Adam Smith’s legendary invisible hand describes how individuals acting in their own self-interest can create unintended benefits for the entire society. Unfortunately, the country now faces the potential for an inflationary hand that can transform self-interested decisions into losses for the entire economy.
Richard Curtin
April 7, 2022
Inflationary Psychology Has Set In. Dislodging It Won’t Be Easy
[We live in interesting times. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]
What, if anything, is that quote supposed to mean? Does he really think that government maladministration is the same thing as Adam Smith’s operation of the invisible hand in a free market? Or that the Fed’s messing around with paper pseudo-money has any connection to the operation of a market that uses real money?
I take it to mean that freedom to make individual and company decisions is the root cause of inflation rather than government decisions. So, therefore, the way to control inflation is to restrict what individuals and companies can do by imposing restrictions. This, of course is not a new idea and was tried by Nixon in the 70s. It did not work then, and it will not work today.
Note, it does not have to be direct control such as Nixon’s wage and price freeze. It can be a lot of minor restrictions that restrict individual decisions. Think COVID restrictions on steroids. It’s not what you do – it is how you do it.
The problem lies in what is described as self-interest. Or should we ask who’s self-interest?
Since Carter’s time I’ve listen to a bunch of government bitches complain about what people make and do as being the driver of inflation.
But since 1916 the government and private elites have run the whole thing under the lie their controlling inflation. And they have. And lining their pockets with what little you produce is what’s in their self-interest. Thus, the reason for the inflation.
Just as running the tax code benefits who? Certainly not you.
The poverty line has been at most of this nation’s nostrils for it’s entire existence.
Inflation is created by the elites, for the elites. It’s a game of how to steal the most.
And just like every game. You have to end. To start over. We’ve reached the end of the Keysian economic cycle. As one can only service debt, with debt, for so long.
Start a war, blame the crash on something else. And start back stealing as people rebuild their lives.
If we have inflation. It’s because someone that owns the federal reserve wants inflation. Everything else is a bullshit distraction.
Re “the federal reserve wants inflation” — indeed, and they actually say so out loud. They claim a goal of 2% annual inflation, which is to say, more than 2% annual debasement of the currency.
Why 2%? I’ve seen that number mentioned for many years, with never an explanation how it was pulled out of the air (or some other darker place). My own explanation: it’s the largest number they think they can get away with long-term.
As Ludwig von Mises explained clearly and irrefutably, the normal operation of a healthy economy (which is one in which productivity is increasing) is slow gradual deflation. And we know perfectly well that deflation, except when due to stupid governments, is indeed normal and healthy. Consider the (actually quite large) deflation of computers and electronics for an example showing that anyone who paints deflation as a bogeyman is a charlatan.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s “12 million illegals” meme they’ve been telling us for 25 years. And the border wide open the whole time.
And just as you surmised, 2% is just the official amount their going to steal.
What they don’t seem to understand is that we are the most well-informed, well-armed, criminal gang they have ever created. And they are a bunch of weak pathetic power grubbers that have no use in the society of the future.
Builders have no use for junkies.
Why do we need super-rich?
Yeah. That article reads like a junior high school essay assignment. The whole notion, that our current situation is the result of public sentiment, or psychology, is a joke. Our government has been pumping trillions of extra dollars into the economy for years and years. That’s a guaranteed path to inflation. More dollars chasing few goods is NOT a “psychological” issue. It’s reality. This is akin to a foreign power flooding our economy with trillions of counterfeit dollars in an attempt to ruin the economy. It’s actually been tried in times of open war, but never got far. Thus our own government has been able to achieve what our foreign enemies of times past could not.
Let’s not forget also that there’s been an actual “scarcity movement” for decades. But let’s not look there, because it would make us extremely uncomfortable. We can however more readily see that there is an actual “World Government Summit” and that they’re having meetings of “experts” from around the world, and putting out content;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTDzH2A1tM
Listen and learn. Don’t say later that no one warned you! I suppose your best argument would be that that is a fake YouTube channel. But if that were the case then why can I also give you a long list of news sources from around the world talking about the same sort of global reset, using the same phraseology? Maybe they’re all fake? Well one can certainly hope so. I say it is enemy action. Whatever you say, just don’t say you weren’t warned.