Governments must beware the lure of free money | Hacker News Reader

Governments must beware the lure of free money

economist.com

32 pointsolegious18 comments

The irony is that the economic problems stem not from the pandemic, but from the existing debt fueled economies that can not afford to slow down or pause for any length of time.

As usual governments think borrowing and spending is the answer to all economic woes, even those caused by debt in the first place.

Even before the pandemic, the corporate debt was off the charts, defaults were on the horizon, but as usual, answers to defaults is borrow more.

The alternative, an economy where borrowing is hard, would be even worse. Such a system would basically amount to feudalism, where the wealthy perpetually own everything and everyone else needs the support of some wealthy lord to proceed with a project.

Moreover, an economy slowing down is a bad thing even if you ignore debt. A small but noticeable example in the USA this year are the COVID-induced supply chain disruptions. An economy that slows down is an economy that will delivery fewer goods and services, and in the extreme it means not finding the things you need when you go to the store (it is hard to forget the empty shelves in supermarkets earlier this year). Nobody should delude themselves into thinking that debt is the reason we cannot afford to pause the economy for an extended period of time.

So the best thing to do is buy now.

My parents retirement is screwed..these small interest bonds will mean nothing with 10x inflation..

There is only one safe money and that is whatever the fed is willing to prop up. There aren't too many things left though.

There's always TIPS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_Inflation_Protected_S...

There is also the classic laddering strategy, where you buy bonds with a range of maturities in order to reinvest the principle from shorter maturity bonds if you anticipate rising rates on longer maturity securities, while mitigating the risk that rates do not rise (i.e. inflation never comes).

Every investor needs to consider proper 'asset allocation'. Risk/return is a very important factor (and there are no known rights and wrongs).

Covid19 just accelerated what was bound to happen anyway.

http://archive.is/s8AEO

What's the worst that could happen, one way or the other?

Hyperinflation which makes money not only worthless but useless.

Unlikely to happen with an aging and declining population across first worlds, if you fix healthcare and education systems. Housing will need some regulation too to prevent a rush of capital pushing up prices (more). Supply is sufficient in most other goods and service sectors.

More money, less people, would seem to make money worthless than it would be with more money, more people.

Am I missing something obvious?

Money is already worthless. It's paper. It only has value that we as a society set on it. If the shit really hit the fan, governments of the world could decide to scrap all currencies give everyone an 'equivalency' of their old lifestyle in a 'new currency' and reboot the virtual monopoly game.

Why do you think billionaires horde money? It's the same reason debears hordes diamonds, if all the diamonds that exist actually were available on the markets they wouldn't be worth shit. By hording all the diamonds mined, they get to set the prices.

Sure if you spread more money out to more people, some prices may adjust up a bit, but you're not going to get runaway price gouging across everything like many who are against UBI claim.

It is not quite that simple. Money does eventually get removed from the system when loans are canceled without being fully repaid. When people die with an estate that is too small to repay their debts that is exactly what happens; it also often happens when businesses go bankrupt, which would likely happen when the population shrinks. Obviously this is a bit oversimplified, but the point is that the money supply is not static thing where money is "printed" by some central authority and then stays in circulation forever.

See: Greece and Argentina over the ages, Venezuela, Weimar Republic.

It's different for the US than for others due to seignorage (others need the currency) but for basically everyone else, it's dangerous.

Also for countries that don't need to borrow heavily internationally like China or Japan.

For for everyone else it's very scary game.

The Canadian government is about to embark on a major spending spree after the biggest spending spree in history, including possibly permanent UBI. Of course without mandate, and from a PM who has absolutely no experience in anything, and a well educated and smart Finance Minister who specializes in History and Journalism - it's very bad.

No one commented on the worst that could happen if we don't spend the money.

I guess I should have asked also what is the best that could happen, one way or the other.

Capitalists' bulletin says: Governments must beware issuing money rather than borrowing from us. Credible!

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