"Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country, means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today use the term `inflation' to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. . . . As you cannot talk about something that has no name, you cannot fight it. Those who pretend to fight inflation are in fact only fighting what is the inevitable consequence of inflation, rising prices. Their ventures are doomed to failure because they do not attack the root of the evil. They try to keep prices low while firmly committed to a policy of increasing the quantity of money that must necessarily make them soar. As long as this terminological confusion is not entirely wiped out, there cannot be any question of stopping inflation." - Ludwig von MisesYour 60% drop claim is rather vapid considering I could pull any other arbitrary time horizon and give you a massive increase in purchasing power.
notahacker|5 years ago
You are welcome to prefer to use 'inflation' as it was used 100 years ago instead of as it is used now, but 'awful' and 'silly' were compliments once....
> Your 60% drop claim is rather vapid considering I could pull any other arbitrary time horizon and give you a massive increase in purchasing power.
No, what is vapid is the pretence that an asset has the advantage of 'zero unexpected inflation' when it's lost purchasing power at a rate which would be termed hyperinflation were it a national currency. It's a bit like defending the validity of immortality elixirs by arguing that over other time frames, the patient survived.
Sschellbach|5 years ago
If that was hyperinflation, what would you call Bitcoin's 150% leg up between December 2018 and today?
htfu|5 years ago
Even Mises acknowledges there are two parts to the system and that it's, in the end, about relative pace. If that is so, the phenomenon must still be able to occur regardless of how frozen your supply, just off the second variable.
"Our fringe school likes to use two common terms opposite from how everyone else does, hence you are wrong" isn't an actual argument, by the way.
Sschellbach|5 years ago