Hacker News Reader

Comment by TomMarius | Hacker News Reader

The economy is crashing, the inflation is rising and that makes UBI look better? How?

bottom up economy, rather than trickle down. The fed doubled their balance sheet from 3T to 6T in 3 month. Andrew Yang's UBI was estimated at 1.3T yearly.

Where can we check inflation rates? I thought it was something that was calculated in retrospect.

Yeah - someone said the same comment. Me not knowing anything researched it and what I seen trending indicated the opposite. How is this reliably checked ?

European central banks have announced they target higher inflation rate, for example

Inflation in the US is lowering because of reduced demand: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL

Isn't it like dead cat bounce, where once demand goes down producers stop producing then supply is reduced even below demand levels, creating hyper inflation?

Usually when production decreases, cost of production increases - operation becomes less profitable and investor might pull their money and take it elsewhere. In some industries, margin might be so thin that once they lose economies of scale which comes with higher production, they simply may go bust or choose to stop, citing higher cost of inputs. This is what pushes the supply below demand level.

Also demand is usually established at some specific price, if cost of production increases, producer might have to increase the price and this might also put downward pressure on demand.

My thoughts exactly.

If supply drops far below demand, prices rise and producers come back into the market. The process will not be smooth and the feedback mechanism is lagged but hyperinflation should not happen unless some severe structural issues interrupt the process. Note that a decrease in real GDP is not the same as inflation.

> the inflation is rising

Inflation has been low for years and has historically gone done during recessions. The inflation hawk concerns so far have been utterly unfounded.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-i...

In consumer goods maybe. The real inflation is in stocks and real estate. For a decade at least.

People who make universally bad ideas will continue to do so.

People who are terrified don't think straight?

Edit: It is a completely serious answer and the only explanation that makes sense to me for the spate of pro-UBI articles I've noticed but mostly not read because UBI doesn't make sense and a global pandemic doesn't change that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com