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Comment by hcurtiss | Hacker News Reader

I don't know what "equality" means in this circumstance, but for those nearing retirement age, 4% inflation would destroy the value of their savings at a time when they cannot afford to take additional risk in equities with no guarantee they'd perform. Inflation robs the value of a lifetime of prudence and hard work. There's an argument it's truly evil.

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Wealthy people hold investments that make let's say 7% a year, while working class people make $x a year that grows probably much less than 7% a year. So if inflation is higher, wealth inequality grows less quickly, or in some cases can shrink, as was the case after the world war, because Europe was destroyed so inflation was rampant which actually created a lot more equality. Same thing happened after the Black Death in Europe. It's painful in the short term but can help reduce wealth inequality. Also I wonder if people on a fixed income like social security might be able to stave off the effects of this if social security grew at inflation.

Thomas Piketty's book capital is a great source for this^

Many of their investments make 3% or less. How many seniors do you know that have more stocks than cash or bonds? Seniors are very risk adverse.

> "working class people make $x a year that grows probably much less than 7% a year. So if inflation is higher, wealth inequality grows less quickly"

How does wages not keeping up with inflation decrease inequality?

Wages tend to keep up with inflation. Idle assets on the other hand don’t.

My wages have certainly not kept up with houses, land, crypto, or anything scarce really. Those idle assets seem to be capturing all the gains.

Wage gains have gone to the highest tier workers, not the lower/middle class.

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