Interesting explanation.
'The government loves inflation. This is because it’s meant to stimulate economic activity by favoring debtors.
Basically, inflation is an increase in money. The more money in circulation, the less valuable each dollar is. If inflation is always increasing at some level, say 2%, then a loan you take out today is cheaper to pay back tomorrow because the money you took it out in is worth less.
From the government’s point of view, this creates activity because there’s more money so loans are easier for people to get, making risky ventures like starting a business easier to jump into,
and those loans are easier to pay back, which also helps the government because it borrows
a lot.
Deflation from this point of view is really, really bad. It means there’s less money in circulation, so each dollar gains in value, so people don’t loan it out so easily and the price of a loan you take out today is
worth more tomorrow. That’s painful for anyone who owes money.
Our entire economy is built on credit, which is just a fancy finance term for “owing money.” So it stands to reason that deflation is painful for the whole system. So painful, in fact, that the government
will fight against deflation no matter what.
Unfortunately for all of us, according to Booth, we live in a world of growing technological innovation that the government can’t and won’t stop. And that innovation naturally creates deflation.
The iPhone represents more than a dozen gadgets that in 1980 would’ve cost you thousands of dollars. It also features things you could never do in 1980, like GPS. And yet it fits in your pocket and you can buy one for, at most, $1k. Ditto for laptops and all sorts of other stuff.
As Booth points out, tech innovation is only accelerating. In fact, as unbelievable as it might seem, we might be coming out of a time of relative technological
stagnation. AI, new materials sciences, the space industry, biotech, the list goes on, with all this innovation eventually leading to deflation.
Which is just prices dropping. Which is also debt getting more expensive. Debt that the whole system is built on. So what does this lead the government to do?'
https://timelesscynic.substack.com/p/quietam-linquens-a-pathology-of-our-6b7