{"items": [{"author": "Hollis", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635878267732", "anchor": "fb-635878267732", "service": "fb", "text": "Heh. I was just writing something on the same topic.", "timestamp": "1384465876"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635878656952", "anchor": "fb-635878656952", "service": "fb", "text": "@Hollis: I was surprised in our discussion at how much inflation turned out to matter.", "timestamp": "1384466019"}, {"author": "Hollis", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635878736792", "anchor": "fb-635878736792", "service": "fb", "text": "Yeah. It amazes me how often financial writers don't even mention it, because it's like investing 1-5% of your money in /dev/null every year.", "timestamp": "1384466078"}, {"author": "Karl", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635878871522", "anchor": "fb-635878871522", "service": "fb", "text": "Hence we should all vote for Ron Paul...?", "timestamp": "1384466215"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635879530202", "anchor": "fb-635879530202", "service": "fb", "text": "@Karl: What are you getting at?", "timestamp": "1384466594"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635879764732", "anchor": "fb-635879764732", "service": "fb", "text": "@Hollis: \"it's like investing 1-5% of your money in /dev/null every year\"<br><br>Where \"it\" is \"keeping your money in cash or a savings account\".", "timestamp": "1384466716"}, {"author": "Hollis", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635879854552", "anchor": "fb-635879854552", "service": "fb", "text": "Yeah, or really just keeping your money in any form of monetary asset, since inflation still applies to growth accounts.", "timestamp": "1384466835"}, {"author": "Karl", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635880104052", "anchor": "fb-635880104052", "service": "fb", "text": "Half-joking, but seriously wondering where \"reality\" falls on the spectrum between, say, Krugman and the \"end the fed\" libertarian movement.<br><br>How serious a policy shift do you think this maybe ought to inspire?", "timestamp": "1384467018"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635880173912", "anchor": "fb-635880173912", "service": "fb", "text": "@Karl: \"How serious a policy shift do you think this maybe ought to inspire?\"<br><br>None?  I don't think inflation is much of a problem, just something we need to take into account when comparing financial numbers over time.", "timestamp": "1384467096"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635880298662", "anchor": "fb-635880298662", "service": "fb", "text": "(When costs rise without a corresponding rise in wages, that is a problem, but a drop in the value of the dollar over time relative to everything else in the economy just means that you shouldn't keep your money in cash.)", "timestamp": "1384467196"}, {"author": "Karl", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635880368522", "anchor": "fb-635880368522", "service": "fb", "text": "So you're telling me you're part of the 0.0001% of internet writers who use accurate, sound, and un-sensational titles.<br><br>I'm just not so familiar with the phenomenon.", "timestamp": "1384467239"}, {"author": "David&nbsp;Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635880613032", "anchor": "fb-635880613032", "service": "fb", "text": "Somewhat tangentially: inflation determines the effective rate of US capital gains tax (since the tax rate is stated in nominal terms). When rich people want low inflation, I think this might be a part of why. (And a silly part of why, since we could restate the tax rates in real terms....)", "timestamp": "1384467393"}, {"author": "David&nbsp;Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635881052152", "anchor": "fb-635881052152", "service": "fb", "text": "I'd love to see a followup post on how much the various proposed measures of inflation agree/disagree. I suspect that \"inflation\" may not be as simple as people sometimes suggest.", "timestamp": "1384467706"}, {"author": "Martin", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635886606022", "anchor": "fb-635886606022", "service": "fb", "text": "Those look like official inflation numbers.  Have you evaluated shadowstats?   http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts", "timestamp": "1384471067"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635889165892", "anchor": "fb-635889165892", "service": "fb", "text": "@Martin: I just read some of it.  Reading things like this sounds a little kooky:  \"the use of hedonic quality modeling in adjusting the prices of goods and services destroyed the concept of the CPI as a measure of out-of-pocket expenses.  Estimated by computer models, hedonic adjustments alter inflation accounting for nebulous quality changes that cannot otherwise be measured directly and that commonly are not recognized by consumers.\"", "timestamp": "1384472965"}, {"author": "Jeff&nbsp;Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635896166862", "anchor": "fb-635896166862", "service": "fb", "text": "@Martin: reading more, I think the main problem is that estimating inflation is really hard. My phone cost twice as much two years ago as a better one would now. Flying is less convenient than it was in 2000 because of stricter security.  You didn't used to be able to buy shoes with individual toes at any price. You can no longer buy the gros miguel banana.<br><br>The old method couldn't deal with these while the new one appears to be trying. I don't know enough about what exact adjustments they're making or what they should be making to say whether its working.<br><br>Separately, if you think inflation is over 5% then you also think many loans are being issued at negative real interest rates.", "timestamp": "1384475525"}, {"author": "David&nbsp;Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1384476159744", "service": "gp", "text": "When I worked in insurance, we used various inflation indices to (separately) inflate different components of losses (the different kinds of things insurance pays for inflate differently) to a present-day value, before modeling loss.", "timestamp": 1384476159}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635938372282", "anchor": "fb-635938372282", "service": "fb", "text": "\"When costs rise without a corresponding rise in wages, that is a problem, but a drop in the value of the dollar over time relative to everything else in the economy just means that you shouldn't keep your money in cash.\"<br><br>Surely that is at least sub-optimal, though, even if it's not a problem that needs to be addressed via major policy change. At the very least personal finance would be less stressful if keeping your money in cash wasn't an actively losing proposition.", "timestamp": "1384494045"}, {"author": "David&nbsp;Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635938586852", "anchor": "fb-635938586852", "service": "fb", "text": "Economists seem to mostly agree that positive-but-lowish inflation is optimal. Partly to keep away from inflation, which is dangerous, partly for other reasons (encouraging investment?).", "timestamp": "1384494288"}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/635877983302?comment_id=635938631762", "anchor": "fb-635938631762", "service": "fb", "text": "I assume it's not because of the inflation itself, though, it's because of the monetary policy it's correlated with.", "timestamp": "1384494324"}, {"author": "Brad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/116032343632043704302", "anchor": "gp-1384767997474", "service": "gp", "text": "In the book \"Your Money or Your Life,\" the authors provided a number of tips on how to develop an \"inflation-proof\" lifestyle, through practices such as buying secondhand goods, generating your own electricity with renewable energy, growing some of your own food, etc., but most of us can't completely shield ourselves from inflation. Inflation also acts as a drag on the growth of long-term investments: if you're saving for retirement, you have to factor inflation into your estimates for how much is enough for you to live on if you plan to retire some day.\n<br>\n<br>\nMany people today complain about the low interest rates of savings accounts, but those rates are low in part because inflation is relatively low. I'm old enough to remember when a standard savings account paid 5% interest and a 5-year CD paid 10%, but inflation was running in the double digits back then (early 1980s). You actually come out ahead at today's savings account interest rates compared to the net return back then when savings accounts were losing considerably more than 5% per year to inflation.", "timestamp": 1384767997}]}