Jack Dorsey says ‘hyperinflation’ will happen soon in the U.S. and the world | Hacker News Reader

Jack Dorsey says ‘hyperinflation’ will happen soon in the U.S. and the world

cnbc.com

45 pointslxm93 comments

My neighbor is Turkish (very good job). We often speak about inflation (because he recently came here and discovered almost zero inflation).

Sometimes he gives me examples of the consequences of high inflation in the little details of daily life. It is scary and frightening.

What people do not grasp is that high inflation kill all planification (even holidays, buy sometime "big" like a TV, meeting with friends, long term subscription, etc).

Because of it the reliability of business decreases as everbody is thinking short term and is acting at the last moment. How can you execute a big project if you do not know if the unpredictible inflation value will make it impossible or even kill your company? How do you handle an order if the customer cannot pay because the price went up? Or if the inflation eats all your margin, what do you do?

And of course I am not speaking about the negative impacts on the general mood, hopes, etc. on people.

As a BTC holder inflation is great. Prices just go lower. Holiday you were planning will be actually cheaper.

No it doesn't. Hyperinflation means that although our BTC is worth more in USD, when we go to exchange our BTC for USD to go on that holiday, we'll need to give up more of our BTC since we need more USD to pay.

It would be much better if there is no hyperinflation. More and more people are moving parts of their money/assets into cryptocurrency. In the long run, holders like us will benefit. We all suffer when there's hyperinflation.

Disclaimer: My wife and I hold a significant amount of BTC in our child's trust fund.

Isn’t the thinking that BTC would increase relative to the hyper inflating currency to compensate for the inflation? So you wouldn’t have to pay more BTC for that holiday?

In the event of a serious economic crisis, the government would probably confiscate Bitcoin, like FDR confiscated gold during the Great Depression.

(I know they can't actually confiscate Bitcoin that isn't in an exchange, but they can make transacting in Bitcoin illegal after a certain date.)

Exactly right. As long as BTC needs to ramp off into fiat for most spending purposes, it can be banned.

Importantly, it can also be banned if centralized exchanges are powerful enough and do what the government says.

Twitter is like click-bait, but without the actual article.

Prominent personalities spew cryptic "profound" comments. The masses are supposed to fawn over them and speculate whatever this enlightened sage might mean by it. Like we just discovered the meaning of life scrawled on an ancient rock if only we could decipher those symbols.

My advice is ignore any prediction unless there's enough data and logic to back them up. Even if someone has a track record of predicting correctly, there's little to gain when you have no substance to triangulate between viewpoints and form your own view.

There might be some utility in looking at a poll of subject matter experts asked the same question(s), or a prediction market, but one person's idle speculation is noise.

What does it say about Hacker News that his tweet caused a CNBC article that was later submitted and upvoted/commented on heavily here?

Meta-meta-clickbait?

Given the intersection of social media and monetary policy this article seems entirely relevant: https://www.epsilontheory.com/fiat-money-fiat-news/

So a rich person whose wealth consists of crypto currencies make a prediction that could motivate people to invest in crypto currencies and make the rich person even richer. Why exactly should we believe him again?

Inflation hurts those without assets most (the poor). When you see pundits, opinion writers, and politicians try to explain away inflation as temporary, no big deal, a “first world” problem, “only” 5%, and so on just remember it’s a scam. They are stealing money from people who can’t afford assets, like houses and stocks, which protect the rich.

It's a double-edged sword. For people with debt, the value of their debt decreases as inflation rises. If salaries rise with inflation, even with some lag, the debt becomes easier to repay.

There is a small benefit. However it’s a negative to the lenders which include many socially advantageous institutions like pension funds which purchase securitized debt.

The negatives are so numerous it’s a struggle to find any upsides. Luckily I am rich and own property with government-subsidized fixed rate mortgages so I will ride out all the terrible outcomes with a shrug.

While your stock portfolio drops massively as people move to i-bonds/commodities and your property prices fall as well since noone can afford to buy property at the higher interest rates.

Why would anything drop massively when they are endlessly printing money and handing it out? And yes commodities are an obvious choice during inflation. I am very bullish on oil.

Because endlessly is about to end.

If by hyperinflation, he means higher inflation, I can see that. It's not uncommon for periods of lower inflation to be followed by periods of higher inflation.

Isn't that trivially true, though? Even if there's zero causation, when `n` is closer to its minimum, the possibility space for `n`'s future is mostly above it.

I think so. I'm still surprised by how often it seems to be ignored.

"There will be inflation" is indeed a reasonable prediction. But that is definitely not the definition of hyperinflation[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation

Does Jack Dorsey know this? Or does he just think hyperinflation is just like saying gigamegaultrainflation++?

Don't see how this is possible, strictly mathematically.

The money supply (M2) did increase 30% in a year, but for hyperinflation it would have to continue at a rapid pace.

I could see a situation where the Fed starts to taper/raise interest rates which triggers some turmoil, and then re-engages QE in a much more aggressive manner or goes negative rates. That could lead to extreme levels of inflation.

The truth is when you ease monetary policy, you somewhat trap yourself at that level, as people will take on additional debt due to lower carrying costs. This makes tightening more challenging, as the higher debt levels become more expensive to service.

Likely the only way we go hyperinflation is to monetize fiscal spending, thus fiscal spends more, thus we need to monetize more etc.

It is true that the Fed is currently buying 60% of newly issued treasuries, e.g. monetizing fiscal spending by money printing right now. So we're kind of on the verge of MMT here as it is.

Unfortunately the Fed has been pretty cowardly and optimizing for short term outcomes/political appeasement rather than doing the right thing for the long run.

If tightening monetary policy leads to disruption in the markets, we may just need to eat the short term pain. The consequences of continuing to monetize deficit spending and stoking rampant speculation are too great IMO.

We may see very high short term inflation if supply issues continue to worsen and widespread shortages develop. In that scenario prices would rise to compensate, and demand destruction would likely lead to a resolution. Of course, that's how layoffs start, and the whole thing becomes stagflationary.

The hallmark of hyperinflation is that the velocity of money increases rapidly, seemingly without control of the central bank. Basically it's a feedback loop where everybody thinks the currency is going to be worthless tomorrow, so they rush to spend it today, which makes money change hands more quickly than normal. Or on the supply side, they believe the currency is going to be worth less when they can spend it, so they pre-emptively raise prices to compensate for that.

Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Germany... all modern examples of hyperinflation where the root cause was primarily through excessive money printing to fund debts/deficit spending.

There are other causes as well of course, but excessive printing seems the common thread between all of them.

I agree that an inflationary mindset is psychological and contributes, but without an increased money supply, people are constrained in how much they can spend.

E.g. how could a loaf of bread ever sell for 1000 USD without printed money? Nobody could afford those prices.

I doubt increased velocity of money alone is enough to sustain hyperinflation. Assuming velocity within the bounds of realism. Wages would have to rise significantly, creating a wage price spiral.

Root cause yes, but that's not what sustains the inflation. Inflation is sparked by an increase in the money supply. Hyperinflation is what happens when rising prices then trigger an increase in the velocity of money. The government has control of money supply but not velocity, which is why hyperinflation is essentially impossible to stop without abandoning the currency once it gets started.

The concrete manifestation of an increase in money velocity is things like people running out to the store to spend money as soon as they get paid; wages getting set month-to-month or even day-to-day rather than annually; prices not being posted, and instead being set as you walk in the store; and zeros being added to dollar bills. The wage/price spiral is not a separate thing; it's the concrete manifestation of the abstract model of money velocity increasing.

While inflation is a monetary phenomenon I think hyperinflation is mostly a psychological phenomenon characterized by a lack of confidence in a currency. Fiscal policy changes could certainly change confidence or so could a number of other things.

There's definitely a strong psychological component to inflation. And an inflationary mindset is probably needed for hyperinflation to materialize.

But I think increasing money supply is a necessary component for hyperinflation as well.

At least, in all modern examples of hyperinflation I've reviewed, there has always been a component of monetizing the debt/deficit.

Are there examples of hyperinflation where the money supply was largely fixed? I would be very curious/interested in that.

I feel like when currencies are abandoned there's a de-facto hyperinflation involved in the old currency if looked at from the exchange rates involved. Perhaps there's been examples of currency replacement in the past that have been driven by non-economic factors?

Hyperinflation is 'out of control inflation' of minimum 100% in a year or 50% in a month.

That's absolutely not going to happen. There's absolutely no data to suggest this will happen.

Stagflation is inflation far in excess of gdp growth and rising unemployment. Also not really happening, we have good gdp growth within range of inflation more or less. If the central banks raise rates too quickly maybe we will get here but I very much doubt that will happen.

Inflation is going to be happening. The USD has about 40% inflation locked in over the next ~5 years. In the US it's already >5% and they arent even considering raising rates until summer? Probably sooner, and even if they do, it's not going to get inflation under control. All of 2022 is going to have high inflation and we will see what happens nearer the end of 2022.

Historically, Dorsey has come across as more of a wishy-washy stoner than a sharp business mind.

He's bought a lot of BTC, so any prediction he makes that's bullish on crypto should be treated with suspicion. I don't think he's a pump-and-dump artist like Musk, but he's still not an objective forecaster.

Also, he's either predicting something catastrophic (meaning something that would crumble the world economy) or he doesn't know the meaning of the word "hyperinflation" as most people use it[1].

For some other examples of why I don't trust Dorsey to predict anything, he also said that Bitcoin would be "the" digital currency in the near future (before 2028, but perhaps sooner)[2]. If anything, it's less likely to happen because of the rise of stablecoins.

Finally, there's a paper published recently[3][4] finding that, over the last 10 years, professionals (economists and businesses) were "substantially" better at inflation predictions than consumers.

Most economists expect inflation to peak something before the end of this year, and next year to have high-but-not-dangerous[5] inflation.

This makes sense if the cause of currently high inflation is supply-chain problems, which we have no reason to doubt so far.

1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hyperinflation.asp

2. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/jack-dorsey-expects-bitcoin-...

3. https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publicat...

4. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-economy-inflation-expecta...

5. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/inflation-gauge-should-be-ho...

Would be nice to see some math on how he arrived at that conclusion. Common definition of hyperinflation is 50% inflation on monthly basis, which would be about 10,000% in a year.

> crypto advocate says hyperinflation will happen

Hmmm, I really wonder why?

To bet on Hyperinflation you don’t only need to bet the rapid devaluing of currencies, but also bet that the government would do nothing to stop it. Which seems ridiculous to me given how easy it is (raising interest rate)

With debt to GDP at such high ratios raising interest rates has some challenges, why do you think this is easy to deal with?

Curious, why do you think it’s difficult to raise interest rates when debt is high?

At the moment we have a monetary system that's a debt based monetary system. In practice this means that many people are operating under the assumption that someone's liability is someone else's asset, I think this assumption is rather systemic at the moment. Beyond a certain level of indebtedness a rise in interest rates triggers off a chain of defaults and that can cause a situation of credit contagion. An uncontrolled credit contagion event could very conceivably destroy the financial system. Much power is currently held by creditors and they will likely try to fight any attempts to change policy in such a way that reduces their power.

Here's a much more long form article that talks about the dynamics in play: https://desogames.substack.com/p/the-problem-is-too-big

Also, no president or congress wants to be at the helm of a ‘self inflicted’ recession. Every politian just kicks the can down the road.

Thanks, and thanks for the linked newsletter. I’ll read it. I’m curious to learn how the current situation compares to the 80s when rates were pushed to 15% to stop inflation.

Simple. As your interest increases, sondo your payments as a % of taxes

At some point, if interest payments are too big of a slice off total spend, investors will start believeing the debt will never be repaid... And thus monetise debt instead.

Debt levels being high means that a significant portion of the revenue is there to service the interest payments and the remaining is not enough to cover all other expenses. Therefore you either raise more debt, or default.

> With debt to GDP at such high ratios raising interest rates has some challenges

No, it doesn't. I mean, it would have political problems if Congress had to do it, but that's literally why we have an independent central bank managing monetary policy, so decisions that would be difficult given fiscal policy preferences aren’t difficult to make.

> why do you think this is easy to deal with?

Because it is.

The us did it in the late 80s. 15% interest rates!

Some argue that current US debt level blocks country from meaningfully increasing interest rates as it will balloon interest payments which are paid (in reality) by printing money. I am also not confident than US politicians are smarter than ones in Venezuela

That’s not how it works. Increasing the interest rate will not increase the existing debt cost.

The problem is that we are issuing new debt to pay off the old debt, and that new debt is using the new interest rate.

Government revenue needs to come from somewhere, and inflation is a type of tax.

By the time hyperinflation is possible, the federal government will have two choices, keep interest rates low and keep borrowing, or to default.

How does inflation increase government revenue?

Print and spend dollars at value ‘A’, right after the money gets in circulation, value decreases to ‘B’, the spread between ‘A’ and ‘B’ acts like a tax on all cash. This results in an increase in tax amounts (not actual value) because of price increases, making revenue numbers go higher, making it easier to pay off old debts

It benefits those who holds the most debt, and is horrible on anyone who is on fixed income. Presumably capital gains will still be taxed, which means that inflation + tax can wipe out any income from gains.

You mean printing money is bad? But that is not in general what causes inflation. Inflation in itself can not be considered a tax.

Raising interest rates won't be easy — up to 30% of the federal budget could be spent servicing the debt. From Drunkenmiller's interview in May of this year:

"[Drunkenmiller] projects that if yields on the ten-year Treasury rise to the projected level of 4.9%, the government would be spending close to 30% of GDP each year simply paying back interest expense (compared to 2% last year) unless it monetizes the debt, which experts think is unlikely and Druckenmiller believes would have “horrible implications” for the U.S. dollar." [0]

The Fed has less actions available than you expect. Either the Fed lets inflation run hot, or the Fed raises interest rates to combat inflation, wiping out discretionary programs from the federal budget.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/05/11/bil...

The last two years make me think the government is quite capable of "doing nothing to stop" bad things from happening.

It is no longer ridiculous- I mean, they're working on trillions of dollars of economic stimulus as we speak, in the middle of an inflationary economy. You don't think that that will add fuel to the fire?

So far we've had demand outstripping supply in many area without inflation happening.

Apparently, that's because in a lot of areas, consumers and businesses have demand but it's still price sensitive. And the chances are price increases aren't going to result in wage increases, so it's hard to see a cycle of inflation happening.

The US has spent it's way out of all the crises of the last twenty years and so far hyperinflation has been avoided (but other distortions have appeared, surging commodity prices, surging rents, etc).

Sadly he is right on this, the last 50 years or so the growth in the Chinese economy has created a high growth low inflation world economy, this has ended.

Oh please, the fed has barely started raising interest rates. It’s not like they’ve tried and it failed. This is all horseshit.

Maybe @jack thinks hyperinflation is when people hype Bitcoin to inflate its price? Cause we aren't seeing hyperinflation.

Efficiency that comes from increased technology and automation is strongly deflationary. COVID related stresses have only pulled forward investment in tech and automation. There’s a strong case to be made that the concern in a few years will be too little inflation.

Deflation is easier to address. The economic levers to ease deflation are longer.

Let’s entertain him. If this happens, you gotta own equities and housing right? These should keep your savings on par (at least stocks, housing is not realistic for everyone).

Or are we royally fucked and there’s no keeping up?

I lived through hyperinflation as a kid (obviously not in the US). One of the things that kept us afloat were the 2 family cars - my parents sold them for a big profit, then sold the new cars again couple months later. Owning equity was a risky proposition at the time, as many companies went bankrupt overnight (including banks). You either kept the money in savings accounts that were indexed by gov bonds, or you’d lose most of your money value in a week.

I’ll take that bet.

Ten if you win, a trillion if you lose.

It would be catastrophic if it was the case

Jack Dorsey isn't an economist.

No, but he does happen to be the CEO of a company that employs them!

I'd say he isn't just shooting off his mouth. He rarely makes inflammatory statements, unlike other public billionaires!

Dorsey has his faults, but talking shit in public hasn't been one of them AFAIK!

I guess we shall see!

Things are certainly getting interesting!

There are a lot of economists, you can find at least one to support pretty much any prediction you want... And this is not the wildest prediction of 2021 by far.

“Soon” is a pretty good weasel world.

Which world? Clown world?

Perhaps this holds true if you are an economist from clown world, but I'm afraid things work differently here on Earth.

CNBC reporting, of all places..

Jack has a vested interest in hyperinflation through Square and his investment in Bitcoin

Only people who don't understand the wealth destroying affects of hyperinflation will actually cheer for it.

>"Jack has a vested interest in hyperinflation through Square and his investment in Bitcoin"

How would Square benefit from hyperinflation?

The bitcoin.

he also has a vested interest in the fear of hyperinflation.

Maybe he does think that his life as a wealthy person is going to improve in any way with hyperinflation. I'd disagree completely.

In fact, I think hyperinflation in the U.S. could likely stir up wars that (as we've imagined since the cold war) could very well break the world. Of course I know nothing of value about this, but chaos followed by violence and escalating into full blown war sounds possible. Or at the very least more possible than now, with a stable structure of power(s) that only shift gradually.

I don't think crypto coins are useful if the world order dissolves and we have trouble keeping up eletric grids, much less a working internet.

Here’s what the White House has to say:

https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1449144813291331588

Source article: Psaki Defends Rising Prices: ‘Good Thing’ Because It Means ‘More People Are Buying Goods’ https://www.dailywire.com/news/psaki-defends-rising-prices-g...

Any headline that starts with the name of an SV billionaire reads like an The Onion headline to me.

Getting lucky and becoming rich doesn't make you an expert on anything.

Couldn't agree more! Yet our tribal brains are hardwired to listen and follow the people who have a lot of clout.

It’s a proxy for adaptive success. He accumulated lots of resources so we pay attention and emulate him because his strategy has paid off. Not saying it makes sense in a modern context.

It’s basically just some rando tweeting a hot take.

He created two multi billion dollar companies just by "being lucky"?

I'm skeptical.

I don't think the second one is as hard as the first. Maybe the luck requirements to do it once or twice are the the same.

I agree that tech CEOs say a fair amount of dumb shit (because they tend to be brainstorming, free associative thinking types) but if you think any guy off the street could have been Jack Dorsey, if the dice had just rolled differently, then I would disagree hard.

"Any guy"? No. At least tens of thousands if not more? Probably. How many African tech billionaires do you know of? And is it a coincidence that the only two I can think of from the entire continent of 1.3 billion people (over 4× of the US) are white Afrikaners? Probably not.

Tens of thousands I think is possible- The problem is we don't know the identities of those 9,999 people. If we did, I agree the opinions of those people should be given a ton of weight.

Perhaps he had something special to start two successful companies, but I still agree with GP, that doesn't necessarily transfer to special insight into global economics.

Still, a broken clock is right twice a day, and it isn't too hard to predict inflation when inflation is already happening at higher than normal levels. That's like predicting floods when its raining.

Its all good. Let people see them for who they are.

Learning takes time.

Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

Isn't it a fact that he is not an economist? Oh well.

Being an economist is neither necessary nor sufficient for a good HN submission. That's true even just for economics topics.

I'm not saying this was a good article, but adding a bad comment article just adds more badness.

And we should care about Dorsey's prediction because... ?

The actual experts who study these things can't agree on much regarding the future, so I don't expect anything profound from any rich geek off the street.

Because he's the CEO of Square.

Pure B.S.

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