Originally Posted by logtroll
Thinking about this recently (again), I am forming the notion that inflation is caused by people wanting to “make” money without doing anything. Honestly, who doesn’t want that if you can get it? Speculation, playing the stock markets, windfalls, inheritance, lottery tickets, getting a higher price due to increased demand… if some extra cash floats along, I”ll take it.

But it all contributes to inflation, right? Inflation is like the truly uncaring animal we call Capitalism balancing the books inexorably (though a buttload of externalized costs still keep accruing, awaiting the day they demand payment - in case I’m being too vague, I’m referring to things like climate change and human overpopulation).

What to do about it? Probably ride the nasty but exciting waves until we crash on the rocks.

When I started this thread I was thinking very broadly about the subject - as in why does inflation exist?

I remember being taught in grade school that Capitalism depended upon continued growth, and that modest inflation was good and desirable. Even though I don’t claim to have had stellar critical thinking skills back then, I do recall wondering how inflation and growth could go on forever without a problem. I think the subject in class came up in connection to the huge inflation suffered by Nazi Germany - the mental picture I associate with this early Capitalism propaganda is a wheelbarrow full of cash being used to buy a loaf of bread., and that somehow proved Capitalism was superior to whatever system it was that created the wheelbarrow/loaf scenario.

Using just one product for an example, when I started driving about 50 years ago, gas cost me $0.279 per gallon. In 2020 it was around $2.79 - an increase of 10X. That period of time includes a wide range of political control and world events.

My hypothesis is that Capitalism is a root cause of inflation - my grade school teacher was right about that, but probably not so right about it being healthy. Thoughts, anybody?

During that time the U.S. population also grew from 205 million to 330 million, fyi. I don’t have an opinion formed as to what effect that might have. It seems that if the supply of money was fixed then more people would have less individually - but would that affect the intrinsic value of things?.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller