this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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WHAT IF...? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

What if:

  • Our government didn't have the ability to print money? What if going to war meant raising taxes?
  • We took the control of the money supply out of their hands and instead used free and open source software to create money and move it around?
  • Our economy wasn't predicated on a target 2-3% inflation rate? What if you were not incentivized to spend your money because it's just losing value every day you don't spend it? How might our consumption/production patterns change? How might that impact sustainability?
  • The government couldn't move money from the 99% to the 1% every time a bank needed to be bailed out? What if they didn't print away all the value of money you earned? What if when the economy grew, the value of your money increased just as it would naturally if somebody wasn't printing away the difference?

How might the world look different?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Small but steady inflation is good. The macroeconomic fear is that people will just hold onto their money in the form of raw currency. That's bad. Currency is for a more convenient representation of value. I can't compensate a roofer in computer code, so currency is a stand-in. But it also shouldn't languish or else the economy stagnates. The world used to regularly experience zero inflation or deflation, which hurt the economy. As much as we've had some instability lately, things are nowhere near as bad as they could be.

Of course the flip side - hyperinflation - is also bad, but that's not what we're talking about here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Ok ok ok. Now explain to me: if inflation is supposed to ensure people don't horde money/value

How is it possible that Jeff Besos hords the income of a country?

Yes his value is bound in shares and stuff but still he is holding 185 Billion $ of value to his person.

In comparison to see how much money that is look at this website :

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

It seems that at a certain point of wealth the rules don't apply anymore.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

you are so close to admitting it's imaginary

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