By Charles Hugh Smith: It's not just inflation that is theft.
It is painfully self-evident that our financial system doesn't just enable theft, it is theft by nature and design. If you doubt this, please follow along.
Inflation is theft, but we accept inflation because we've been persuaded it benefits us. Here's the basic story: our financial system creates new credit money (i.e. debt) in quantities that are only limited by the appetites of borrowers and the value of assets they buy with freshly borrowed money.
If this expansion of credit money exceeds the actual growth rate of the real economy, inflation results.
Since our economy is ultimately based on expanding debt in every sector (government, corporations, households), inflation is a good thing because it enables borrowers to pay back old debt with cheaper money.
For example, if J.Q. Citizen makes $50,000 a year and owes $50,000 on his fixed-rate mortgage, what happens if inflation jumps 100%? Assuming J.Q.'s wages rise along with prices, his earnings jump to $100,000 while mortgage remains at $50,000. Though prices of everything else have also doubled, the debt remains fixed, making it much easier for J.Q. to service the mortgage. Before inflation, it might have taken ten days of earnings to make enough money to pay the mortgage payment; after inflation, it only takes five days' wages to make the payment.
This apparent benefit evaporates if wages do not rise along with the price of goods and services.
It is painfully self-evident that our financial system doesn't just enable theft, it is theft by nature and design. If you doubt this, please follow along.
Inflation is theft, but we accept inflation because we've been persuaded it benefits us. Here's the basic story: our financial system creates new credit money (i.e. debt) in quantities that are only limited by the appetites of borrowers and the value of assets they buy with freshly borrowed money.
If this expansion of credit money exceeds the actual growth rate of the real economy, inflation results.
Since our economy is ultimately based on expanding debt in every sector (government, corporations, households), inflation is a good thing because it enables borrowers to pay back old debt with cheaper money.
For example, if J.Q. Citizen makes $50,000 a year and owes $50,000 on his fixed-rate mortgage, what happens if inflation jumps 100%? Assuming J.Q.'s wages rise along with prices, his earnings jump to $100,000 while mortgage remains at $50,000. Though prices of everything else have also doubled, the debt remains fixed, making it much easier for J.Q. to service the mortgage. Before inflation, it might have taken ten days of earnings to make enough money to pay the mortgage payment; after inflation, it only takes five days' wages to make the payment.
This apparent benefit evaporates if wages do not rise along with the price of goods and services.