“The economy” in this instance being a playground for the rich.
People won’t stop paying for food or rent just because their money might be worth a little more tomorrow. They won’t skip buying minor entertainments just because maybe their meager salaries might be worth a little more next week.
Deflation is poison for the owner class, not the working class.
“The economy” in this instance being a playground for the rich.
People won’t stop paying for food or rent just because their money might be worth a little more tomorrow.
Indeed, people won’t stop paying for everyday necessities, but the economy consists of more than just individual people: there’s the state and there are businesses too. You conflate the latter with “the rich”, which is generally true for corporations, but corporations are not the only form of business; there are cooperatives, partnerships, and others which can distribute profits more fairly. In any case, deflation affects all businesses, including fair ones, and the state itself. As another commentator suggested, money is meant to change hands and should never become an asset worth holding.
If you have debt, inflation eats away at that debt. If you’re paying 5% per year on that debt, but inflation goes up 3%, you’re actually only paying 2% on that debt. That’s good for people who have debt, and bad for the people who invested the initial money for that debt. With deflation, it’s the opposite.
This assumes your wages go up with inflation, though. Over the long term, that does tend to happen, but there are certainly periods where that is not true.
If money should never become an asset worth holding, how can inflation be better than deflation for the working class?
It’s deflation that turns money into an asset worth holding and thus slows down economies. Too much inflation isn’t good either, for different reasons. A slight and stable inflation is the sweet spot.
Proportionately, the rich hold a lot more money assets than the poor, who generally don’t hold any or very little.
Indeed, the rich do proportionately hold a lot more money than the poor, but it isn’t much. The rich mostly have shares in corporations, bonds and real estate.
Inflation is generally worse for workers than for the rich because the latter have more pricing power. If both your living expenses and your income after taxes increased by 20%, you’d even end up with more money than before, assuming your living expenses were a fraction of your income. Unfortunately, prices haven’t risen equally; the cost of living increase has generally outpaced real wage growth. The rich have been able to set higher prices; workers haven’t been able to extract high enough wage raises.
Neither high inflation nor deflation are good for workers. What workers need is pricing power through strong unions and political support.
That just shows how broken the system is, though, doesn’t it? It’s geared towards benefitting the haves over the have-nots. Yes, it probably hurts the people further down the line from the shareholders and board members… but mostly because they can’t countenance not having their numbers going up. So they pass along losses to the people who can tolerate the least.
I’m sure you’re just approaching this from a sterilized, clinical approach “that’s just the way things are”… but it’s not particularly beneficial to people to consider things exclusively that way.
I think we both agree that capitalist logic is inherently extractive, exploitative and generally unhealthy. What I’ve been trying to point out is that we should not cherish deflationary tendencies in China or seek deflation in our own economies as a solution of sorts to the cost of living crisis, but rather pursue the power to increase our wages to at least match our ever rising productivity. In my opinion, unionizing –hard as it is– is more feasible than changing our monetary system –necessary and desirable as that would be– or overcoming capitalism.
Only nonessential purchases. The poor generally don’t have a choice to not pay rent in the US, you can get evicted after being 3 days late in most US states.
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. Do you think the lower class only spends money on food, rent and gas? Some may but there are a lot of “non rich” people who buy nonessentials.
As someone in the lower class, yes. A decade ago you might have had a point, but unless they’re maxing out credit cards no one below median income is spending on non essentials.
Credit card debt is at an all time high, more people are living paycheck to paycheck than ever before, Americans rejected Biden explicitly because of his gaslighting about how good the economy was, union membership is up, and nearly all Americans celebrated the death of that CEO.
People aren’t in a good spot. They don’t have disposable income unless they above median wage. The great depression had better ratios in terms of money spent on essentials.
They don’t have disposable income unless they above median wage.
This is utter bullshit and you know it. I know several people below median income, one is sending a child to college. They have iPhones, TVs, etc. To claim that these people are only buying the absolute necessities is just lefitst BS.
Not because of deflation, but because they’re looking for “The deal”. More akin to the dopamine inducing tricks many microtransaction games use these days.
“The economy” in this instance being a playground for the rich.
People won’t stop paying for food or rent just because their money might be worth a little more tomorrow. They won’t skip buying minor entertainments just because maybe their meager salaries might be worth a little more next week.
Deflation is poison for the owner class, not the working class.
Indeed, people won’t stop paying for everyday necessities, but the economy consists of more than just individual people: there’s the state and there are businesses too. You conflate the latter with “the rich”, which is generally true for corporations, but corporations are not the only form of business; there are cooperatives, partnerships, and others which can distribute profits more fairly. In any case, deflation affects all businesses, including fair ones, and the state itself. As another commentator suggested, money is meant to change hands and should never become an asset worth holding.
Forgive my admitted ignorance. If money should never become an asset worth holding, how can inflation be better than deflation for the working class?
Proportionately, the rich hold a lot more money assets than the poor, who generally don’t hold any or very little.
If you have debt, inflation eats away at that debt. If you’re paying 5% per year on that debt, but inflation goes up 3%, you’re actually only paying 2% on that debt. That’s good for people who have debt, and bad for the people who invested the initial money for that debt. With deflation, it’s the opposite.
This assumes your wages go up with inflation, though. Over the long term, that does tend to happen, but there are certainly periods where that is not true.
It’s deflation that turns money into an asset worth holding and thus slows down economies. Too much inflation isn’t good either, for different reasons. A slight and stable inflation is the sweet spot.
Indeed, the rich do proportionately hold a lot more money than the poor, but it isn’t much. The rich mostly have shares in corporations, bonds and real estate.
Inflation is generally worse for workers than for the rich because the latter have more pricing power. If both your living expenses and your income after taxes increased by 20%, you’d even end up with more money than before, assuming your living expenses were a fraction of your income. Unfortunately, prices haven’t risen equally; the cost of living increase has generally outpaced real wage growth. The rich have been able to set higher prices; workers haven’t been able to extract high enough wage raises.
Neither high inflation nor deflation are good for workers. What workers need is pricing power through strong unions and political support.
That just shows how broken the system is, though, doesn’t it? It’s geared towards benefitting the haves over the have-nots. Yes, it probably hurts the people further down the line from the shareholders and board members… but mostly because they can’t countenance not having their numbers going up. So they pass along losses to the people who can tolerate the least.
I’m sure you’re just approaching this from a sterilized, clinical approach “that’s just the way things are”… but it’s not particularly beneficial to people to consider things exclusively that way.
I think we both agree that capitalist logic is inherently extractive, exploitative and generally unhealthy. What I’ve been trying to point out is that we should not cherish deflationary tendencies in China or seek deflation in our own economies as a solution of sorts to the cost of living crisis, but rather pursue the power to increase our wages to at least match our ever rising productivity. In my opinion, unionizing –hard as it is– is more feasible than changing our monetary system –necessary and desirable as that would be– or overcoming capitalism.
Have you never seen somebody wait for a sale to make purchases? Or cut coupons? “The poor” frequently put off purchases to save some money.
Only nonessential purchases. The poor generally don’t have a choice to not pay rent in the US, you can get evicted after being 3 days late in most US states.
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. Do you think the lower class only spends money on food, rent and gas? Some may but there are a lot of “non rich” people who buy nonessentials.
As someone in the lower class, yes. A decade ago you might have had a point, but unless they’re maxing out credit cards no one below median income is spending on non essentials.
That’s a completely indefensible statement and you know it.
Credit card debt is at an all time high, more people are living paycheck to paycheck than ever before, Americans rejected Biden explicitly because of his gaslighting about how good the economy was, union membership is up, and nearly all Americans celebrated the death of that CEO.
People aren’t in a good spot. They don’t have disposable income unless they above median wage. The great depression had better ratios in terms of money spent on essentials.
This is utter bullshit and you know it. I know several people below median income, one is sending a child to college. They have iPhones, TVs, etc. To claim that these people are only buying the absolute necessities is just lefitst BS.
Both iPhones and TVs are cheaper than a months worth of groceries.
Not because of deflation, but because they’re looking for “The deal”. More akin to the dopamine inducing tricks many microtransaction games use these days.
Because there is no deflation… Unless you’re living in China?