Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

This is what I don't get: at a time when inflation is at a lowest point in US (and only slightly higher in Europe) since the Great Depression all these people are running around screaming about "hyperinflation" (something usually defined as more than 50% per month - annualized that's a rate of 8650% per year ... compare that to the measly 2.5% Europe has now). Perry is threatening Bernanke about printing money ... something weird's going on. Inflation's about the last of our worries now.

Two points in response: the statistics on inflation, like those for unemployment, are "cooked." For example, food and energy costs, where you do see substantial inflation right now, are simply discarded from the statistics because they are supposedly "volatile." For the average person, food and energy costs are becoming an existential question. Regarding hyperinflation, the danger comes from the combination of "quantitative easing" (sounds like a laxative, doesn't it? Gentle relief, no doubt) and the massive leveraging that is incorporated in the just-announced European bailout scheme. Debt is being created at a pace that physical production cannot possibly keep up with. Therein lies the danger.

Inflation's about the last of our worries now.

Indeed, anyone with any sense at the moment is becoming very concerned about deflation. The prices of virtually all durable goods in the US, not to mention homes, have plummeted in the past 24 months; the only thing that's keeping CPI growth positive are skyrocketing energy prices (largely driven by the BP oil spill) and fairly strong food prices (due largely to ongoing wheat failures in India and the depletion of corn reserves for fuel ethanol production). Hyperinflation may be bad, but a deflationary spiral is far far worse.

Don't worry -- contrary to the fantasies of the monetarists, you can have both. If you continue to shut down physical production to feed a speculative bubble, you will.

[radek]

Two points in response: the statistics on inflation, like those for unemployment, are "cooked." For example, food and energy costs, where you do see substantial inflation right now, are simply discarded from the statistics because they are supposedly "volatile." For the average person, food and energy costs are becoming an existential question. Regarding hyperinflation, the danger comes from the combination of "quantitative easing" (sounds like a laxative, doesn't it? Gentle relief, no doubt) and the massive leveraging that is incorporated in the just-announced European bailout scheme. Debt is being created at a pace that physical production cannot possibly keep up with. Therein lies the danger.

That's just not true. Food prices are most definitely in the index - and have a pretty hefty weight in it (around 40%). For energy costs gasoline and some household energy prices are also included and have a moderate weight (which reflects the share of income spent on such things by the median household). So an inflation rate of 0.5% has all that in there. More specifically, inflation in food prices overall has been around ... 0.5% lately, down from about 4.4% about a year ago (that's that "volatility). Please pay attention to where the period is in those numbers. Inflation in gasoline prices has been a little bit higher at 1.7%.

Ummm, do I really need to compare these numbers (0.5, 1.7 ... even the 4.4) with 8500?

You can try to make the term "quantitative easing" sound scary by comparing it to laxatives, but in the present situation there's just no way in the world it can cause ... even moderate inflation (say, more than 15%), never mind "hyperinflation" (again, 8500+%)

What you're basically saying is that, if I'm traveling at 10 miles per hour and I apply gentle pressure to the gas pedal, I need to be careful or I'll end up traveling back in time. Ok, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it still doesn't make sense. Where where all these fears of hyperinflation when US inflation rate was at the insanely high level of 5% a couple years back?

Don't worry -- contrary to the fantasies of the monetarists, you can have both. If you continue to shut down physical production to feed a speculative bubble, you will.

I still am trying to understand what monetarists (whom there aren't that many around these days) or monetarism has to do with this. If anything, monetarists were generally known for being "inflation nutters", a malady which this latest seems to be an even more severe case of (like common cold vs. influenza)

And just to explain a little bit more, the reason why "volatile" food and energy prices are excluded from the Core CPI index (not the one I'm talking about above) is because they are in fact volatile and tend to be determined in international markets - hence they have little to do with a particular country's (or economically integrated region's like Euro) own monetary policy (at least at short and medium frequencies)

Also the "quote" thing is not working for some reason

This post has been edited by Derktar: Wed 5th October 2011, 4:39pm

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Monetarists believe that changes in money supply causes an economy to "slow down" or "speed up," that that therefore you cannot possibly have a simultaneous depression and inflation (which is why they go "tilt" over such a thing as stagflation.) The basic incompetence of their theory stems from an unwillingness or inability to distinguish between productive and non-productive investment.

[Detective]

134th of 176 countries? That's a fairly good rating by world standards.

It means it's in the bottom quarter of all countries. To describe that as "a fairly good rating" is surely to demonstrate a certain degree of complacency.

[radek]

Monetarists believe that changes in money supply causes an economy to "slow down" or "speed up," that that therefore you cannot possibly have a simultaneous depression and inflation (which is why they go "tilt" over such a thing as stagflation.) The basic incompetence of their theory stems from an unwillingness or inability to distinguish between productive and non-productive investment.

You're confusing Keynesians and Monetarists. Monetarists - or at least one of them, Milton Friedman - were ones who predicted that such a thing as stagflation would occur if ad-hoc Keynesian policies were followed.

Monetarists were pretty broad school (basically having in common the focus on the role of money supply in an economy) but at least in the Miltonian variety were very very anti-inflation, argued that any stimulus that an expansion of the money supply can provide is to be short lived, of uncertain duration and magnitude and probably badly timed - hence they advocated "monetary rules", where the money supply just grows at a constant rate (perhaps 0, perhaps <0, perhaps >0). Most common monetary rule proposed was to have money grow at the same rate as long run growth rate of real output, which would keep prices stable, but at various times Friedman even argued for slight deflation. At the end of the day he thought it didn't matter as long as the rule was known and predictable.


And all "mainstream" economic theories distinguish between productive investment and "non-productive" or financial, investment. The two are linked though, right?

[communicat]

134th of 176 countries? That's a fairly good rating by world standards.

It means it's in the bottom quarter of all countries. To describe that as "a fairly good rating" is surely to demonstrate a certain degree of complacency.

Okay, change that to "comparatively" good rating.

[communicat]

Phew! All this impressive economic jargon. The short and comparatively jargon-free version is that Western economies are in crisis because of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system. Britain, meanwhile, is in deep shit because it can no longer plunder its former colonies as openly and lucratively as it has done in the past. As for America: it would have been down the drain-hole already, were it not for communist China buying up US bonds. What does all this have to do with inflation in Zimbabwe? Not much.

[radek]

Phew! All this impressive economic jargon. The short and comparatively jargon-free version is that Western economies are in crisis because of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

Lol. As opposed to the lack of such inherent contradictions in communist system. Which is why there's still so many of them around.

And China is "communist" in name only. They're all capitalists now.

[communicat]

Phew! All this impressive economic jargon. The short and comparatively jargon-free version is that Western economies are in crisis because of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

Lol. As opposed to the lack of such inherent contradictions in communist system. Which is why there's still so many of them around.

And China is "communist" in name only. They're all capitalists now.

You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Your misperceptions are so firmly entrenched it would be a waste of time and effort for me to even try to enlighten you. Stick to WP. They generously hand out medals for brainwashed, blinkered and uniformed viewpoints such as yours.

This post has been edited by communicat: Fri 30th September 2011, 6:19pm

[Vigilant]

Phew! All this impressive economic jargon. The short and comparatively jargon-free version is that Western economies are in crisis because of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

Lol. As opposed to the lack of such inherent contradictions in communist system. Which is why there's still so many of them around.

And China is "communist" in name only. They're all capitalists now.

You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Your misperceptions are so firmly entrenched it would be a waste of time and effort for me to even try to enlighten you. Stick to WP. They generously hand out medals for brainwashed, blinkered and uniformed viewpoints such as yours.

What's your beef with his comment?

A) There are no contradictions in communism
B) They are not all capitalists now?

[communicat]

Phew! All this impressive economic jargon. The short and comparatively jargon-free version is that Western economies are in crisis because of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

Lol. As opposed to the lack of such inherent contradictions in communist system. Which is why there's still so many of them around.

And China is "communist" in name only. They're all capitalists now.

You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Your misperceptions are so firmly entrenched it would be a waste of time and effort for me to even try to enlighten you. Stick to WP. They generously hand out medals for brainwashed, blinkered and uniformed viewpoints such as yours.

What's your beef with his comment?

A) There are no contradictions in communism
B) They are not all capitalists now?

A) Yes and No. Communism is not homogeneous. Interpretation and application of Marxism-Leninism differs in different parts of the world. Cuban communism e.g. is very different from Pol Pot's version. etc.
B) No. They are certainly not "all capitalists now."
C) I'm not gonna waste my time here by being drawn into a fractious off-topic argument with people who've already made up their minds -- or rather, who've been spoon-fed to have their minds made up for them by the mass media including WP. I did state here my (on-topic) view of American ideology. It was swiftly and predictably moved to the annex/tar-pit. I might consider engaging with/enlightening you and/or others if you wanna start an appropriate topic related directly to any specific WP article relative to the above now off-topic issues. The WP "article" on "Soviet propaganda" e.g. might be a good place to start. If not, have a good day anyway.

This post has been edited by communicat: Sat 1st October 2011, 1:35pm

[Herschelkrustofsky]

You're confusing Keynesians and Monetarists.

Keynes and Friedman are simply two sides of the same coin. Even Wikipedia acknowledges this, after a fashion:

Monetarism is an economic theory which focuses on the macroeconomic effects of the supply of money and central banking. Formulated by Milton Friedman, it argues that excessive expansion of the money supply is inherently inflationary, and that monetary authorities should focus solely on maintaining price stability.

This theory draws its roots from two almost diametrically opposed ideas: the hard money policies that dominated monetary thinking in the late 19th century, and the monetary theories of John Maynard Keynes, who, working in the inter-war period during the failure of the restored gold standard, proposed a demand-driven model for money which was the foundation of macroeconomics.

While the Keynesians and Friedmanites continuously bark at each other, they become allies against the American school of Hamilton, Carey, List, Lincoln and FDR.

[radek]

Keynes and Friedman are simply two sides of the same coin. Even Wikipedia acknowledges this, after a fashion:

Well, they may be two sides of the same coin but one is definitely "tails" ("you shouldn't monkey with the money supply because it will cause inflation with few if any gains in output") and the other one is "heads" ("if you increase the money supply the economy will improve with few if any adverse effects on inflation").
(I've never quite understood that analogy - two sides of the same coin are still two different sides)

While the Keynesians and Friedmanites continuously bark at each other, they become allies against the American school of Hamilton, Carey, List, Lincoln and FDR.

I don't even know who List is. Of the other 3 only Carey was an economist. FDR was certainly influenced by Keynesian ideas. Hamilton and Carey were characterized essentially by protectionism, afaik.

What do any of them have to do with inflation? Which is looking even lower after latest numbers. Which means even less than one half of one percent. So again, not anywhere near ... never mind hyperfinlation, not anywhere near 10%. Which means it's the lowest since the Great Depression. As Kelly says, it's deflation that's a potential problem. So again, why is everyone running around worrying about a very-slightly-expansionary monetary policy?

This post has been edited by radek: Sat 1st October 2011, 3:37pm

[Vigilant]

Phew! All this impressive economic jargon. The short and comparatively jargon-free version is that Western economies are in crisis because of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

Lol. As opposed to the lack of such inherent contradictions in communist system. Which is why there's still so many of them around.

And China is "communist" in name only. They're all capitalists now.

You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Your misperceptions are so firmly entrenched it would be a waste of time and effort for me to even try to enlighten you. Stick to WP. They generously hand out medals for brainwashed, blinkered and uniformed viewpoints such as yours.

What's your beef with his comment?

A) There are no contradictions in communism
B) They are not all capitalists now?

A) Yes and No. Communism is not homogeneous. Interpretation and application of Marxism-Leninism differs in different parts of the world. Cuban communism e.g. is very different from Pol Pot's version. etc.

You didn't answer the question. I'll help out. There are contradictions in all theories of government.

B) No. They are certainly not "all capitalists now."

They certainly are all capitalists in Shanghai and Beijing from what I saw. The poeple in thej countryside that I met all wanted to move to the big cities and "get some".

Perhaps I frequented the wrong hole-in-the-wall coffee shops.
I did wear a Che Guevara TShirt, thought mostly for irony that nobody got.

C) I'm not gonna waste my time here by being drawn into a fractious off-topic argument with people who've already made up their minds -- or rather, who've been spoon-fed to have their minds made up for them by the mass media including WP. I did state here my (on-topic) view of American ideology. It was swiftly and predictably moved to the annex/tar-pit. I might consider engaging with/enlightening you and/or others if you wanna start an appropriate topic related directly to any specific WP article relative to the above now off-topic issues. The WP "article" on "Soviet propaganda" e.g. might be a good place to start. If not, have a good day anyway.

You sound more like Ottava every day.

[communicat]

You sound more like Ottava every day.

"Vigilant" sounds more like Radek every day. I guess he's just another of those individuals whom GlassBeadGame has described very aptly elsewhere as: ".... all the Wikipedians around here. Backsliding Wikipedians. Unredeemed Wikipedians. Trolling Wikipedians ... They own the place (WR) now and bring every feud vendetta and dysfunction from the mothership."

By the way, capitalism is not a "theory of governance". It's an economic system. Cretino.

This post has been edited by communicat: Sat 1st October 2011, 7:33pm

[Vigilant]

You sound more like Ottava every day.

"Vigilant" sounds more like Radek every day. I guess he's just another of those individuals whom GlassBeadGame has described very aptly elsewhere as: ".... all the Wikipedians around here. Backsliding Wikipedians. Unredeemed Wikipedians. Trolling Wikipedians ... They own the place (WR) now and bring every feud vendetta and dysfunction from the mothership."

By the way, capitalism is not a "theory of governance". It's an economic system. Cretino.

Well, when you can't win the argument, throw crap and run.

[Milton Roe]

You didn't answer the question. I'll help out. There are contradictions in all theories of government.

The contradictions are worse in Marxism since Marx himself is full of many major contradictions. For example, his "surplus-labor" theory of capitalist exploitation has a major hole in it would Marx put there himself: gains in efficiency in production naturally result in far less labor necessary to produce goods (as Marx expends many chapers to say), and thus the amount of labor which goes into an equation of value (if any) must be a sort of "socially necessary labor time" which takes competence and mechanization into account, and not simply "labor-power." But Marx cheats later and doesn't want to pay for competence or mechanization per se. He makes it clear that he regards profit due from reducing "socially necessary labor time" to be all morally due to the laborer, and none of it due to those who own better tools (or factories-- it's merely a matter of scale). Or who own intellectual property of how to increase productivity, having thought of it, or discovered it through their own work. Marx thinks it is fair if laborers who "work smarter" profit, but not fair if they only tell other laborers how to "work smarter." Marx cannot think of a moral way that a laborer might pay for an idea or rental or a machine.

In Marxism, a laborer who creates a better tool to do something, or thinks of a more efficient way to do something, has no way to sell or rent those real or intellectual goods to other laborers who do not have them. He is only free to apply them to his own labor, where they appear to produce the "socially necessary labor time" to produce the good. As soon as he attempts to sell, license, or rent ways to be more efficient to other laborers, he becomes a "capitalist" who is profeteering from the "suplus value" that the extra efficiency creates from that labor power, all of which Marx thinks should always go to the laborer! And which otherwise is essentially stolen by those who think of a better loom, or who actually construct one, and find some way to reap some of the rewards from this without doing all of the labor themselves.

Ridiculous!

[Vigilant]

You didn't answer the question. I'll help out. There are contradictions in all theories of government.

The contradictions are worse in Marxism since Marx himself is full of many major contradictions. For example, his "surplus-labor" theory of capitalist exploitation has a major hole in it would Marx put there himself: gains in efficiency in production result in far less labor necessary to produce goods, and thus the amount of labor which goes into an equation of value (if any) is a sort of "socially necessary labor time" which takes competence and mechanization into account. But Marx doesn't want to pay for competence or mechanization per se. He makes it clear that he regards profits due from reducing "socially necessary labor time" to be all morally due to the laborer, and none of them due to those who own better tools (or factories-- it's merely a matter of scale). Or who own intellectual property of how to increase productivity, having thought of it, or discovered it though their own work.

In Marxism, a laborer who creates a better tool to do something, or thinks of a more efficient way to do something, has no way to sell or rent those real or intellectual goods to other laborers who do not have them. He is only free to apply them to his own labor, where they appear to produce the "socially necessary labor time" to produce the good. As soon as he attempts to sell, license, or rent ways to be more efficient to other laborers, he becomes a "capitalist" who is profeteering from the "suplus value" that the extra efficiency creates from that labor power, all of which Marx thinks should always go to the laborer! And which otherwise is essentially stolen by those who think of a better loom, or who actually construct one, and find some way to reap some of the rewards from this without doing all of the labor themselves.

Ridiculous!

I do not disagree with you. I'm not a communist and don't have any dog in the fight other than calling out obvious hypocrisy on the part of Ottava and Communicat (for the lulz!).

However, I would like to point out a contradiction in the other extreme whereby business buys patents that it did not create, that it does not practice and uses these patents to extort (there's really no other way to look at it) money via threats of legal action from companies that actually do increase the overall productivity of each individual worker.

The fact that these parasites (they are not contributors nor are they epiphytes) exist and are supported, legally, within the confines of capitalism, yet raise the cost to acquire efficiency must be viewed as a contradiction and as a contra indicator of the internal coherency of our current system.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

While the Keynesians and Friedmanites continuously bark at each other, they become allies against the American school of Hamilton, Carey, List, Lincoln and FDR.

I don't even know who List is. Of the other 3 only Carey was an economist. FDR was certainly influenced by Keynesian ideas. Hamilton and Carey were characterized essentially by protectionism, afaik.

The idea that "FDR was certainly influenced by Keynesian ideas" is a common but pernicious misconception. FDR did not do indiscriminate Keynesian "money pumping" -- he used a dirigist policy of targeting investment into sectors that would cause an accelerating increase in the physical output of the economy. (The Wikipedia article on "dirigisme" has a certain amount of idiocy mixed with fact, so beware.) FDR and Keynes were adversaries in the discussions of the post-WWII order.

List is Friedrich List. Take a second look at Hamilton -- I think you may have missed something.

As Kelly says, it's deflation that's a potential problem. So again, why is everyone running around worrying about a very-slightly-expansionary monetary policy?

Economist Stefan Homburg said Thursday in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung:

At the moment inflation is not that high. But take the metaphor of "ketchup inflation": as with a bottle of ketchup, at first nothing comes out, and then a full stream which cannot be stopped.

The central banks are not pouring money into consumer lending, and certainly not into productive activity. They are pouring it into the bailout of investment banks and related gambling entities. Nothing could be more inflationary.

[GlassBeadGame]

You didn't answer the question. I'll help out. There are contradictions in all theories of government.

The contradictions are worse in Marxism since Marx himself is full of many major contradictions. For example, his "surplus-labor" theory of capitalist exploitation has a major hole in it would Marx put there himself: gains in efficiency in production result in far less labor necessary to produce goods, and thus the amount of labor which goes into an equation of value (if any) is a sort of "socially necessary labor time" which takes competence and mechanization into account. But Marx doesn't want to pay for competence or mechanization per se. He makes it clear that he regards profits due from reducing "socially necessary labor time" to be all morally due to the laborer, and none of them due to those who own better tools (or factories-- it's merely a matter of scale). Or who own intellectual property of how to increase productivity, having thought of it, or discovered it though their own work.

In Marxism, a laborer who creates a better tool to do something, or thinks of a more efficient way to do something, has no way to sell or rent those real or intellectual goods to other laborers who do not have them. He is only free to apply them to his own labor, where they appear to produce the "socially necessary labor time" to produce the good. As soon as he attempts to sell, license, or rent ways to be more efficient to other laborers, he becomes a "capitalist" who is profeteering from the "suplus value" that the extra efficiency creates from that labor power, all of which Marx thinks should always go to the laborer! And which otherwise is essentially stolen by those who think of a better loom, or who actually construct one, and find some way to reap some of the rewards from this without doing all of the labor themselves.

Ridiculous!

If I didn't know that this thread has been twice purged of "off topic" stuff I'd swear it was just a place for internet hacks to voice their sundry crank views. Nothing brings them out like a nation with a flawed black leader and tossing around meaningless "socialism." Just that lately people haven't looked all the way to Africa for this kind of thing.