WalterBright

Yes.

They said the same thing when the looms put weavers out of a job.

You are correct that borrowing money increases the money supply. But when the loan is repaid, the money is destroyed. It's a net zero.

The federal deficit, however, is not being paid back, and so the increase in the money supply causes inflation.

Pretty much none of us are doing jobs that existed in colonial America.

> a (large) price increase in one commodity would produce a general price increase.

Nope. Because if you spend more on one commodity, you necessarily spend less on other items. Spending less means less demand, and corresponding price reductions.

This is the Law of Supply and Demand at work.

Which also explains inflation - more money dumped into the economy, without a corresponding increase in the goods & services in the economy, devalues the money (see Law of Supply and Demand), which we call "inflation".

Money is not "special", and is subject to the LoSaD just like everything else.

Look what happened to Beanie Babies' prices when Tyco flooded the market with them. What do you think would happen to the price of Ferraris if Ferrari quadrupled production?

Why do you think Argentina's inflation is way down? It's the reduction in deficit spending. Do you think the Weimar Republic's trillion-to-one was caused by oil prices?

Oil demand is certainly elastic. Look what happened to gas mileage on cars.

> Commodity prices going up definitely causes inflation.

Nope. The proof is when they come down, there is no deflation.

I doubt you would pay much for gold if everyone had a bushel of gold coins.

> Energy costs, especially fuel, are classic drivers of inflating prices.

That's what politicians want you to believe ("Putin's price hike"), to divert attention from the real cause, massive deficits, which are the fault of the politicians.

BTW, Rockefeller dropped the price of kerosene by 70%. Why was there no deflation?

Gold didn't cause inflation while it sat in the ground, either. But the US experienced significant inflation during the California gold rush and the Alaska gold rush, as the gold flooded into the economy.

Shrinking demand for other items, because when you pay more for gas means you have less money for other things, results in price drops.

> People on HN really want to believe this

It's simply following the facts and the history of inflation in economies.

If oil forces up prices, that means people have less money to spend on other things, which reduces demand for them, which reduces prices.

The only way to get a general price increase is to increase the money supply.

Inflation numbers track the deficits, with a lag of about 13 months.

And when was the last time oil price reductions caused deflation?

Inflation is characterized by a general price increase, not a price increase in one commodity.

> This is the great thing about inflation in a highly unequal society: it is partially tempered because demand goes away as prices rise.

Inflation is the result of devaluing the currency by creating money (i.e. deficit spending).

Oil prices do not cause inflation. Increases in the price of X cause the demand for X to drop, as people shift their spending elsewhere.

> they don't simply act like Smaug and sit on a pile of gold coins

That's because a pile of gold coins does not make money. One makes money by investing the coins, not investing in coins.

I always thought Smaug's hoard (as depicted in Jackson's movie) was beyond ridiculous. If it was unleashed on the economy, the price of gold would drop to the point you could pave the roads with it and make sewer pipes out of it.

Nothing's perfect. What the government tells you on the phone is not legally binding on the government.

I suspect George Martin was a major factor in the innovative techniques they used.

These problems look to me like the result of writing N implementations of X, rather than 1 common X shared by all the apps.

Sounds like a good idea.

I recall a "60 Minutes" segment on it asserting that cannabis today is much stronger.

I planted an apple tree in my yard 20 years go, just for fun. Last year, it finally decided to push out more than a few apples. This year, it put out so many the branches have bent nearly to the ground.

I have a couple friends in their 60s who drank a single glass of wine every day, for decades. Then, they decided to stop. They were amazed at how much better they felt.

Cannabis today is much stronger than it was in the 70s.

Yup that all looks familiar!

If you want to see a realistic depiction of 1970s teens see the movie "Over The Edge". The plot is absurd, but it captured the way the teens looked and acted.

Interestingly, at the time kids carried oversized combs in their pockets (including the boys). The movie is the only one I've seen where the kids carried those combs.

Magnets can reduce the cosmic ray risk:

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-permanent-magnets-astronauts-s...

The escalator is long after you've checked your bags and gone through security, so you've just got carryon.

The people you are referring to are a small minority. I'm usually the only one taking the steps.

If you're really in bad shape, there's an elevator.

In the south terminal at Seatac airport, there's a long escalator from the subway. Everybody crams onto the escalator, I just go up the adjoining steps two at a time and get there long before everyone else.

I just don't understand people who are content with just standing there on the escalator. And I mean able-bodied people, about to sit for hours on an airplane.

I once worked in a Japanese tower for a few weeks. The office was on the 6th floor. I'd play beat-the-elevator with my coworkers. They'd get in the machine, as I casually leaned against the wall.

As soon as the doors closed, I'd sprint up the stairs, with the intent of lounging against the wall, pretending I am not breathing hard, and pretending to look at my watch.

Unfortunately, I rarely made it past the 5th floor sprinting. But there was still enough time to walk up the last flight and implement my evil plan.

My coworkers just looked at me with their "gaijin" expression.

Thank you! Amazing work! I've always had a soft spot for the 8087.

Maybe implement the algorithm in C? Thank would be fun!

I cannot think of a society that doesn't have a core value of honor.

> just because your father said something, doesn't make it true.

He had a pretty good track record. For example, his squadron trusted him with their lives.

Such taxes will make marginal businesses go out of businesses, and turn otherwise modestly profitable businesses into marginal ones.

That still leaves open the question of what is the reference point, when the land also rises and falls. Plate tectonics wasn't even a theory in 1900.