Covid-19 Prepping thread

[superdave]

inflation rates...

2016 2.1%
2017 2.1%
2018 1.9%
2019 2.3%
2020 1.4%
2021 1.7%

Trillions of new $ have been created over those years. The debt has more than doubled and yet the inflation rate is actually trending down. Where are the 100% per day inflation rates that you seem to think are happening?

 

[Glurin]

The buying power of the dollar has dropped by half since 1990. It gets much worse the further back you go. Bitcoin is just over $57,000 today. Gold, just over $1,700 per ounce. The fact that we haven't hit hyperinflation yet doesn't mean it's not heading our way.

Germany, Greece, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, everyone who tried it eventually went through a catastrophic economic collapse as a result.

 

[superdave]

The buying power of the dollar has dropped by half since 1990. It gets much worse the further back you go. Bitcoin is just over $57,000 today. Gold, just over $1,700 per ounce. The fact that we haven't hit hyperinflation yet doesn't mean it's not heading our way.

Germany, Greece, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, everyone who tried it eventually went through a catastrophic economic collapse as a result.

So what you are saying is that the minimum wage should be increased to $29 per hour so low wage earners maintain the buying power of their dollar. Gotcha.

Wanna guess what happened to the buying power of the 1990 compared to the buying power of the 1960 dollar?

Now compare the pay of the average American CEO and average worker in 1960 compared to their counterparts in 2021. The problem with the system is NOT inflation, it is the inequality of pay increases of the top 1% of workers compared to the other 99%.

It won't be inflation that breaks the system, it will happen when the 99% say screw this and start eating the 1%.

 

[Glurin]

That would only compound the problem and you know it. You wanna help the little guy, you gotta keep inflation under control.

 

[superdave]

It is.

 

[krischan]

The buying power of the dollar has dropped by half since 1990. It gets much worse the further back you go. Bitcoin is just over $57,000 today. Gold, just over $1,700 per ounce. The fact that we haven't hit hyperinflation yet doesn't mean it's not heading our way.

Germany, Greece, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, everyone who tried it eventually went through a catastrophic economic collapse as a result.

Regarding Germany, which economic collapse are you referring to? I can recall just two in the last 100 years, one in 1923, the other after WW2.

 

[superdave]

Regarding Germany, which economic collapse are you referring to? I can recall just two in the last 100 years, one in 1923, the other after WW2.

He had to go back a hundred years for that one. Bit of a stretch if you ask me. That war debt and reparations would have crippled any country.

I guess America can always come up with it's own rye mark solution if hyperinflation ever does hit. Instead of pegging the $ to the price of rye, we can peg it to the price of marijuana.

I do recall that Germany was able to pay off a few war reparation debts that were quoted in marks using devalued marks. Took a few years to get that mess settled.

 

[Glurin]

You do realize that the same principles apply no matter what year you're talking about, right? A hundred years ago it was a bad idea to jump off a cliff with no safety equipment. Even if nobody did it lately, it's still a bad idea to jump off a cliff with no safety equipment. The laws of physics don't just stop working if you haven't checked on them since last week.

When you increase the amount of money in circulation, the value of that money goes down. It was true a thousand years ago and it's still true today.

By the way, with regards to Germany:

That war debt and reparations would have crippled any country.

That war debt and reparations came after they devalued their currency by applying the print your way out of debt standard. It's how they thought they were going to finance the war. They decided to pay that debt and the reparations by printing even more money, which devalued their currency even further and ultimately resulted in it becoming worthless.

 

[krischan]

The hyper-inflation of Weimar Germany certainly didn't help at paying their reparations. The reparations were certainly not set up in whatever the German currency was, but (I'm not sure) perhaps to the value of gold. The inflation came because Germany was basically broke, so the government printed money in order to pay all kinds of other bills, like war debts among the people and companies in Germany.

 

[superdave]

The hyper-inflation of Weimar Germany certainly didn't help at paying their reparations. The reparations were certainly not set up in whatever the German currency was, but (I'm not sure) perhaps to the value of gold. The inflation came because Germany was basically broke, so the government printed money in order to pay all kinds of other bills, like war debts among the people and companies in Germany.

I think it was in gold or foreign currency but there were a few payments quoted in marks. Most of those were to private companies and individuals.

 

[Glurin]

132 billion gold marks, which they tried to pay off by printing even more German marks that had already been devalued from them printing marks to pay for their war effort. They had already left the gold standard because this was their plan to finance the war from the beginning.

The inflation came because Germany was basically broke, so the government printed money

^ Bingo.

Edit: Another thing to keep in mind. One common military strategy for fighting a war with another nation is to devalue their currency by, you guessed it, printing counterfeits. This has the double effect of not only lowering trust in the genuineness of the currency being exchanged, but also devalues the currency by *gasp* introducing a larger supply of the currency into circulation. All of this goes back to one very simple, time tested, undeniable principle. Printing money causes inflation.

 

[superdave]

So if the US ever goes to war with the allies, loses and has to pay reparations, come back and we'll talk about hyperinflation.

 

[krischan]

^ Bingo.

Which is why the government or parliament cannot order the Bundesbank anymore to print money. It assigns the leading positions when they become vacant, that's it.

Edit: Another thing to keep in mind. One common military strategy for fighting a war with another nation is to devalue their currency by, you guessed it, printing counterfeits.

A small anecdote: During WW2, the nazis made lots of 5 pound counterfeits. These days, these forgeries have a collector value of more than that.

 

[kamap]

The nazis did a whole lot of horrible things but they also did some good things.
If not for the "work" of dr. Mengele my kids wouldn't have had the same chance to be born healthy then they did have now.
All the bad that he did or had done isn't weighed out by the few good things that came of it but at least there is some silver lining to be found.

 

[superdave]

JFC

 

[Glurin]

If not for the "work" of dr. Mengele my kids wouldn't have had the same chance to be born healthy then they did have now.
All the bad that he did or had done isn't weighed out by the few good things that came of it but at least there is some silver lining to be found.

Unfortunately true. It's one of those great moral dilemmas that can drive some people to madness. A doctor performs some unquestionably evil experiments on human subjects, but the data that comes out of it is quite valuable and can be used to do a lot of good. You've got two choices:

Do you use the data, benefiting the rest of mankind and possibly giving meaning to what the victims' went through, but also potentially legitimizing the deplorable actions of a monstrous individual?

Or do you destroy the data, denouncing said actions and discouraging others from similar acts by letting the work fade to obscurity, but also ensuring that the victims' deaths are meaningless and denying the rest of the world any benefits that could have come from that data?

By no means is it an easy decision to have to make. If you find that it is, then you should consider that a sign that you should never be allowed anywhere near a position of authority.

 

[superdave]

You DON'T defend the indefensible.

 

[Glurin]

You DON'T defend the indefensible.

An attitude that gave us things like the Dark Ages and the Spanish Inquisition.

You might want to take note that nobody is defending what the nazi's did.

 

[superdave]

An attitude that gave us things like the Dark Ages and the Spanish Inquisition.

I'd continue living in a mud hut for a few more years if it meant that my neighbours and family weren't loaded onto cattle cars to be experimented on by a vivisectionist, gas and disposed of in mass graves.

 

[krischan]

The nazis did a whole lot of horrible things but they also did some good things.
If not for the "work" of dr. Mengele my kids wouldn't have had the same chance to be born healthy then they did have now.
All the bad that he did or had done isn't weighed out by the few good things that came of it but at least there is some silver lining to be found.

If Mengele's "work" did actually save the life of your children, how would they feel about having survived because hundreds of others were killed during his experiments in a way that was so terrible that we probably can't imagine?

I don't think this kind of weighing of good and evil is appropriate. Not any means justify the end. But OK, you said that no greater good was achieved.

Somehow related: Billions of people can be fed these days because of the work of Fritz Haber (and Carl Bosch) who discovered the synthesis of ammonia by nitrogenium from air which enabled us to produce fertilizers which greatly increased the yield of farmland. That process also allowed the production of explosives without overseas imports which enabled Germany to keep on WW1 for four years in spite of the sea blockade. He was a leading figure in the production of poison gas which made the war even more terrible. His reasoning was "in war, death is death, no matter how" and I think he also said "In peace. the scientist belongs to the world. In war, he belongs to his country". I kind of share his cynism regarding the first statement, but I feel less comfortable with the second. I'm more the "Imagine it's war and nobody is going to attend it" kind of person.

In fact, Haber received the Nobel prize in chemistry for his ammonia synthesis shortly after WW1, in spite of his role regarding poison gas and explosives. Ironically, he has Jewish ancestors and a couple of his family members died from Zyklon B, the pesticide that has been used in the gas chambers of the concentration camps, invented under his conduct.