Didn’t they have to debase the currency to make those payments?
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
How does this chart [0] show a debasement of any sort? We were in a 'secular demand stagnation crisis' back then! Is everyone here just too young (oh God) to remember 2012?
It's the gigantic jump in the blue line almost halfway between 2008 and 2010. A spike in the value of "all assets" is the definition of currency devaluation.
Yes, the Fed's balance sheet skyrocketed, but inflation (the value of money vs. goods & services) remained lower than before that line spiked.
EDIT: And just to be very clear to the 2 people who read this comment, maintaining a balance sheet is still market support b/c you still buy treasuries on the open market to offset the principle of your existing treasuries that reach maturity. So stopping the growth of the balance sheet just means you're not accelerating support. Tapering is the thing that you do if you're worried that your balance sheet is 'debasing' the currency.
An increase in supply is always a debasement.
It's true that you might see the following chronology:
1/1/2020: value of the currency measured
6/6/2020: supply of the currency increased
1/1/2021: value of the currency measured; it's higher than it was last year!
But that doesn't mean the issue on 6/6/2020 wasn't a debasement. It definitely was, and the reason it doesn't look that way is your very low-resolution measurement of value. If the supply increase hadn't happened, the value on 1/1/2021 would have been even higher.
This is why we measure, and why Austrian economics fell out of favor decades ago.
See Japan for a concrete example. [1, 2] Their M2 money supply is almost 2.5X higher since 1990 but their CPI is dead flat over the same time period. It's actually seriously problematic for them.
How has the supply increased in this scenario? What if, instead of minting the coin, you just tell people that you've done so?
The supply of money has only increased if you're able to spend the putative addition to the money supply.
Are you asking how supply works in my hypothetical, simplified example where the point I'm trying to make is that new supply in isolation doesn't matter - what you do with it does?
Or as you asking how it happens in the real-world example of Japan, where their supply increased from 400000B JPY to 1200000B JPY between 1990 and present, while everything remained the same price? And how this is seriously problematic in their economy?
What matters isn't what you do with "money"; it's what you can do with it.
But there are other things that affect the value of money. Tripling the money supply and seeing the value of money stay constant tells you that something else was pulling the value of the yen up at the same time that additional supply was pulling it down.
This is not true, though, haha.
Which is why the Austrian model, which only takes into account the former, is obviously and woefully incomplete - and has been rejected.
It's not clear to me if you're talking about monetary or price inflation.
https://mises.org/library/money-inflation-and-price-inflatio...
> some economists have interpreted price inflation as a desperate method by which the public, suffering from monetary inflation, tries to recoup its command of economic resources by raising prices at least as fast, if not faster, than the government prints new money.
For instance, supply chain disruptions making basic goods more expensive and increasing competition for them. Or, zoning policy prohibiting construction of new housing sufficient to meet demand in high-growth metro areas raising the cost of housing. Or zoning policies in suburban areas making housing 2x bigger on average now than in the 1970s. [1]
Defining inflation as a function of supply distracts us from the real-world problems causing broad-based increases in price.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/new-homes-today-have-twice-the-squa...
lol.
> Defining inflation as a function of supply distracts us from the real-world problems causing broad-based increases in price.
price is a function of supply and demand already. you don't need to redefine inflation unless you're trying to dupe feeble-minded rubes.
The "supply of currency units" is a fundamentally inadequate measure to capture this. It is too simplistic. Nobody takes it seriously except for a small group of very vocal online crackpots because it is so obviously unfit for purpose. [1]
We re-defined it as our understanding grew. The way we update practically any model in the face of new evidence.
Japan single-handedly demolishes the Austrian model. Their M2 supply grew 3X from 1990 to present but inflation remained 0% measured over thirty two years. Prices did not change from 1990 to 2022. [2, 3]
[1] https://www.pragcap.com/understanding-why-austrian-economics...
you're again conflating price and monetary inflation. and again mixing in somebody else's prejoratives to flavor your discussion of their topics.
here's a link [1]
> The idea that inflation is anything other than an increase in the supply of money is an intentionally confounding theoretical device with no basis in reality.
If you have 1 burger that you'd pay $10 for, and someone makes a second burger, does that make each one worth $5? No, of course not.