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Comment by QuadmasterXLII | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious to see how well the enormous mortgage and student loan debt owed by americans will curb inflation. Even if $300,000 dollars hypothetically couldn't buy a loaf of bread in ten years time, it could still pay off my house, and so would be pretty valuable to me.

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This is exactly the reason the fed is ok with current inflation readings. Huge debt bubble in the American middle and working class, along with a low growth economy. The only way to get rid of the debt currently is to inflate it away.

It won't happen because banks own that debt, and they don't want those assets to get inflated away.

I've heard that such debt contracts have been retroactively-changed to be paid in gold instead of the hyper-inflated currency.

I cannot find evidence to backup such claims, has anyone else heard of this or have an expample?

And like another user suggested, what's to prevent the government from passing a law that changes debt contracts?

>And like another user suggested, what's to prevent the government from passing a law that changes debt contracts?

In the USA it will be lobbyists.

So they will not "prevent" the government, they will cajole and corrupt people in the legislative and executive branches so it doesn't get changed.

Prevention doesn’t imply anything about its means.

Except for the "American Inflation Mortgage Adjustment Act" that will be passed to allow lenders to increase mortgages to adjust for inflation. Probably pushed by the same people that passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

And yet they don’t want to raise minimum wage to track inflation...

> American Inflation Mortgage Adjustment Act

Do you have a source for this? I've never heard of it.

I'm being sarcastic.

just wait till 2023

Inflation will only help you pay off your house if you have assets that you can sell for inflated dollars or your salary increases with inflation. Otherwise, you are only going to become poor and probably default on your loan as more of you income is consumed to keep you alive.

I'm always surprised when people assume that inflation implies that wages will rise commensurately.

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