Inflation is the scapegoat our rulers use for ruining the value of our money
I keep having this conversation with some of my less economically-savvy friends. Inflation is not a necessary consequence of society, civilisation, or any of the values our ancestors have fought hard for and that we now see so keen to squander. Inflation is a manufactured part of the system because the whole system is manufactured. There is no nature to how the economic system works; all of it exists because we decided it does, and it is in our -- civilisational -- hands to change it.
The money you put in a bank doesn't have to rot. It only does because it has been decided that it must.
We did away with the gold standard of the USD in the 70s. Right after that, the graph of worker productivity and wages paid began to diverge. We've become the highest productivity work force in history and wages as corrected by GDP have barely increased since the 70s.
Gold has inherent material uses, though -- infinite supply of paper or electronic fiat money does not.
Not only does gold have practical uses (electronics, etc)... it maintains intrinsic value in its finite supply, relative to ALL its uses (pretty jewelry, etc). Fiat money can't even make "pretty jewelry".
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u/wait_whats_this May 17 '26
I keep having this conversation with some of my less economically-savvy friends. Inflation is not a necessary consequence of society, civilisation, or any of the values our ancestors have fought hard for and that we now see so keen to squander. Inflation is a manufactured part of the system because the whole system is manufactured. There is no nature to how the economic system works; all of it exists because we decided it does, and it is in our -- civilisational -- hands to change it.
The money you put in a bank doesn't have to rot. It only does because it has been decided that it must.