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I'm not sure you deserve engaging, but I'll give it a try.

So you're just going to ignore a war involving two of the biggest exporters of some of the main raw materials we have (foodstuffs and energy) on the planet and associated supply problems on crucial things? Not to mention a pandemic that wrecked havoc on supply lines. None of that matters, your theory goes, it's purely a monetary phenomenon, because only countries with fiat money systems are impacted. Could you share some countries with alternative money systems that aren't impacted?



If it was not caused by fiat money, I'd expect to see corresponding periods of deflation. Inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level. It is not a temporary spike from the fluctuations in supply&demand of goods and services.

Another way to understand it is to consider, what happens if the price of gas rises? Does that automatically put more money in your pocket to pay for it? Nope. You just have less money to spend on other things. But inflation (with a lag period) does put more money in your pocket.

> Could you share some countries with alternative money systems that aren't impacted?

Modern countries have all gone fiat. But we can look at the US from 1800-1914, which was not fiat money. There was zero net inflation in that period, while we've had endemic inflation ever since (aside from a brief period of deflation during the Depression).

> I'm not sure you deserve engaging

What I wrote is not the general opinion, though it is the opinion of economists. At least you were willing to talk about it, which is nice.


The value of fiat currency is roughly money supply divided by economic output. If the numerator rises faster than the denominator, well...

Obviously it's a more complicated than that, especially in the context of the US Dollar, but for smaller countries it's pretty basic stuff.


Inflation isn’t terribly bad in countries that didn’t print wild amounts of money.

Like in India, inflation is almost back in control, and we didn’t print much money.

Same in China.

I haven’t run the numbers but if you were to chart inflation vs the money printing done by an economy, you’d likely find a positive correlation.


If inflation is a purely monetary phenomenon caused by printing money, why do Telangana and Sikkim experience higher inflation than the national average?

> I haven’t run the numbers but if you were to chart inflation vs the money printing done by an economy, you’d likely find a positive correlation.

As a member of the Eurozone, Estonia can't print money. That didn't stop it from inflation hitting 23%.

It's almost as if inflation is influenced by local factors...


> As a member of the Eurozone, Estonia can't print money. That didn't stop it from inflation hitting 23%.

Actually, according to Wikipedia, Estonia joined the Euro in 2010. There have been a lot of Euros created in the last few years (looking at the M2, we're roughly at the point where most Euro appeared after Estonia joined in to the project).


There's something else going on in Estonia, or arbitrage would be happening (importing cheaper stuff from the eurozone).


Cantillion effects possibly


The WSJ ran a chart a few weeks ago showing inflation lagged money printing by about 13 months.


Argentina has had high inflation for years before the Ukraine war.

The printing never stops




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