When I was al little kid I found German stamps in my grandaddies stamp collection. They were 1 billion Reichs Mark stamps. I was amazed btw the pages full of wealth he possessed. He only lived in a small house, and it wasn’t until High school that I understood why: the stamps were only worth the paper they were printed on. Economics teachers preached that inflation ruins economies, look at Weimar, people ran to the store with their salary to buy goods because their money would be worthless later on the day.
I started reading newspapers and was utterly confused that governments will do anything possible to create inflation, on the one hand to keep the sheeple poor, on the other hand to hide that our governments have been living on defecit spending for ages. Their wars, megalomanic monuments and other great accomplishments that they want recorded in history are payed by borrowing from us (in The Netherlands we have a mandatory pension plans and the monthly payments are converted to governments loans). The only way governments can pay this money back is by steep inflation that ruins the value of the loans. Nobody in charge says it aloud, but oh boy, they’d love to see those Weimar 10,000% inflation rates! The whole government deficit repaid for the price of 500 stamps!
And so I was even more surprised to learn that there is one thing that governments dread more than free Marihuana, promiscuous presidents and ISIS incarnations of Guantanamo Bay videos. It’s called DEFLATION.
Because if the economy gets into a deflationary state (money gaining value as time goes by) the treasurer of the state gets caught with his pants down: the debt has to be payed back eventually. The fact that you and I have to pay back our study loans and mortgages in 30 years means shit to them, not all pigs are born equal. Governments want to have their toys, JSF, Obamacare, bigger-smaller-bigger groups in school, peace keeping missions. That’s what makes their hearts tick faster, not something boring as being a responsible book keeper.
And so the central banks will use all their (not democratically obtained power) to do whatever it deems necessary, as long as it creates inflation. Inflation keeps dropping due tot the single, double, triple dip. The most logical solution to create inflation is by the Weimar method: print money, drive it to the mall, dump it in the central hall and refill as soon as it’s gone. But that method is not chosen because the 1%’ers don’t go to malls & miss al the fun. Method of choice number two is also not used: rise government employee salaries. No, in stead they give TBTF-banks free money (interest 0%) so that they can “invest” and Trickle Down Economics can once again do its wonders. That it hasn’t worked for 6 years doesn’t mean they’re not going for it with six-fold enthusiasm this time round.
Al this stupid blindness for the obvious! We the people have been accustomed to hyper deflation for decades and we love it! My first flat fee 64 kbit ISDN subscription cost me 50$ a month, twenty years later I still pay 50$ but I now have a 64 Mbit fiber connection, 1000x the performance same price, hyper deflation! That 47″ LED screen I’ve been dreaming of for over a decade? It cost as much as a kitchen when It came out, and now look, less than 500$! Solar panels on my roof for free energy? Not possible with huge subsidies until recently, now cheaper than electricity from coal, and for sale in the DIY-shop around the corner.
And so we arrive at “wage restraint”. The ultimate recipe of the Fortune 500 for improving profits, but my salary hasn’t increased with 1$ (nominal) in 5 years and I am DYING for some solid deflation, so I can buy the same number of pies and comic books as I did 5 years ago. Alas, MegaCorp is so addicted to low wages and tax deductions that they don’t know how fast they have to vomit there complaints out over MSM if labour unions try to get the subject on the table.
And deflation and my savings account? Don’t worry mr minister. I’ve removed my money from my TBTF account and gone into crowdfunding.
We the people can fix this mess all on our own, we don’t need your monetary policies to get the small businesses back on their feet. Just a little while longer and TBTF is To Big To Be Relevant.
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