Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Falling into the internet...

Les Jones links us to three tales of inflation.

Fascinating stuff.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

First the feds tell us that inflation is so low that there will be no COLA for the Olde Pharts on Social inSecurity.

OK.

This AM, fed-poop is that inflation in August was 0.4%, and that means all's hunky-dory. Hmmm. Isn't that an annualized 4.8%? As in, "B-a-a-a-a-d"?

Monetizing debt. Printing paper. Even basic Economics 101 sez that the more there is of something, the less it's worth.

"Stagflation". Ain't it fun?

Art

Les Jones said...

Sometimes when I put up a blog post I'm thinking of someone I know that I'm sure it would appeal to. It's one of the ways I decide what's worth writing and linking and what isn't.

When I was reading that Mises.org piece about Roman currency debasement I knew it would be right up your alley, Tam.

Ian Argent said...

The Roman and English examples given (plus the later examples of the Spanish colonies with their gold mines vs the English colonies without - whose empire lasted longer, and whose economy did better?) is why I don't believe that the Gold Standard is the panacea that the gold-bugs claim.

(Not to mention - we don't HAVE enough gold. At current spot prices, there's not enough gold ever mined to cover the US economy.)

That having been said - I was kinda hoping not to have to live through the 70's and early 80's again, economically speaking. Compare the interest rate on my credit card to the rate on the note for my parents' first house - the credit card (on which the bank is essentially taking a gamble that I won't max it and run for the border) is significantly less than the mortgage was(in case of default, the bank still has the house). Why excessive inflation is bad in a nutshell.

WV: excelies - what you use to try and make a valley girl understand budgeting?