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This isn't the gotcha that you think it is. Inflation is kept at a positive number on purpose. Deflation causes a self-reinforcing spiral that brings everyone's wealth down. If inflation is too high that's a problem too, but it's less of a problem than deflation.
... With that said, the huge amount that prices have gone up recently is caused by corporate profiteering, which is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
A sane economic take on lemmy?! Blasphemy.
I'll add this; Stop buying shit. I'm not talking rent and food. I'm talking "consumer confidence" stuff. If you don't need it to live, stop.
Example; Ammo got wildly overpriced. So we stopped buying. Like magic, prices tanked! Ain't that crazy?
Of course that's stupid oversimplified, but the basic idea is sound.
Locally, people were bitching about Taco Bell's quality. OK. Stop buying Taco Bell. They'll either crash (that store) or correct. Win-win.
I would love a legislative way to stop corporations from wildly profiteering off our asses, but I don't know what that looks like.
The corporations are absolutely aware that people have stopped being price conscious.
I understand everyone who can afford a $6 case of coca cola can also afford a $12 case. At some point you have to just choose not to buy it, or the price will just keep rising.
I mean, you are the one making the logical fallacy of assuming they are defending the exact opposite... They're basically just saying, "inflation bad", and you come in and say, "deflation bad, too!".
OK? They weren't defending deflation? You even admit inflation has been out of hand lately...
You spelled "corporate market manipulation" wrong.
Why does deflation bring your wealth down? If I saved miney in a deflationary period my purchasing power would go up. Deflation means the amount of goods you can buy with the same currency increases over time, inflation means the amount of goods you can buy over time goes down. So actually deflation makes your wealth go up it seems to me.
If you already have money, deflation is good for your net financial position, sure. If you work for your money, deflation could mean your boss has to either cut your wages, or fire you. Even if that money can buy more, people are very unwilling to take a pay cut.
That means if there's a sudden (but small) drop in productivity in an industry, inflation can paper over it, and deflation amplifies it, and potentially means the industry collapses.
One additional factor is that there is only a slight delay for prices to catch up with inflation but a major delay for wages to rebound. In a roundabout way inflation allows companies to cut wages without it feeling as shitty to the workers. This is why the central banks throw on the money printer when they fear an incoming recession.
This might seem unfair to the workers but is usually the preferred solution over tons of people losing their jobs.
It's good for you in the very short term, but bad quickly after that. It makes everyone want to hold onto their cash because your cash becomes more and more valuable the longer you hold on to it. So people start buying way less, and businesses bring in less and less money, so they lower prices more to try to entice you to buy, but the dropping prices only make you want to wait to buy even longer, this keeps spiraling downward and businesses keep bringing in less and less money, and so very soon they have to start firing people, and then more and more companies wind up out of business, causing more and more unemployment, and on and on and on, for everyone involved it all goes very bad.
Deflation causes a self-reinforcing spiral that brings everyone’s wealth down.
Sigh. For anybody who thinks that it's insane to believe that their wealth goes down when the value of their money goes up.. look up Austrian Economics and learn why this Keynesian nonsense is wrong.
Efficient at extracting wealth from humans
And giving all of that yummy wealth to a small handful of scummy humans.
This doesn’t seem like a correct use of this meme. I’d even allow for something other than the standard “Aliens” if it was something equally ridiculous or nonsensical compared to the first statement, but this isn’t even following the format.
It is efficient, in increasing the wealth of the wealthy.
Efficient at producing profit, is essentially what it means. The definitions are utterly twisted.
Because it's efficient at transferring wealth upwards.
Normally a strong democracy with multiple parties, checks and balances would help stop this. But the new META in economics is to just buy politicians to do your bidding for you. Kinda hoping the Supreme Court will patch that at some point, but it's not looking likely.
I would be a social democrat for just that reason. But with climate change looming, my options have narrowed.
Definitely harder to patch out features then bugs.
The free market is an illusion at this point. The monopolies killed it.
I think you may be right.
The Legal Illegal monopolies.
I realize this isn't really the place for this discussion but capitalism doesn't know what the word "efficient" means. Is it efficient to have to buy the same thing twice? Is it efficient to only make cheap shitty and yet still overpriced versions of everything for the consuming public, shit that is designed to fail? Is pollution efficient? Is ruining everyone's lives efficient? Pointless jobs? Rich people? These things are efficient the way fucking for virginity is efficient. The way Elon's Twitter has been efficient. The way shitting the bed is efficient. Which is to say, it's really fucking not.
Capitalism is the most efficient way of extracting as much value from one’s employees, and sales from one’s customers as possible.
Efficiency isn’t always a good thing, such as in this case.
It's broader that that: it's the most efficient way of extracting money from everything else in general.
Hence just how common it is to see large companies getting massive subsidies or having laws written to benefit them (notice, for example, the Disney Corporation rigging the system to extract more value from the broader society by getting the Copyright terms extended ahain and again), none of which is sales or employment related.
Capitalism doesn't limit itself to things of a trading nature (which includes employment, which is basically people selling their work to others) and that's the core of the problem with it: it naturally corrupts anything around it which can help provide not just trade advantages but even force the rest of society to give larger entities "free" money even outside trade (subsidies, bailouts) or forcing into being paid for that which would be naturally free (i.e. copyright, water rights, even land).
Some people think Crony Capitalism is not real Capitalism, but is actually real Capitalism in it's purest form: the best ROI in this game of who makes the most money comes from buying the referees and those who make the rules.
It's efficient at exploitation
On the contrary, this is the proof that it is efficient. The right question to make is: Efficient for whom?
Optimized for what objective? Whose objective?
Capitalism isn't concerned with efficiency, merely the most direct route to monopoly.
Wish more understood this.
Companies that are structured to maximize short term shareholder value need to make extra profits at all costs.
Supply lines were strained during the pandemic, which led to drastic price increases. Supply lines stabilized and the pandemic subsidized. Prices didn’t go down? Why?
Because the companies that set prices need to make more money this quarter to make the shareholders happy. And they bribe the politicians and the judges and the regulators to control the system at every level.
These rich assholes doomed our world to destruction and our “leaders” were too greedy and small minded to stop them.
Enjoy the ride down
I am not even saying that capitalism is remotely acceptable but prices going up doesn't imply inefficient of the system. Inflation could be a reason and inflation says nothing about efficiency.
Shit on capitalism. Be my guest. Just don't make bad arguments.
I thought they were coming at it from a supply & demand angle.
Inelastic demand on food and housing yet prices still go up.
That might be the case but generalized statement that are wrong, are wrong.
Don't generalize to the point of failure of your point. Especially in public, the in-group might understand you but the out-group will misunderstand and judge you and your ideology based on their misunderstanding.
Because "number go up" is all the system cares about. Damn you living creatures for opposing it. The system shall prevail.
The system is working as intended.
The rich get richer
.... The system is working as intended.
It's very efficient at extracting wealth from the lower classes.
That's literally the stupidest nonsensical shit I've ever seen, doesn't even make sense.
that's what it's efficient at!
Aliens.
Greed.
They go up in communist countries too but with the added benefit of shortages and rationing to keep prices relatively in check.
And small inflation is not bad. As long as it is stable and predictable, it does not matter much since people know roughly what price to expect. Theoretically it should be the same for deflation but workers tend to not also accept lower wages when prices drop. It also leads to banks not lending out so you can really only start a business or buy something big if you already have the money. While that is easy enough for people who are rich, it limits social mobility of those who would have to borrow to do the same since finding a lender is more difficult.