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You have no idea what you're talking about. Inflation is a tax on savings, but that's alright because money has no value?! But if money actually had no value,

You have no idea what you're talking about. Inflation is a tax on savings, but that's alright because money has no value?! But if money actually had no value, there would be no use for it. Consumption "has to" match production?! What's that supppsed to mean? If I produce something no one wants, people "have to" consume it anyway? You say inflation is good because it motivates people to invest (because their money loses value just sitting in a bank), but why wouldn't people want to invest even if their money was gaining in value? The purchasing power of whatever money you earn through investments is increased by deflation too, so the sooner you make a good investment, the better off you'll be.

Dylan16807 12y ago
>If I produce something no one wants, people "have to" consume it anyway? You go out of business and stop producing.
- authatheist 12y ago
  I know that, but the OP didn't seem to. He claimed consumption "has to" match production.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    It does, in the same way that effects have to match causes. The only time production can run free with "no consumption" is when someone personally bankrolls extra production, and in that case they're actually the consumer.
    - authatheist 12y ago
      So you're telling me that if I produce a bunch of shit-sandwiches and no one wants them, for whatever mysterious reason, then if I produce some more anyway, suddenly I'm the sole consumer of said sandwiches? How does that make sense, considering no one has even eaten (=consumed) one?
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        If you're making them while knowing you won't sell them, you're not actually putting them on the market. You're making them for yourself. So either the production should be completely ignored when talking about producer/consumer, or you're the real consumer here. You don't have to eat them, you're a collector. But that's just closing a minor loophole. People do not often intentionally produce market products with no intent to sell, and it'll make them run out of money. The overall rule is pretty solid even if you don't close the minor loophole.
        authatheist 12y ago
        Sure, I may produce something just for myself, but that's completely irrelevant to the general claim that consumption "has to" match production. That's a straightforward claim with straightforward implications: either something compels people to consume everything that's produced, or something compels producers to refrain from production that would go unconsumed. Otherwise the general claim is false. It is obvious nonsense, no matter how much nonsense you try to wrap around it. As a simple counterpoint to yours, for all you know, I could be on a sacred mission to provide everyone in the world with a shit-sandwich and then I can't be considered the consumer
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        >or something compels producers to refrain from production that would go unconsumed Yeah, they run out of money. The rest is a rounding error. >I could be on a sacred mission to provide everyone in the world with a shit-sandwich You're not a producer in the market sense then. Consumption is a market term, it doesn't mean anyone has to eat the sandwich. To put it simply: The original statement was "consumption has to match production with very few exceptions". Zealotry outside of markets is one of those few exceptions; it's very rare. Otherwise market forces compel them to match.
        authatheist 12y ago
        This is stupid. The guy said consumption "HAS TO" match production as if it's a law of nature or something. If you stop producing because you run out of money, that's not the same as consumption having to match production. Consumption didn't match your production until that point either, because otherwise you'd still be producing. So no, it didn't have to. Furthermore, when you stop producing because you can't anymore, that's more like production matching consumption. If you want to claim something like "consumption tends to roughly match production", that's fine. But that's different from the original claim. It's also worth noting that production comes first. For something to be consumed, it has to be produced first. But there's no magical force that makes the two match, there are just people acting. Let's call it a day.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Money has no intrinsic value, it only has value based on trust that the money We receive can be used to purchase other goods. The value of money is set by the markets (and indirectly by prices, wages, and printing new bills). If you produce and no one buys, then you stop producing because you are providing no value; simple. If your production is non perishable, you could pay rent and upkeep to stockpile it, but value is lost regardless. People have an incentive not to invest because investing is risky. Many would just sit on a gold hoard than to risk losing it, but that behavior doesn't solve any consumption problems (worse, it leads to temporary deflation, since that gold is taken out of circulation). This isn't rocket sicence, most of us have college degrees, this is just Econ 101.
- ars_technician 12y ago
  The value of everything is determined by markets. Money is no different than other assets in this regard.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  You've just said that everything produced must be consumed. Now you have a more realistic model, with stocks. You are still missing waste. Keep improving it, and you may come into something useful. You seem to have misunderstood you Econ 101 classes because "supply" isn't the same thing as "production", "demand" isn't equivalent to "consumption", and "intrinsic value" is a completely artificial construct. Also, people save mostly because they want to spend later, invest mostly because they want to have more money, and consume mostly because they want the wealth. Inflation and deflation have very complex and often non-intuitive relations with those three. You can't just extrapolate from Econ 101, not even after you understand it right.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    I didn't confuse production and consumption with supply and demand, which anyways determines costs and is not the point. We simply have little capacity to save production like we can save water in a reservoir. People save because they want to spend later, sure, but again, that is irrelevant, because production can't be saved in general someone else must borrow. Investments require taking on risk and...they actually require skills to do right (e.g. Doing your homework). So you might want to invest to get rich, but you might not want to invest because you aren't good at it or do t want to become poor. It still has to be incentivized, especially when most people just want comfortable lives. You seem to have an agenda in introducing more relationshios above this one simple fact. So make your point rather than just claiming my ignorance, because no points were argued in your post.

Dylan16807 12y ago

>If I produce something no one wants, people "have to" consume it anyway? You go out of business and stop producing.

authatheist 12y ago
I know that, but the OP didn't seem to. He claimed consumption "has to" match production.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  It does, in the same way that effects have to match causes. The only time production can run free with "no consumption" is when someone personally bankrolls extra production, and in that case they're actually the consumer.
  - authatheist 12y ago
    So you're telling me that if I produce a bunch of shit-sandwiches and no one wants them, for whatever mysterious reason, then if I produce some more anyway, suddenly I'm the sole consumer of said sandwiches? How does that make sense, considering no one has even eaten (=consumed) one?
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      If you're making them while knowing you won't sell them, you're not actually putting them on the market. You're making them for yourself. So either the production should be completely ignored when talking about producer/consumer, or you're the real consumer here. You don't have to eat them, you're a collector. But that's just closing a minor loophole. People do not often intentionally produce market products with no intent to sell, and it'll make them run out of money. The overall rule is pretty solid even if you don't close the minor loophole.
      - authatheist 12y ago
        Sure, I may produce something just for myself, but that's completely irrelevant to the general claim that consumption "has to" match production. That's a straightforward claim with straightforward implications: either something compels people to consume everything that's produced, or something compels producers to refrain from production that would go unconsumed. Otherwise the general claim is false. It is obvious nonsense, no matter how much nonsense you try to wrap around it. As a simple counterpoint to yours, for all you know, I could be on a sacred mission to provide everyone in the world with a shit-sandwich and then I can't be considered the consumer
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        >or something compels producers to refrain from production that would go unconsumed Yeah, they run out of money. The rest is a rounding error. >I could be on a sacred mission to provide everyone in the world with a shit-sandwich You're not a producer in the market sense then. Consumption is a market term, it doesn't mean anyone has to eat the sandwich. To put it simply: The original statement was "consumption has to match production with very few exceptions". Zealotry outside of markets is one of those few exceptions; it's very rare. Otherwise market forces compel them to match.
        authatheist 12y ago
        This is stupid. The guy said consumption "HAS TO" match production as if it's a law of nature or something. If you stop producing because you run out of money, that's not the same as consumption having to match production. Consumption didn't match your production until that point either, because otherwise you'd still be producing. So no, it didn't have to. Furthermore, when you stop producing because you can't anymore, that's more like production matching consumption. If you want to claim something like "consumption tends to roughly match production", that's fine. But that's different from the original claim. It's also worth noting that production comes first. For something to be consumed, it has to be produced first. But there's no magical force that makes the two match, there are just people acting. Let's call it a day.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

Money has no intrinsic value, it only has value based on trust that the money We receive can be used to purchase other goods. The value of money is set by the markets (and indirectly by prices, wages, and printing new bills). If you produce and no one buys, then you stop producing because you are providing no value; simple. If your production is non perishable, you could pay rent and upkeep to stockpile it, but value is lost regardless. People have an incentive not to invest because investing is risky. Many would just sit on a gold hoard than to risk losing it, but that behavior doesn't solve any consumption problems (worse, it leads to temporary deflation, since that gold is taken out of circulation). This isn't rocket sicence, most of us have college degrees, this is just Econ 101.

ars_technician 12y ago
The value of everything is determined by markets. Money is no different than other assets in this regard.
marcosdumay 12y ago
You've just said that everything produced must be consumed. Now you have a more realistic model, with stocks. You are still missing waste. Keep improving it, and you may come into something useful. You seem to have misunderstood you Econ 101 classes because "supply" isn't the same thing as "production", "demand" isn't equivalent to "consumption", and "intrinsic value" is a completely artificial construct. Also, people save mostly because they want to spend later, invest mostly because they want to have more money, and consume mostly because they want the wealth. Inflation and deflation have very complex and often non-intuitive relations with those three. You can't just extrapolate from Econ 101, not even after you understand it right.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  I didn't confuse production and consumption with supply and demand, which anyways determines costs and is not the point. We simply have little capacity to save production like we can save water in a reservoir. People save because they want to spend later, sure, but again, that is irrelevant, because production can't be saved in general someone else must borrow. Investments require taking on risk and...they actually require skills to do right (e.g. Doing your homework). So you might want to invest to get rich, but you might not want to invest because you aren't good at it or do t want to become poor. It still has to be incentivized, especially when most people just want comfortable lives. You seem to have an agenda in introducing more relationshios above this one simple fact. So make your point rather than just claiming my ignorance, because no points were argued in your post.