ramblings regarding some aspects of economics and society, some counter-intuitive stuff. mostly ramblings.
depends on how you've been running your life, really. if you're in a hand-to-mouth mode, and wage-slave mode, mild inflation is the temporary way to go - but it's ultimately non-sustainable and encourages perpetuation of those modes - until everything crashes, of course.
thing is, there are some longer term phases in economic cycles that no one seems ready to plan for. at the onset of every one, people adapt and assume it's a steady-state thing, getting too deep into the rut (whatever rut it is), holding on for too long, as, inevitably, the phase shifts and "catastrophe" sets in (of various severity).
I dunno - I'm working on some ideas I haven't seen out there so far. I agree about the consensus regarding inflation / deflation, but there are some nasty implicit assumptions there about the "natural" order of things, that just ain't so. in some ways, this is similar to what I've been saying about longer term cycles in science & so on - we are merely in transient phases, these trends, of what we like to think of as more or less consistent growth / expansion of "knowledge", are not at all a given. over longer periods of time, there have always been movements forward, stagnation, and movements backward - and often it's only the perspectives that shift.
personally: I'm a weird animal - since I've had to have savings because of my (sense of?) isolation, deflation would actually benefit me - in the short term. heavy inflation would put me on the street.
consumption has been artificial for years, in the sense that people have been almost forced into buying all kinds of crap that's not needed, artificial demand created by mass media, etc. that "bubble" the government has been maintaining for quite some time now - regardless of party - masks the collapse of the "growth" driven economy that happened years ago - at least, a rational one.
to continue this, people would need to keep filling their ever larger paper-walled mcmansions with gluts of useless toys & knick-knacks. but in the end, even psychology & advertising can't keep things moving - reality has a habit of catching up to us. there are limits to resources, and limits to "new value" that can "created" with existing technology.
didn't I just mention recently something about important differences between studying static phenomena as a simplification, and the reality of dynamics that often mean those static approximations aren't even achievable ? with regards to black holes v. "frozen stars", I believe.
anyway, again, a work in progress... given the state of the planet, and the fact that this shit has been repeating itself to one extent or another every ten years or so for at least a few centuries, there really isn't much reason for taking to heart "accepted" "knowledge" in this area. however, those theories are useful in a limited short-term sense for certain groups and individuals - always the same ones.
"simple wikipedia" - good god, a reference for morons. someone has been insulted here. perhaps everyone.
that deflation article ? oversimplified to the point of being wrong. go read something worthy of your intellect. start with the main wikipedia article.
longish reply, eh ? one last comment: our profession in particular is notably deflationary - automation simultaneously increases productivity and decreases head-counts. this works out (again, short term) when there has been high demand and other areas of the economy can absorb dislocated workers, but in the end - haven't you ever done things personally in the course of your working life that have put people permanently out of jobs ? hell, that's always a big union thing too - can't be too productive, or else everyone loses.
anyway, I first started thinking of this way back when I started work, first with foundry automation equipment (no wonder one project was sabotaged), and afterwards at that actuarial consulting company. that place was already on a 35 hour work week, expecting to go lower. I kept thinking, what if I kept getting better, making things work very fast, shouldn't everyone continue to be paid the same or better, even if working less ? shouldn't they reap the benefits of what they had accomplished ? of course, we all know how that works out: workers get shed, and all newly "created" profits - the long-term benefits of those workers - gets pocketed by those in positions of power, those whose job it is to re-distribute the wealth. truly fair compensation would include the future value of one's efforts.
but ok, I'll stop before I start getting into monetary and tax theory, which starts to get necessary at this point. yeah, I've been thinking of these things off & on since childhood.
yeah, i hear ya.