one-million pound banknote

Joe_Bloggs

@TruckerT

I have been trying to suggest on several threads recently that the inflation word does not describe our present situation, but neither does the deflation word - prices and wages are moving apart - when did this last happen? What was it called?

Answer Stagflation. I lost the will to read on as to when it last happened. The existence of the misery index affected my mood.
J_B.

TruckerT

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

@TruckerT



Answer Stagflation. I lost the will to read on as to when it last happened. The existence of the misery index affected my mood.
J_B.

I also lack will, especially on a Friday night, but I followed a coupla Wikipedia links, and it appears that inflation depends upon the 'money supply', which in turn depends upon 'currency in circulation', and on 'accessible bank deposits' - it seems to me that neither of the last two are increasing anywhere near as quickly as prices

TruckerT

TruckerT

TruckerT wrote: »

I also lack will, especially on a Friday night, but I followed a coupla Wikipedia links, and it appears that inflation depends upon the 'money supply', which in turn depends upon 'currency in circulation', and on 'accessible bank deposits' - it seems to me that neither of the last two are increasing anywhere near as quickly as prices

TruckerT

ps - i just followed another link, and it said that 'inflation' is also a measure of wage increase

Joe_Bloggs

My definition of insanity is posting immediately after yourself.
J_B.

TruckerT

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

My definition of insanity is posting immediately after yourself.
J_B.

But I quite often do that!

I checked out a few more links, and they confirmed my original opinion (posted elsewhere) that economic theory is also 'insane' - I read a massive long article which completely demolished all my ideas, but finished off with the suggestion that I read another article which would offer an alternative view

TruckerT

TruckerT

TruckerT wrote: »

But I quite often do that!

I checked out a few more links, and they confirmed my original opinion (posted elsewhere) that economic theory is also 'insane' - I read a massive long article which completely demolished all my ideas, but finished off with the suggestion that I read another article which would offer an alternative view

TruckerT

ps - nobody, but nobody, has the faintest clue about how to influence or predict economic outcomes, or control economic behaviour

TT

dtsazza

TruckerT wrote: »

ps - nobody, but nobody, has the faintest clue about how to influence or predict economic outcomes, or control economic behaviour

It depends on the scope that you're talking about - but you're broadly right, because it's about people at the end of the day.

On a microeconomic level it's pretty straightforward to work out how a particular individual will react to a specific incentive in a given situation.

Macroeconomics is "simply" the matter of working out how one top-level decision affects and modifies the outcome of literally billions of entities' different situations. So if you had accurate (and I mean exact, not "kind of fits the data") models of what the aggregate effects of an action would, based on how it modified millions of decisions taken by individuals which all feed back off one another - then yeah, economics would be easy.

Since we don't, it's impossible to reliably and reproducibly affect things - especially with the law of unintended consequences looming large. The only way for economics to be a "science" like physics would be to have omniscience.

Instead, it's more like the science of psychology, except that you have to predict the outcome of an experiment after being shown a crayon drawing of the subject, and not being told much about the situation.

dtsazza

lvader wrote: »

We currently have highish inflation, but the fight for some time has been against deflation. That is the biggest risk/evil.

I know, it's just terrible when things get gradually more affordable over time... :cool:

TruckerT

dtsazza wrote: »

It depends on the scope that you're talking about - but you're broadly right, because it's about people at the end of the day.

On a microeconomic level it's pretty straightforward to work out how a particular individual will react to a specific incentive in a given situation.

Macroeconomics is "simply" the matter of working out how one top-level decision affects and modifies the outcome of literally billions of entities' different situations. So if you had accurate (and I mean exact, not "kind of fits the data") models of what the aggregate effects of an action would, based on how it modified millions of decisions taken by individuals which all feed back off one another - then yeah, economics would be easy.

Since we don't, it's impossible to reliably and reproducibly affect things - especially with the law of unintended consequences looming large. The only way for economics to be a "science" like physics would be to have omniscience.

Instead, it's more like the science of psychology, except that you have to predict the outcome of an experiment after being shown a crayon drawing of the subject, and not being told much about the situation.

Actually, the only thing 'economists' do is collect data, and then try to label their collections into increasingly minute and controversial classifications

Using their data is more like show business than science, and different singers put their own interpretations on record, gathering fans, and then losing them, with the passage of time

TruckerT

diable

MoreOn wrote: »

doh, the one million pound bank note already exists, it's white

racist ;o))))))