollar goes up.  that means gold goes down. "Some people believe that inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply when the banks engage in fractional reserve lending. Is this correct? You are referring to the Austrian school of thought. The Austrians define inflation in terms of money supply. In other words, inflation is defined as an increase in the aggregate money supply, even if prices stay the same of fall. This is not the only definition of inflation. The mainstream defines inflation as a general increase in the prices of consumer goods. Based on the first definition, then your supposition is correct by definition. Based on the second definition, you can make a case that money supply affects prices. But keep in mind, it's just one factor affecting prices. Furthermore, economics is resistant to experimentation, so it is difficult to establish causality. Austrian economists tend to approach the problem of ""proof"" using a 2-pronged tactic: establish plausibility by explaining the mechanism, then look for historical evidence to back up that explanation. As I understand it, when there is more available money in the market, the price of goods will increase. But will a normal merchant acknowledge the increase of money supply and raise prices immediately? I posit that, in the short run, merchants won't increase prices in response to increased money supply. So, why does increased money supply lead to price inflation? The simple answer, in the Austrian school of thought, is that you have more money chasing the same amount of goods. In other words, printing money doesn't actually increase the number of widgets made. I believe the Austrian school is consistent with your supposition that prices don't increase in the short run. In other words, producers don't increase prices immediately after observing an increase in the money supply. Specifically, after the banks print more notes, where will the money be distributed first?  The Austrian story goes as follows: Imagine that the first borrower is a home constructor, and he is borrowing freshly ""printed"" money to build new homes. This constructor will need to buy materials and hire labor to build homes, and in doing so he will bid against other home constructors. The increased demand for lumber, nails, tools, carpentry, etc. will ever so slightly increase the market prices for these goods and services. So the money goes first to the borrower, but then flows also to the people selling to the borrower, and the people selling to the sellers, etc. It has a ripple effect. Who will be the first one to have a need to rise their price? These producers won't need to increase their price, but they will choose to do so if the believe that demand outstrips supply. In other words if you have more orders than you can fill, then you may post higher prices because you think consumers will tolerate the higher price.  You might object that competition deters any one producer from unilaterally raising prices, but in fact if all producers are failing to keep up with demand, then you can unilaterally raise prices because other producers don't have any excess inventory to undercut you with." There are two things you need to keep in mind when you look at Inflation as an entity. Inflation is necessary to keep in check the value of goods. As per Moore's Law for example, a mobile phone that you buy for £100 today will be available for £50 in two years. With increased purchasing power, one needs to maintain balance between the purchasing power and its value. If you think about the 'loss' at a rate of 2% you would have £96.04 (in terms of today's value) in two years. But if you looked at the same cell phone as leverage for your business where it allowed you to do work and earn £1000 in two years - the investment would clearly offset the cost of inflation. Inflation is incentive for people to spend their money. If you for example spent all of your £100 today, it is £100 income for someone else. He has further incentive to spend it creating a chain of transactions. In theory while this is a true mathematical loss, the increasing purchasing power helps you leverage your financial asset to get a return on your investment. "In that example, ""creating money"" could be used interchangeably with ""making promises"".  There's no inflation, and no problem, so long as everyone keeps their promises. Which sounds like a horrifying thing to say about the foundations of the economy, but the remarkable thing is that people mostly do." "The official source is the most recent Form 13F that Berkshire Hathaway, which is  filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on a quarterly basis .  You can find it through the SEC filing search engine, using BRKA as the ticker symbol. and then looking for the filings marked 13-FR or 13-FR/A (the ""/A"" indicates an amended filing).   As you can see by looking at the 13-F filed for the quarter ending September 30  , the document isn't pretty or necessarily easy to read, hence the popularity of sites such as those that Chad linked to. It is, though, the truly official source from which websites tracking the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio derive their information." Assuming constant velocity, inflation is caused by the difference between the growth in the money supply and growth in real output. In other words, this means that the money supply growing faster than output is expanding causes inflation to arise. There is inflation, but it's hidden through various mechanisms. What do you call housing price increases and wage declines? What do you call the fed essentially paying down the inflation with free money and prices still pressuring upwards? I get the sense there is a great underlying pressure for inflation to burst out from the fed's free money pressure chamber. For all our sake, I really hope the pressure chamber holds or I'm totally wrong in the first place. "First, a clarification. No assets are immune to inflation, apart from inflation-indexed securities like TIPS or inflation-indexed gilts (well, if held to maturity, these are at least close). Inflation causes a decline in the future purchasing power of a given dollar1 amount, and it certainly doesn't just affect government bonds, either. Regardless of whether you hold equity, bonds, derivatives, etc., the real value of those assets is declining because of inflation, all else being equal. For example, if I invest $100 in an asset that pays a 10% rate of return over the next year, and I sell my entire position at the end of the year, I have $110 in nominal terms. Inflation affects the real value of this asset regardless of its asset class because those $110 aren't worth as much in a year as they are today, assuming inflation is positive. An easy way to incorporate inflation into your calculations of rate of return is to simply subtract the rate of inflation from your rate of return. Using the previous example with inflation of 3%, you could estimate that although the nominal value of your investment at the end of one year is $110, the real value is $100*(1 + 10% - 3%) = $107. In other words, you only gained $7 of purchasing power, even though you gained $10 in nominal terms. This back-of-the-envelope calculation works for securities that don't pay fixed returns as well. Consider an example retirement portfolio. Say I make a one-time investment of $50,000 today in a portfolio that pays, on average, 8% annually. I plan to retire in 30 years, without making any further contributions (yes, this is an over-simplified example). I calculate that my portfolio will have a value of 50000 * (1 + 0.08)^30, or $503,132. That looks like a nice amount, but how much is it really worth? I don't care how many dollars I have; I care about what I can buy with those dollars.  If I use the same rough estimate of the effect of inflation and use a 8% - 3% = 5% rate of return instead, I get an estimate of what I'll have at retirement, in today's dollars. That allows me to make an easy comparison to my current standard of living, and see if my portfolio is up to scratch. Repeating the calculation with 5% instead of 8% yields 50000 * (1 + 0.05)^30, or $21,6097. As you can see, the amount is significantly different. If I'm accustomed to living off $50,000 a year now, my calculation that doesn't take inflation into account tells me that I'll have over 10 years of living expenses at retirement. The new calculation tells me I'll only have a little over 4 years. Now that I've clarified the basics of inflation, I'll respond to the rest of the answer.  I want to know if I need to be making sure my investments span multiple currencies to protect against a single country's currency failing. As others have pointed out, currency doesn't inflate; prices denominated in that currency inflate. Also, a currency failing is significantly different from a prices denominated in a currency inflating. If you're worried about prices inflating and decreasing the purchasing power of your dollars (which usually occurs in modern economies) then it's a good idea to look for investments and asset allocations that, over time, have outpaced the rate of inflation and that even with the effects of inflation, still give you a high enough rate of return to meet your investment goals in real, inflation-adjusted terms. If you have legitimate reason to worry about your currency failing, perhaps because your country doesn't maintain stable monetary or fiscal policies, there are a few things you can do. First, define what you mean by ""failing."" Do you mean ceasing to exist, or simply falling in unit purchasing power because of inflation? If it's the latter, see the previous paragraph. If the former, investing in other currencies abroad may be a good idea. Questions about currencies actually failing are quite general, however, and (in my opinion) require significant economic analysis before deciding on a course of action/hedging. I would ask the same question about my home's value against an inflated currency as well. Would it keep the same real value. Your home may or may not keep the same real value over time. In some time periods, average home prices have risen at rates significantly higher than the rate of inflation, in which case on paper, their real value has increased. However, if you need to make substantial investments in your home to keep its price rising at the same rate as inflation, you may actually be losing money because your total investment is higher than what you paid for the house initially. Of course, if you own your home and don't have plans to move, you may not be concerned if its value isn't keeping up with inflation at all times. You're deriving additional satisfaction/utility from it, mainly because it's a place for you to live, and you spend money maintaining it in order to maintain your physical standard of living, not just its price at some future sale date. 1) I use dollars as an example. This applies to all currencies."