Parcus

Yes, I understand that and I'm not contesting it, but I asked, if inflation is theft due to the loss of wealth which wasn't consented to, then is DEFLATION not theft as well, since it's destroys wealth, arguable moreso than inflation, and typically isn't consented to (I don't know many people who consent to recessions.) If the answer to my question is yes, then you have a dilemma, because you can either have the government step in and have low rates of inflation, which all may not consent to (theft by your definition) or you can have government out of the monetary and fiscal framework, and have periods of DEFLATION, which is far worse than inflation, and like I said earlier, people don't consent to, which by your definition is also theft. So you're left with a choice (since zero inflation/deflation is impossible to maintain) do you want government-induced theft (inflation) but with minor economic damage (it even benefits the economy if it's low) or government absence induced theft (deflation) where the losses are far far worse than low rates of inflation. That is my question. In an economy with 300 million plus people, there's no way to get everyone to consent to one plan, individual preferences cannot be properly aggregated and have all preference orders met. Furthermore, allowing the use of different currencies wouldn't resolve this issue, as currencies have networking effects as first theorized by Friedman when debating Hayek on competing currencies. People wouldn't switch to a new currency anyway.

The very definition of "fuck that shit"

No, it was setting up the whole "future prosperity is based on the economic foundations we set now with output and investment"

Is government debt a true economic issue? No, here is why. The notion that people today are “living at the expense of future generations” is nonsense. Any future generation cannot send goods and services back in time, and our wealth today is dependent on the goods and services produced, owned and consumed today, not long into the future. The repayment of future government debt comes from three sources: Central bank open market operations. The government rolling over its debt. As long as people keep purchasing the debt on money markets, there isn't an issue. The government’s repayment might be from current tax revenues. But, when GDP expands, the government has is able to get more tax receipts which compile over time, which means that the burden of interest servicing and paying back debt falls as the population increases, GDP grows and tax revenues rise. Many, when talking about debt, conflate PRIVATE debt, and government debt, but these are very different for the following reasons: the government is the only issuer of its currency, governments can counterfeit, private citizens cannot. The government can roll over its debt, while many individuals cannot. The central bank can influence interest rates and bond yields. Then finally, access to growing numbers of tax receipts lower the debt to GDP ratio, which is what you really have to worry about. Sure we may have a lot of debt, but we also have A LOT of GDP at our disposal. If anything, the unwillingness of this generation to want to hit high output and low unemployment is robbing the future generations of wealth and prosperity and a solid economic foundation. Feel free to fight me on this 💪🏻🐈 -Parcus

So any form of aggregate price level change on the standard US dollar is theft in some form or fashion?

Give your best arguments against Marxism, from exploitation theory to the Marxian labor theory of value. I realize this is in the economics board, but more philoshophical critiques are welcome.

Deflation is involuntary and causes a loss in value though, and they're forced to use a devaluation currency and yes I misunderstood as I thought you wanted a gold standard, my bad.

In regards to inflation being theft, you get yourself in a bind by saying that. The main reason, I assume, that you think inflation is theft is that it erodes the value of assets, which harms everyday people. But then, you must logically conclude that DEFLATION is also theft, because it destroys wealth just as inflation does. Except low rates of inflation tend to foster of the creation of wealth, and low rates of deflation get you into situations like the Japanese "lost decade." It has been estimated the 08 crash (caused by government mind you) destroyed 19.2 TRILLION dollars in American household wealth. That is far more destructive than the 14% inflation we saw during the 70s. Is this 19.2 trillion lost due to deflation not theft? So, the point is, if inflation is theft, deflation is theft, so you must chose which theft you would like, because 0% inflation is nearly impossible to reach, and it literally impossible to maintain. Next, I said gold is TECHNICALLY fisher equation neutral, but in the real world it tends to be moderately deflationary or moderately inflationary. Between 1913 and 1971, when the United States was on some form of a gold standard, there were 12 years when deflation occurred – the highest levels were in 1921 (-10.5%), 1931 (-9.0%), and 1932 (-9.9%). After we left the Brentonwoods system, however, we've only had one year of sustained deflation. Furthermore, gold couldn't even sustain our money supply. "As of 2012 the US treasury held about 260 million troy ounces of gold reserves. At the market price of gold, about $1,662 an ounce (as of Dec. 27, 2012), that would equal about $434.6 billion in gold. The current United States money supply, is about $2.6 trillion including bank deposits." The only way to implement a gold standard system today would be to A) Mine more gold, which is easier said than done, and there is no chance it will be equal to the quantity of money. b. charge TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS AN OUNCE for gold C) let the quantity of money contract and suffer a recession. Option B seems like a viable idea, but it's probably the worst idea out of all of them. This is because the marginal logarithmic (±%) volatility (which wouldn't change no matter what the exchange rate of gold/$ is) would have a much bigger effect on the marginal nominal (±#) volatility. Consequently, the pricing system would be significantly harder to calibrate, and people with less money would be the first to experience adverse effects. I havent done mich research into Bitcoin, but based on what I know, it's extremely volatile, and it would be hard to get the whole US monetary system to covert over, because of the networking effects first theorized by Friedman then empirically backed by several studies on Somalian competing currency markets.

I apologize for typos lol

Yes, he argued that it didn't adequately explain the demand for money, which imo doesn't seem correct. First, you must distinguish between ULTIMATE wealth holders and enterprises. Ultimate wealth holders just see money as a way to store wealth, and enterprises see it as a producers good. For ultimate wealth holders, the demand for money is determined by 4 different factors: Total wealth, the division of wealth between human and non-human forms, the expected rate of return on money and other assets, and finally, determining the value attached to liquidity, to borrow a Keynesian term. Another variable that is important is the degree of economic stability expected, since instability enhances the value wealth holders attach to liquidity. That is one reason why a notable increase in real balances often accompanies the outbreak of war. There was a decline in sensitive prices at the outset of both World War I and World War II for example. Then finally, inflation has been empirically shown Empirically, variability of inflation tends to have a negative effect of on the quantity of money demanded. Anyway, Mises' argument is hardly taken seriously anymore, Keynes critique and Krugman's demonstration that increasing the money supply 3 fold in a liquidity trap does nothing are much more pertinent critiques, but keep in mind these are only critiques, not necessarily a debunk.

I'm a monetarist, meaning I follow the doctrines of Friedman. I adhere to the quantity theory of money, which explains changes in nominal aggregate expenditures reflecting changes in both the physical volume of output and the price level in terms of changes in the money stock and in the velocity of circulation of money (the ratio of aggregate expenditures to the money stock). The gold standard is TECHNICALLY QTM neutral (inflation at zero %) but this obviously wouldn't be the case in the real world. Having inflation at zero % may seem desirable, but in reality, low rates of inflation (I believe the government target is 2%) helps to relieve price rigidities and make the labor market more elastic, it basically acts as a kind of lubricant. Also, increasing the money supply can have short run effects on output, as several studies have shown, with minimal distortion of the capital structure. Anyway, I just wanted to open up a board to get the objectivist take on monetary theory and if you go for the gold standard to say "screw you" to the government, or respond to recessions and maintain a constant rate of inflation in order to prevent serious downturns, which is typically far more dangerous to economic freedom.