[Puffer Fish]

This guy spent $500 million on a failed campaign trying to get the nomination to become President. (Biden got the Democratic nomination instead)

Bloomberg: "Americans should eat Lentils and let their pets die to cope with inflation"

He also urges people to give up their cars and use public transport.


https://summit.news/2022/03/21/billiona ... inflation/

(related thread about the dangers of taking public transportation in NYC: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=181711 )

[Potemkin]

F. Scott FitzGerald once said, “The rich are different from us.” To which Hemingway replied, “Yes, they are: they have more money.”

Billionaires seem to think that owning billions of dollars magically makes their idiotic opinions worth listening to.

[Saeko]

I love it when fresh meat tries to convince me to eat something else instead.

[AFAIK]

Inflation stings most if you earn less than $300K.
Isn't that 98% of the population?

[Potemkin]

Inflation stings most if you earn less than $300K.
Isn't that 98% of the population?

Yeah, but it’s the 98% who don’t matter. Lol.

[AFAIK]

If Bloomberg manages to co-opt Occupy's slogan then I'd have to laugh.

[BlutoSays]

This guy spent $500 million on a failed campaign trying to get the nomination to become President. (Biden got the Democratic nomination instead)

Bloomberg: "Americans should eat Lentils and let their pets die to cope with inflation"

He also urges people to give up their cars and use public transport.


https://summit.news/2022/03/21/billiona ... inflation/

(related thread about the dangers of taking public transportation in NYC: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=181711 )

Keep 'em stupid so they keep voting democrat.

[XogGyux]

Keep 'em stupid so they keep voting democrat.

Yeah, because smart people are overwhelmingly republicans right?
Dumbass.

[Skynet]

He is right reduce the CO2 lifestyle according the omnipresent spirit of time tells. Pets eat high protein food.

[Potemkin]

He is right reduce the CO2 lifestyle according the omnipresent spirit of time tells. Pets eat high protein food.

Or, alternatively, we could kill all the billionaires and feed them to our pets.

[Skynet]

Or, alternatively, we could kill all the billionaires and feed them to our pets.

Easy done, but how to manage the economy without the ruling 1%

[Fasces]

[Truth To Power]

Easy done, but how to manage the economy without the ruling 1%

That's easy: for the 99% rather than the 1%.

[BlutoSays]

Great news - we've hit 8.5 percent annual inflation. Such a proud moment.

I just received a certified letter from the U.S. government stating my chocolate rations have been raised from 300 grams to 200 grams per month. All hail Oceania!

[Steve_American]

Great news - we've hit 8.5 percent annual inflation. Such a proud moment.

I just received a certified letter from the U.S. government stating my chocolate rations have been raised from 300 grams to 200 grams per month. All hail Oceania!

His 2nd part is obvious snark, to be ignored.

Lurkers, Bluto can't understand that rising prices are an intended result of his beloved free market's response to shortages. We are seeing clear evidence of shortages every time we go food shopping. There are empty shelves.
. . . The free market is supposed to raise prices to efficiently distribute the reduce amount of goods to those who have the most money, and not let the poor buy them before the well off can buy them. Bluto is saying indirectly that this effect is not why prices are rising. Instead, prices are rising because there is more money in the economy because of all the deficit spending by Biden [note that he ignores the fact that more of the deficit spending was authorized while Trump was in office then when Biden has been in office.
. . . Bluto is also ignore the fact that the US economy is now controlled by corps that have effective monopolies and can increase their prices more than necessary to keep the poor from buying the goods before the rich can. He is also ignoring the related effect the OPEC is having on all prices when it increases oil prices or doesn't increase production to replace Russian oil in the international market.
. . . Bluto is also ignoring the normal effect of a war like the one between Ukraine and Russia.

He just wants us to agree with his internet sources that ALL of the inflation is being caused by too much money being in the economy.

Lurkers I already proved this is false. I posted here a graph based on data from the IMF [a conservative source] that graphed many nations' covid spending vs its inflation. The graph showed that the more the nation spent the very slightly less its inflation was. The 4 nations that had the highest inflation were in the bottom third of covid spenders, AND there was NO nation that had high covid spending and high inflation, not one. The 2 nations with the highest covid spending were near the median amount of inflation. The rest of the nations were in a tight cluster stretched out going slightly down from left to right. This cluster is 5 times longer right/left than it is high [up/down].
. . . The only possible conclusion to draw from this is not that high covid spending cause lower inflation. Instead, the proper conclusion to draw is that the large covid spending in some nations did NOT cause them to have higher inflation. That is, there was no relationship between these 2 things, NONE. The scatter was caused by other things, like how exposed to shortages was the nation and how many monopolies are there in its economy.

BTW Note --- I had to use a work around to post a link for you to easily click on it to see the graph. I was asked to delete my work around after 10 days and I did, so the link will not work now.
. . . The graph was created by Prof. Bill Mitchell [an MMTer] using IMF data.

I [Bill Mitchell] have also compiled a database using data from the IMF – Fiscal Monitor Database of Country Fiscal Measures in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (last updated October 2021) and – Consumer Price Index (CPI) – data from their Macroeconomic and Financial Data repository.

You can see the graph here. Just scroll down some. It is easy to see.
Link => http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=49216
.

[Potemkin]

Money is a form of rationing, and is only useful in an economy based on shortages - which is to say, every economy which has so far existed in human history. The dollar in your pocket is basically just a fungible ration coupon. The free market - if it is allowed to operate without interference - automatically adjusts the prices so that demand matches supply no matter how many shortages there are. It does this by pricing the poor out of the marketplace. The need of the poor (for food, for shelter, for warmth, etc) never manifests itself as a demand in the marketplace, since the price is too high. This is essentially what is happening right now, of course. @BlutoSays is complaining about it because, like most American right-wingers, he hates the free market.

[Truth To Power]

@BlutoSays is complaining about it because, like most American right-wingers, he hates the free market.

It's by no means just American right wingers. The right everywhere is by definition elitist, the left egalitarian. Elitists are always married to privilege, which cannot exist in a free market. The progressive-but-not-Procrustean left doesn't understand that a free market would be its greatest friend because they have swallowed the right's Big Lie that capitalist markets -- i.e., privilege markets, which are effectively slave markets -- are free markets.

[BlutoSays]

His 2nd part is obvious snark, to be ignored.

Lurkers, Bluto can't understand that rising prices are an intended result of his beloved free market's response to shortages. We are seeing clear evidence of shortages every time we go food shopping. There are empty shelves.
. . . The free market is supposed to raise prices to efficiently distribute the reduce amount of goods to those who have the most money, and not let the poor buy them before the well off can buy them. Bluto is saying indirectly that this effect is not why prices are rising. Instead, prices are rising because there is more money in the economy because of all the deficit spending by Biden [note that he ignores the fact that more of the deficit spending was authorized while Trump was in office then when Biden has been in office.
. . . Bluto is also ignore the fact that the US economy is now controlled by corps that have effective monopolies and can increase their prices more than necessary to keep the poor from buying the goods before the rich can. He is also ignoring the related effect the OPEC is having on all prices when it increases oil prices or doesn't increase production to replace Russian oil in the international market.
. . . Bluto is also ignoring the normal effect of a war like the one between Ukraine and Russia.

He just wants us to agree with his internet sources that ALL of the inflation is being caused by too much money being in the economy.

Lurkers I already proved this is false. I posted here a graph based on data from the IMF [a conservative source] that graphed many nations' covid spending vs its inflation. The graph showed that the more the nation spent the very slightly less its inflation was. The 4 nations that had the highest inflation were in the bottom third of covid spenders, AND there was NO nation that had high covid spending and high inflation, not one. The 2 nations with the highest covid spending were near the median amount of inflation. The rest of the nations were in a tight cluster stretched out going slightly down from left to right. This cluster is 5 times longer right/left than it is high [up/down].
. . . The only possible conclusion to draw from this is not that high covid spending cause lower inflation. Instead, the proper conclusion to draw is that the large covid spending in some nations did NOT cause them to have higher inflation. That is, there was no relationship between these 2 things, NONE. The scatter was caused by other things, like how exposed to shortages was the nation and how many monopolies are there in its economy.

BTW Note --- I had to use a work around to post a link for you to easily click on it to see the graph. I was asked to delete my work around after 10 days and I did, so the link will not work now.
. . . The graph was created by Prof. Bill Mitchell [an MMTer] using IMF data.

You can see the graph here. Just scroll down some. It is easy to see.
Link => http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=49216
.

Some thoughts from your own link. I'll bold my comments to separate them from what Mitchell posted. They're in no particular order.

"Matching that data with the inflation data is not straightforward.

But, after cleaning the data (to remove null observations, and anomalies), I ended up with 122 countries including all the advanced nations, but also including many so-called ’emerging markets’ nations, and ‘Low-income Developing Countries’."

How did he do that? There's no methodology or nuthin'. I have no idea how he weighed the different bits of data he was massaging. Why did he have null observations? Is it because that particular country has no data? Well, what does that mean? You just strike it out? I'm supposed to take this as gospel? Then he posts a scatter graph. I don't know what I'm supposed to make of that given no data behind it.

Face it, you liked what he said and ran with it. That's poor logic and all you are is an amplifier of noise. Sorry, being honest.

"First, the government stimulus payments, though imperfect, helped maintain incomes and spending capacity among households.

Second, the lockdowns prevented consumers spending on services by and large – hospitality, entertainment, travel etc."

First of all, we shouldn't have had the lockdowns as long as we did. It is hell getting people back to work to perform and a metric shit ton of demand destruction took place. It was stretched far beyond what is/was necessary and people were/are taking advantage of it. Human nature; I get that, but it exists. You can't say it doesn't, because it's like a narcotic. The more stimulus you give, the more it takes to keep the high. But what went on was another transfer of wealth from one group to another over time. Let's not kid ourselves. There were sinister forces at work to maximize people's share of the pie and now the hangover comes. Yes, admittedly Trump and the state Governors and Washington DC in general were guilty of it, but he at least TRIED to get people back to work. There were plenty of blue governors telling everyone that Trump had "no right" to tell them to open up. So, that's the history.

A second effect is the stimulus (not just to people, but to businesses and organizations), is that when govt spends money by edict, it NECESSARILY starves other entities of that same money. You know that; don't tell me you don't recognize that. So, you have a person (a bureaucrat) making proclamations that they need to spend X on this or that because ____fill in your favorite cause____ . They back it up with all the rhetoric on how wonderful it is and they only state it'll be faster, better and in color. They NEVER state the drawbacks, just the positives. In essence, they lie to the public by hiding the drawbacks. One of the big drawbacks being, if the money is spent on X, it won't be spent on Y. So, for example, tax the worker and then by FIAT decide where to spend their money, which causes them to have less disposable income themselves.

Example, spend it on climate change. Great, order up 50,000 wind turbines and electric cars at a zillion dollars and tax the worker, because believe it or not, it all has to be paid for (via taxes on income OR inflation OR some of each). What does that mean? It means the worker will NECESSARILY have less disposable income to spend themselves. A Washington DC bureaucrat will have said climate change is important, so we need to do this "for the children". The turbine and car makers will be artificially subsidized by govt because no one would have bought their product without the govt subsidies. And the tax payer will spend less on new stereos, movies, an addition to their house, a vacation or travel, or paying down a mortgage faster or donating to charities or whatever they would have normally done with that income; but THEY earned the income and a bureaucrat decided how to spend it on something that is not a legitimate govt function. Result, recession and economic stagnation because government (bureaucrats) are very inefficient at deciding what people want and implementing their vision and many businesses suffer because they no longer have demand for their products because of the delta in disposable income. Key concept for you, Steve_American: helicopter money does not work. Also, when you do that, the producers of those products (turbines and electric cars for example) smell easy money, and they jack up prices to sop up all the free govt cash and the tax payer gets bent over yet again. See the ridiculous skyrocketing prices in health care, health insurance and education. Easy money in which Uncle Sham doesn't give a shit and will pay whatever they demand. Why do they do that? Because they can! Your average worker who EARNED the money will be much more discerning on paying for good and services. The bureaucracy is just a fast moving blur of 5,000 page bills that no one reads. That's what brought down the Soviet Union and that "planned economy" BS will bring us down also. We, the USA, are not immune to the laws of economics, physics and math.

Let the worker decide what they want, not the govt, especially since Washington today is inserting themselves in all sorts of places where they don't belong. What the government is chartered to do, they don't do well and what they're not supposed to do, they insert themselves into and screw it up "for the greater good". The Pfizers, K Street, and Booz Allen's and every other beltway bandit love that thinking; ask me how I know... because I was a govt contractor for several years. The companies and govt work hand in hand to extract maximum dollars from the tax payer. And those government bureaucrats are just as slimey with their own agendas as any leadership of a company.

However, I as an individual can decide not to do business with a company. The company has to EARN my patronage. That doesn't happen with the iron-fist of government. Politicians just "declare" problems (MOSTLY nonexistent problems) and then set out to solve them to stay in orifice by buying votes. But they can't fill a friggin pothole efficiently (or keep cameras on a subway working to see what happened in an attack).

I really don't want to keep going around on this. I hope I've staggered you with my brilliance. But Steve_American, don't fool people with suspect data from internet personalities that clearly have an agenda and don't do it well. It reflects poorly on you. And frankly, stop putting words in my mouth on things I haven't said. Your reinterpretation of what others have said is tiresome. If you notice, I often post news stories or videos with no comment. Not always, but often. Let people make up their own minds. No need for you to re-interpret what people write. You can debate them, but don't tell them what they said.

"As I have previously noted, I am surprised the inflationary pressures have not been greater given this combination of events."

I'm sure you are. The govt is going to lie and massage the data to their liking. You know this if you've been alive on this rock for some time and have been paying attention. You don't have to be a genius to see it.
I guess it can always be worse. I think we have a couple more years to go on this IF we don't go full bore Weimar and shit-the-bed altogether. That's my fear because of the nosebleed numbers at this point.

"Remember though that the fiscal measure is the discretionary measures separate from the cyclical effects (automatic stabilisers). So the measure reflects explicit government policy in dealing with the pandemic.

Further, while we can only say so much based on a cross plot, it would be hard to mount a case, even with more sophisticated statistical analysis (isomg hard core econometric techniques, etc), that there was a significant relationship between the inflation outcome and the fiscal response to the stimulus."

First paragraph - mumbo - f'n - jumbo. NOT believable.

Second paragraph - more mumbo - f'n -jumbo. Not believable. Oh, he's an economics professor and a Director? Don't care. There are educated fools everywhere.

And don't start with the 'do I have an economics degree'. No I don't. Lack of an economics degree doesn't mean one can't smell BS. Just as elitists would have the ordinary person believe they have no valid opinions on the meanings of the Constitution if they don't have a law degree. Just more BS.

BTW, on a different topic, I've been to Kakadu and the Twelve Apostles and Cairns and Perth and the Bungle Bungles and Ayers Rock and Darwin and all over New Zealand also. Rotarua, Able Tasman Park, Christchurch before the earthquake, North and South Islands, Kaikoura, and on and on. Tasmania was probably the best of it all, but it was all great. Think of OZ as Southern to Northern California and New Zealand as Colorado and Maine. I say this becaue of Mitchell's "about" link.

Highly recommend it and take the time to do it. Don't rush it or don't do it at all. Look up Gap Year, Backpackers and Hostels, and tour buses going everywhere.

That is all.

[Steve_American]

[quote] Bluto quoted my link by Prof. Mitchell an MMTer, "Remember though that the fiscal measure is the discretionary measures separate from the cyclical effects (automatic stabilisers). So the measure reflects explicit government policy in dealing with the pandemic.

Further, while we can only say so much based on a cross plot, it would be hard to mount a case, even with more sophisticated statistical analysis (isomg hard core econometric techniques, etc), that there was a significant relationship between the inflation outcome and the fiscal response to the stimulus."

Then Bluto replied with this, "First paragraph - mumbo - f'n - jumbo. NOT believable.

Second paragraph - more mumbo - f'n -jumbo. Not believable. Oh, he's an economics professor and a Director? Don't care. There are educated fools everywhere."

OK Lurkers, it is up to you to decide for yourselves, if Bluto is right that those 2 statements by Bill Mitchell are mumbo jumbo.
. . , I don't know about you, but both statements seem perfectly clear. Maybe Bluto's problem is that he doesn't have even a layman's grasp of economic jargon. Like that automatic stabilisers are things like food stamps and unemployment payments that increase in a recession to add to incomes and therefore spending that adds to the GDP in the down turn. Or, like what a cross plot is.
. . . BTW -- Bill lives in Aust. and so uses British spellings.

Also, Bluto has not yet provided an example of the promise or awareness that an possible event in 2 years will effect prices now.
.

[Rich]

The free market - if it is allowed to operate without interference - automatically adjusts the prices so that demand matches supply no matter how many shortages there are. It does this by pricing the poor out of the marketplace. The need of the poor (for food, for shelter, for warmth, etc) never manifests itself as a demand in the marketplace, since the price is too high. This is essentially what is happening right now, of course.

But food is not expensive in Britain at least and I doubt it differs that much else where. I know because there is a food bank near where I live. i can't say I monitor it closely but when ever I've looked in there's been food in there. I also have friend whose got quite a lot of stuff from there. its not even like its filled with just cheap rubbish, there's even a fair amount of organic stuff left there.

Quite clearly food is abundance because otherwise the stuff would be grabbed as soon it was deposited. I'm telling you if you had a beer bank, a cigarette bank, a gold jewellery bank or an open bank of many other things the shelves would be empty. One of my pet irritations is when open source programmers say they need a regular job or higher donations in order to buy food. Jesus if the bohemian artists of the late nineteenth century, a time when even the lower middle class, who employed a servant would often go to bed hungry, could spurn regular jobs to focus on their art, I'm sure an open source programmer in a modern western country should be able to blag their way through.

To my mind its property that is problem. Its property where you constantly seem to get less for more. Yes I totally understand that feeding a family on a low income can be an extremely stressful task. But why have families got so little available money to spend on food. Because they're spending so much on housing or because benefits are too low. But why are benefits too low? Well benefits are not really low. its just that so much of benefit spending goes on housing support, to try and offset the spiralling costs of housing support, non-housing benefits have been trimmed and trimmed and trimmed. The benefit costs of keeping a four or five child family in poverty in London these days are simply astronomical. When the Tories first tried to start tackling this problem the London Mayor at the time decried it as ethnic cleansing.

Its the cost of property that is the key driver of poverty and increasing income inequality.

Note to non British posters who might have missed the joke, the London Mayor referred to earlier was Boris Johnson.