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Heavy inflation is almost cettainly coming, hyperinflation is possible.

The former we should consider, if the latter happens the effect on our hobby spends will not be relevant to us.

Even heavy inflation will cross that line for many. However as the thread is solely about the hobby aspects the c-word gamers need not fear. Inflation will cause enough hardship that those with less expendable income will put their armies on ebay. You can get your plastic crack there at bargain prices.

Modest inflation will not effect the rest of us that much because GW product is unrealistically priced anyway, the company is in a good position to NOT raise prices in hard times and would be advised to do so.

If we get anywhere near 30% inflation, it will be a financial apocalypse for anyone not manufacturing discount goods. Unlabelled bread, that will make a killing, cheap beer likewise, space marines, not likely.

GW however has low manufacturing overheads compared to product price. plastic kits cost pennies to make but are priced at a whole lot of pounds. They can afford the extra pennies it will cost, they cannot afford the loss of revenue from limited purchasing power of the general public.

I would be completely on track for GW to be myopic regarding prices in an economic downturn, but even the most idiotic board member must at some point agree that selling 40K only to the very richest kids is not a viable market, it has to be available to the middle class, or the hobby will sink.

You cant eat Tau and the Necrons wont heat your home. However escapism is always valued in hard times, hence why cheap beer manufacturers and online software manufacturers will profit mightily.

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that if prices rocket GW prices will rise slowly once management realises they either have to sell at a price the public can afford, or close down. The one major change however will be the termination of GW retail, while GW retail keeps the hobby in the public mind, GW IP is mainstream enough it is not warranted. In times of heavy inflation GW might not be able to afford stores, but can afford am all order only business. If things get very bad they might no longer support 3d party stockists but that would be extreme.
I could see that being problematic is GW do not budge on prices and third party retail is no longer an option. The company does have one card it can play in that scenario, increasing box set sizes. Like I said earlier sprues cost pennies, so keep the price as is, (with no 3rd party discounts) or even raise it slightly, but provide double the content, triple even if times are hard.
I can see GW surviving anything short of hyperinflation with enough forward thinking in senior management.

If you expect Inflation, think about getting a loan and put it into stocks.

Not financial advise. lol?

 Manchild 1984 wrote:
If you expect Inflation, think about getting a loan and put it into stocks.

Not financial advise. lol?

Yes heavy inflation is all but inevitable now because REASONS.

Prepping is good at this time, buy tins etc. Not sure about stocks though.
Ironically potential lockdowns or economic hit will give us gamers a heads start in one aspect.
We are all or most of us already preppers in terms of things to do under mass unemployment or other ills.
Why? Because we have piles of shame.
This converts into piles of things to do if we are stuck at home there are no jobs and prices have doubled.

 Orlanth wrote:
Why? Because we have piles of shame.

I do believe I could literally spend the rest of my life working on what I have bought without ever buying another mini and still never finish it.

Yep, same here.

 Orlanth wrote:
Heavy inflation is almost cettainly coming, hyperinflation is possible.

Like, is this the same massive inflation that was coming in 2009 and it just hasn't arrived quite yet, or is this a new heavy inflation and it's going to happen in addition to the 2009 heavy inflation people were certain was coming but we still haven't got, and so we're going to get heavy inflation on top of heavy inflation?

Anyhow, if anything like that actually happened then plastic miniatures will be the last thing on anyone's mind. That's kind of the issue with this thread - people are trying to focus on price increases within a specific, very niche company, but using the broadest level macro considerations to predict them. But GW prices aren't really linked to the broader economic issues that drive overall inflation. We may or may not see a continuation of the current inflationary pressures, but whether we do or not, GW is gonna GW, and raise prices wherever they think they can, and only ease off in places where they want to target new customers.

Nurglitch wrote:
Everyone was careful to get fixed rate loans and mortgages while money was cheap, right?

hellllllllllllllllllllll yeah. And a refi to get it even lower.

Nurglitch wrote:
Everyone was careful to get fixed rate loans and mortgages while money was cheap, right?

Yes. Bought a house for 185 at historically low rates. Had a couple realtors out last week who said it would go for 310-325 and sell within 10 days. I'm just gonna hold it for awhile because prices in this area aren't coming down any time soon. I've talked to a ton of NY/NJ people who used to spend winters here but decided to stay permanently because of our taxes and lack of covid restrictions. They're selling $1M+ houses up there and moving down here which has shot the market through the roof. You also have Canadians, Germans, and vacation rental companies competing for houses here. Contractors are in short supply, building materials even shorter. They aren't building as many new homes so existing home prices are rising because of that as well. I also got a Tacoma TRD Offroad for 36k, 6 months later it was worth 42k. The market on houses and cars is insane and I feel bad for anyone who wasn't able to get into a new house/car before this inflation kicked off. Companies are giving 2-3% raises when CPI is almost 7% and even that hilariously understates true inflation.

The measure of inflation in the hobby is not GW prices.

It is what other, smaller shops end up doing that is the measure.

IMHO

 Toofast wrote:
Yes. Bought a house for 185 at historically low rates. Had a couple realtors out last week who said it would go for 310-325 and sell within 10 days. I'm just gonna hold it for awhile because prices in this area aren't coming down any time soon. I've talked to a ton of NY/NJ people who used to spend winters here but decided to stay permanently because of our taxes and lack of covid restrictions. They're selling $1M+ houses up there and moving down here which has shot the market through the roof. You also have Canadians, Germans, and vacation rental companies competing for houses here. Contractors are in short supply, building materials even shorter. They aren't building as many new homes so existing home prices are rising because of that as well. I also got a Tacoma TRD Offroad for 36k, 6 months later it was worth 42k. The market on houses and cars is insane and I feel bad for anyone who wasn't able to get into a new house/car before this inflation kicked off. Companies are giving 2-3% raises when CPI is almost 7% and even that hilariously understates true inflation.

Stay long on those assets.

Lived in Nevada at a time when Californians were cashing out. Ride that for a few years and see what happens.

You might be interested in looking at some of the news about BLS data on jobs recovered since the start of Covid (not posting links b/c of politics.) Jobs in FL have recovered to about 91% of where they were pre-Covid, with a lot of people continuing to receive public assistance and tourism continuing to be at 50-year lows. The major drivers of new job creation are in construction, hi-tech and finance, meaning you're getting new sectors.

That state is about to get a lot hotter.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Stay long on those assets.

Lived in Nevada at a time when Californians were cashing out. Ride that for a few years and see what happens.

You might be interested in looking at some of the news about BLS data on jobs recovered since the start of Covid (not posting links b/c of politics.) Jobs in FL have recovered to about 91% of where they were pre-Covid, with a lot of people continuing to receive public assistance and tourism continuing to be at 50-year lows. The major drivers of new job creation are in construction, hi-tech and finance, meaning you're getting new sectors.

That state is about to get a lot hotter.

Oh I plan on keeping this house forever, same with my parents' house once I get it. Between passive income from my investments and renting those out, I'll be able to quit working and travel the world with my wife by the age of 40.

 Toofast wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

Stay long on those assets.

Lived in Nevada at a time when Californians were cashing out. Ride that for a few years and see what happens.

You might be interested in looking at some of the news about BLS data on jobs recovered since the start of Covid (not posting links b/c of politics.) Jobs in FL have recovered to about 91% of where they were pre-Covid, with a lot of people continuing to receive public assistance and tourism continuing to be at 50-year lows. The major drivers of new job creation are in construction, hi-tech and finance, meaning you're getting new sectors.

That state is about to get a lot hotter.

Oh I plan on keeping this house forever, same with my parents' house once I get it. Between passive income from my investments and renting those out, I'll be able to quit working and travel the world with my wife by the age of 40.

Good luck and hope that comes true for you.

Just remember you will be a different person at age 40, world travel only keeps you so fulfilled, and the future holds many opportunities.

Keep your options open and listen to the Pompcast.

Hope it's more than a few feet above sea level...

 sebster wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Heavy inflation is almost cettainly coming, hyperinflation is possible.

Like, is this the same massive inflation that was coming in 2009 and it just hasn't arrived quite yet, or is this a new heavy inflation and it's going to happen in addition to the 2009 heavy inflation people were certain was coming but we still haven't got, and so we're going to get heavy inflation on top of heavy inflation?

.

This is not 2009. In 2009 some important bankers lost money on risky investments, and the rest of us had to compensate them, because important bankers are not allowed to lose money.
2021 is different, in 2009 some businesses closed down but the global economy was not turned off and people told to go home.
We are yet to pay for that, that debt has been deferred but not forgotten.

Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day. This could be it.

There is no doubt in my mind, that some people will be beating the "inflation is terrible" drum as hard as they can for the next several months.

Inflation in Australia was 3.0 in Q3 2021, a significant drop from the 3.8% for the year up to that point.

So GW will raise prices 30% in 2022.

I'm glad I am not in the US or Canada right now.
Your governments really, really need to stop printing money and start removing it from the economy (slowly to avoid financial panic).

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
Inflation in Australia was 3.0 in Q3 2021, a significant drop from the 3.8% for the year up to that point.

So GW will raise prices 30% in 2022.

I'm glad I am not in the US or Canada right now.
Your governments really, really need to stop printing money and start removing it from the economy (slowly to avoid financial panic).

It might not be possible for the US to raise interest rates enough to slow down inflation.

Raising interest rates means paying more in interest on debt. Not printing money means a certain number of businesses stop being in business, the availability of cheap credit is what's propping things up.

The combination of increased debt service, declining tax revenue plus mass unemployment might make a default unavoidable.

Which would create problems worse than any GW rate hike you can imagine.

Yeah if GW tries to raise their prices in line with inflation right now I cant imagine that would end well for them. We'd be seeing yearly price rises around $5-10 a kit Id think.

That said, my 2018 jeep renegade is worth more now at 40,000 miles than it was when I bought it brand new a few years ago. Houses in my area regularly sell within 24 hours, often going above asking price without the bidder ever even setting foot inside. Absolutely insane to watch. My gf had her car rear ended and totaled the other day. Weve been shopping for cars and car lots are selling used vehicles with 30000 miles on them for more than MSRP new would be. I realize thats more to do with scarcity than inflation but if you think about it 40k is in a similar situation. New kits can be hard to get and products regularly go out of stock. If youve got a really good unit new in box, it can be worth more than msrp if its got some hot rules and people need it to fill out a list.

We may see a situation in the future if the supply chain got bad enough where the second hand market goes up in price as it gets harder to find certain kits but deman remains the same.

 Orlanth wrote:
This is not 2009. In 2009 some important bankers lost money on risky investments, and the rest of us had to compensate them, because important bankers are not allowed to lose money.
2021 is different, in 2009 some businesses closed down but the global economy was not turned off and people told to go home.
We are yet to pay for that, that debt has been deferred but not forgotten.

That's a terrible description of the great recession. The issue wasn't just that bankers lost money, and the compensation is both mischaracterized and not a factor. The issue in 2008 was major financial institutions lost financial stability, and that uncertainty reduced consumption spending and killed investment spending. The reaction, stimulus spending and QE, led to extreme calls they hyperinflation was coming. Those calls were hopelessly wrong because they were based on utter nonsense, some vague notion that inflation is a product of M1 money supply, with no consideration of accelerator effects or even just of demand.

The same people are now making the same calls for hyperinflation. They're still wrong, albeit for entirely different reasons. What we are seeing right now is supply constraint inflation, its something that used to be fairly routine. Except, as we've seen, popular memory doesn't even last a decade, and so because we've had around 3 decades of relative price stability, people have simply no idea that periods of inflation do happen, they are normal, and what is normal is that the market adjusts, the constraint clears and inflation returns to normal levels.

What we're seeing is people seeing their first ever thunderstorm, concluding that it isn't just a flood, but a return of Noah's 40 days of flood that will cover the earth. Except it isn't Noah's flood, it isn't even a normal flood. It's just people seeing their first thunderstorm.

Oh and also the level of debt is not a factor in the rate of inflation, and if you think it is then I really just please beg you to stop making up opinions about economics because you really don't understand how it works. Look at Japan's lost decade, loads of debt stacked up trying to stimulate a stagnant economy and they were routinely facing deflation, and never once approached even a modest level of inflation.

 sebster wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
This is not 2009. In 2009 some important bankers lost money on risky investments, and the rest of us had to compensate them, because important bankers are not allowed to lose money.
2021 is different, in 2009 some businesses closed down but the global economy was not turned off and people told to go home.
We are yet to pay for that, that debt has been deferred but not forgotten.

That's a terrible description of the great recession. The issue wasn't just that bankers lost money, and the compensation is both mischaracterized and not a factor. The issue in 2008 was major financial institutions lost financial stability, and that uncertainty reduced consumption spending and killed investment spending. The reaction, stimulus spending and QE, led to extreme calls they hyperinflation was coming. Those calls were hopelessly wrong because they were based on utter nonsense, some vague notion that inflation is a product of M1 money supply, with no consideration of accelerator effects or even just of demand.

The same people are now making the same calls for hyperinflation. They're still wrong, albeit for entirely different reasons. What we are seeing right now is supply constraint inflation, its something that used to be fairly routine. Except, as we've seen, popular memory doesn't even last a decade, and so because we've had around 3 decades of relative price stability, people have simply no idea that periods of inflation do happen, they are normal, and what is normal is that the market adjusts, the constraint clears and inflation returns to normal levels.

What we're seeing is people seeing their first ever thunderstorm, concluding that it isn't just a flood, but a return of Noah's 40 days of flood that will cover the earth. Except it isn't Noah's flood, it isn't even a normal flood. It's just people seeing their first thunderstorm.

Oh and also the level of debt is not a factor in the rate of inflation, and if you think it is then I really just please beg you to stop making up opinions about economics because you really don't understand how it works. Look at Japan's lost decade, loads of debt stacked up trying to stimulate a stagnant economy and they were routinely facing deflation, and never once approached even a modest level of inflation.

One needs a holistic view of the global economy to properly catalogue the causes or consequences of the 2008 collapse. You highlighted one factor amongst many, so did I.
The difference is that "the major financial institutions lost financial stability" because of rampant greed and corruption. They bet the bank on high risk BS backed up by fake ratings and massed collusion to rig the system, then expected everyone else to pay via tax when the party ran out of balloons.
Then the dominos started falling until unrelated industries has issues due to problems that were related only by a long chain of events.

As for hyperinflation that call is entirely different.
We are feeling inflation right now, far more significantly than pre-COVID. This may well get worse if there are further cycles of lockdowns, especially if the next COVID mutation is nastier than Omicron.
I don't know which bubble you are fortunate enough to inhabit, but you should have noticed the inflation by now. It is real, it is happening, it is not a prediction or a calculation but a living reality. This will get worse.
Real people are getting heavily fethed by lockdown, whole sectors are losing money, some like the hospitality sector got income starved and not all categories got compensation. What compensation occurred requires public borrowing on the scale of a major war and will take decades to repay, or may result in default.

The main question is how much worse?
We will see a worsening of inflation if more lockdowns occur, hyperinflation. Not guaranteed.

That being said the main warning calls for hyperinflation have different roots, and are conspiracy based. I prefer to keep an open mind about that. The 'Great Reset' is not a concealed movement and has very powerful people behind it. One doesn't need too much tinfoil to come to the conclusion that the best way to reset the economy is to crash the existing one. hyperinflation would do that, but is not the only tool.

The Great Reset does concern me, and should concern you. When someone wants to level the playing field it is seldom to actually make things fair, but to reposition those who control the field and expand power. Economic feudalism is a major draw, why give people mortgages when you can own them instead. I cannot write off the hyperinflation threat, but it is only one of several plays that could be occurring.

 sebster wrote:
people have simply no idea that periods of inflation do happen, they are normal

In a failing system.

I seriously did not realize how much I missed Sebster

 Orlanth wrote:
One needs a holistic view of the global economy to properly catalogue the causes or consequences of the 2008 collapse. You highlighted one factor amongst many, so did I.
The difference is that "the major financial institutions lost financial stability" because of rampant greed and corruption.

No, economics is not just a means for you to pass moral judgements. I mean the idea that people were being greedy in 2008 but they weren't being greedy in, I don't know, 1995 or 1968 or whatever other year is just silly. When economic systems break it is not because of greed, which is an ever present reality of human existence. The problem is because there were flaws in the economic system.

They bet the bank on high risk BS backed up by fake ratings and massed collusion to rig the system, then expected everyone else to pay via tax when the party ran out of balloons.
Then the dominos started falling until unrelated industries has issues due to problems that were related only by a long chain of events

No. Housing crashes happen. They're not good but they are never enough to destabilise a world economy by themselves. The issue was the explosion in derivative and shadow financial assets over the prior decade, and the complete failure to control or properly report the risks of trillions in exposure by institutions holding these assets. The sub-prime crisis wiped out a lot of assets, but no more so than a lot of other localized crashes. The problem came when those losses hit financial institutes who's complex off balance sheet derivatives left them unclear of their own leverage, while those derivatives tied them to other financial institutes in complex ways, who in turn also had no idea what their actual leverage was. That allowed instability to spread, even to companies with no major exposures because there were no mechanisms to know those companies weren't exposed.

To get that back to the actual issue being debated, to respond to the fall in consumer spending and collapse in investment caused by the financial collapse, one of the measures taken was to buy up large amounts of debt to put more cash in to the economy. A lot of pundits concluded that because this was printing new money, then inflation and even hyperinflation will surely follow. This was, quite simply, complete nonsense. Inflation isn't purely a product of the money supply, but also the accelerator, the level of aggregate demand and the level of supply. So not only did we fail to see hyperinflation, we didn't see any inflation at all, instead inflation sat near 0% for years. And you know, people get a lot of stuff badly wrong, economics is a field that invites certainty of complex interactions and soon enough everyone says something foolish... but none of the people who got inflation so hopelessly wrong then ever owned it, reflected on it, or spoke about how they might have changed their thinking afterwards. And now those exact same people are claiming these new, brief period of moderate inflation is absolutely, certainly the beginnings of hyperinflation, and people are still taking them seriously.

I don't know which bubble you are fortunate enough to inhabit, but you should have noticed the inflation by now. It is real, it is happening, it is not a prediction or a calculation but a living reality. This will get worse.

You are claiming I haven't noticed inflation. In my post, to which you were replying to I wrote "What we are seeing right now is supply constraint inflation"... and you replied by saying that I haven't noticed the inflation.

Dude, my reply was 313 words. That's about a third longer than the Very Hungry Caterpillar. That can't be too much for you to read and take in, so what happened?

The main question is how much worse?
We will see a worsening of inflation if more lockdowns occur, hyperinflation. Not guaranteed.

No, once again periods of inflation are entirely normal, and the last few decades of extremely flat inflation have been an unusual outlier. You are seeing the first thunderstorm of your life and speculating that it is definitely a flood and might just be the return of Noah's flood.

That being said the main warning calls for hyperinflation have different roots, and are conspiracy based. I prefer to keep an open mind about that. The 'Great Reset' is not a concealed movement and has very powerful people behind it. One doesn't need too much tinfoil to come to the conclusion that the best way to reset the economy is to crash the existing one. hyperinflation would do that, but is not the only tool.

Yes, I too am concerned about the deep plots of the crab people from Mars.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
In a failing system.

No, currency inflation is a normal thing, and vastly preferable to the opposite.

Did this discussion just reference the Great Reset?

Let's just consider that for a moment before we proceed with this discussion.

 sebster wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
One needs a holistic view of the global economy to properly catalogue the causes or consequences of the 2008 collapse. You highlighted one factor amongst many, so did I.
The difference is that "the major financial institutions lost financial stability" because of rampant greed and corruption.

No, economics is not just a means for you to pass moral judgements. I mean the idea that people were being greedy in 2008 but they weren't being greedy in, I don't know, 1995 or 1968 or whatever other year is just silly. When economic systems break it is not because of greed, which is an ever present reality of human existence. The problem is because there were flaws in the economic system.

The "flaws in the economic system" were due to greed and corruption.
Economies continue 'as normal' until a threshold is reached, just like individuals. A person can act normally regardless of the state of their bank account until they go bankrupt. However when that thresholsd is crossed big changes occur.
Companies are the same but bigger, so are nations.
in the case of the 2008 crash loose credit, rampant greed in the banking sector and dishonest labelling through ratings agencies caused a bubble that expanded until elasticity was lost, then it continued more as an artificial dotted line when the true economic status was further concealed by vested interests.
eventually hard reality intervened and bang, the system failed.
These were your flaws:
- greed
- corruption.

They bet the bank on high risk BS backed up by fake ratings and massed collusion to rig the system, then expected everyone else to pay via tax when the party ran out of balloons.
Then the dominos started falling until unrelated industries has issues due to problems that were related only by a long chain of events

No. Housing crashes happen. They're not good but they are never enough to destabilise a world economy by themselves. The issue was the explosion in derivative and shadow financial assets over the prior decade, and the complete failure to control or properly report the risks of trillions in exposure by institutions holding these assets.

The issue was the explosion in derivative and shadow financial assets over the prior decade, = greed
the complete failure to control or properly report the risks of trillions in exposure by institutions holding these assets. = corruption

Where did this greed and corruption occur

explosion in derivative and shadow financial assets = dishonest bankers buying junk trades made of mostly illusory assets
complete failure to control or properly report the risks = ratings agencies, bank overseers and management in banks

So greed and corruption of bankers.
....Who got bailouts
....at the cost of the taxpayer
....and didnt lose their jobs
....while many lost their jobs and homes
....and unrelated industries which hadn't cheated the system were thrown to the wall

And they were back to their old tricks by 2010 at the latest after pretending to say sorry to congress.

 sebster wrote:

To get that back to the actual issue being debated, to respond to the fall in consumer spending and collapse in investment caused by the financial collapse, one of the measures taken was to buy up large amounts of debt to put more cash in to the economy. A lot of pundits concluded that because this was printing new money, then inflation and even hyperinflation will surely follow. This was, quite simply, complete nonsense. Inflation isn't purely a product of the money supply, but also the accelerator, the level of aggregate demand and the level of supply. So not only did we fail to see hyperinflation, we didn't see any inflation at all, instead inflation sat near 0% for years. And you know, people get a lot of stuff badly wrong, economics is a field that invites certainty of complex interactions and soon enough everyone says something foolish... but none of the people who got inflation so hopelessly wrong then ever owned it, reflected on it, or spoke about how they might have changed their thinking afterwards. And now those exact same people are claiming these new, brief period of moderate inflation is absolutely, certainly the beginnings of hyperinflation, and people are still taking them seriously.

That was then, this is now.
Covid happened. Economies were shut down, many sectors of the economy were left to collapse, some got a measure of compensation, others not. Mostly at the cost to public borrowing and a further burden on the economy.
Inflation is now here.

It can get worse, the question now is how much worse.

 sebster wrote:

I don't know which bubble you are fortunate enough to inhabit, but you should have noticed the inflation by now. It is real, it is happening, it is not a prediction or a calculation but a living reality. This will get worse.

You are claiming I haven't noticed inflation. In my post, to which you were replying to I wrote "What we are seeing right now is supply constraint inflation"... and you replied by saying that I haven't noticed the inflation.

Dude, my reply was 313 words. That's about a third longer than the Very Hungry Caterpillar. That can't be too much for you to read and take in, so what happened?

So you are now complaining that I am part quoting you and not reading the whole message and cherry picking.
You have been doing that for best part of two decades.

However to answer you we are seeing more than supply constraint inflation, we are seeing general opportunistic inflation (that ole' greed again). money printing causing dilution of currency value, the shadow of large scale public borrowing, rising costs (including infrastructure cost hikes caused by ill planned energy restructuring for green agenda politics), tax rises, wage rises.
All the usual suspects.
To which we can add three major whammies to which we cant quantify a risk level..
- Possibility of major global or regional conflicts on the horizon.
- Covid uncertainty because we are facing a virus with a reasonably high mutation rate to which extreme reactions are likely to occur, warranted or not.
- Great Reseters doing some great resetting, whatever that happens to be. Though we are assured at the end we will own nothing, and be happy.

 sebster wrote:

The main question is how much worse?
We will see a worsening of inflation if more lockdowns occur, hyperinflation. Not guaranteed.

No, once again periods of inflation are entirely normal, and the last few decades of extremely flat inflation have been an unusual outlier. You are seeing the first thunderstorm of your life and speculating that it is definitely a flood and might just be the return of Noah's flood.

Hardly the first thunderstorm, we can see Zimbabwe from here, with the same technology available to us, as anywhere else.
Covid is new through, and the global reaction to it is new, consequences are yet to be calculated as we have never unplugged the entire economy without a major war before, and we might also get the major war.

 sebster wrote:

Yes, I too am concerned about the deep plots of the crab people from Mars.

Laughing off a cabal of flat earthers is rational.
Laughing off a cabal of international financiers and power elite, not so rational

 sebster wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
In a failing system.

No, currency inflation is a normal thing, and vastly preferable to the opposite.

 Easy E wrote:
Did this discussion just reference the Great Reset?

Let's just consider that for a moment before we proceed with this discussion.

The mods haven't shown much of a problem with complaining about <<<globalists>>> and I doubt they'll start now.

The money from Quantitative Easing has mostly gone into stocks and housing, thus the high stock market and high housing prices lately.

The inflation of goods is probably more complex a problem than we've seen in a long time, and a lot of it is bad, self-inflicted government decisions:

China's tiff with Australia has caused power shortages to the point where their manufacturing is at a standstill in some provinces. Supply side issues raise cost of goods worldwide.
The USA's attempted green shift has throttled oil production leading to massive fuel price increases which affect the entire system. Baked in fuel cost inflation on everything in the USA.
Germany's decision to de-nuclearize their power grid has increased demand for natural gas spiking prices across Europe. Bake in fuel cost inflation on everything in Europe.

Add in how COVID is messing with supply chains, the global microchip shortage that's throttling the automotive industry, and you've got lots of reasons on top of QE for inflation.

 John Prins wrote:
The money from Quantitative Easing has mostly gone into stocks and housing, thus the high stock market and high housing prices lately.

The inflation of goods is probably more complex a problem than we've seen in a long time, and a lot of it is bad, self-inflicted government decisions:

China's tiff with Australia has caused power shortages to the point where their manufacturing is at a standstill in some provinces. Supply side issues raise cost of goods worldwide.
The USA's attempted green shift has throttled oil production leading to massive fuel price increases which affect the entire system. Baked in fuel cost inflation on everything in the USA.
Germany's decision to de-nuclearize their power grid has increased demand for natural gas spiking prices across Europe. Bake in fuel cost inflation on everything in Europe.

Add in how COVID is messing with supply chains, the global microchip shortage that's throttling the automotive industry, and you've got lots of reasons on top of QE for inflation.

The US' gas costs have little to do with domestic production or green energy, and almost everything to do with the pandemic massively decreasing demand for oil (as seen by 2020's record low gas prices) leading to OPEC slashing production, followed by everyone deciding the pandemic is over and OPEC not having fully throttled up production again. Domestic production is up dramatically over a five year period, and has mostly recovered from the 2020 COVID slump.

 Orlanth wrote:
The "flaws in the economic system" were due to greed and corruption.

No. People are greedy. This is true in when an economy is going fine, and its true when part of an economy is struggling. But we only notice the greed when the economy has an issue because that's the only time that people on the internet with opinions start thinking that calling some other group immoral is a solution.

the complete failure to control or properly report the risks of trillions in exposure by institutions holding these assets. = corruption

This is moralistic twaddle. Seriously, please just stop thinking you can call some other person greedy and think you've reached any kind of conclusion. It is nonsense. Please go and learn what a derivative is and what it is for (because no, it isn't just a speculative bet). Because most derivatives are actually taken to reduce risk, control exposures to asset & commodity price fluctuations that companies don't want to be exposed to. But when the size of the derivative market grows rapidly then the complexity of interactions between derivatives grows even faster, and you need new layers of accounting & financial regs to bring transparency to exposures and local & market wide risks.

The problem came because regs didn't come close to keeping up with derivative growth. So while individual companies might have been able to build their own systems to track exposures, the lack of public reporting led to no understanding of whole sector exposures and how instability among companies tied to each other by derivative exposures could drag down the whole financial sector.

explosion in derivative and shadow financial assets = dishonest bankers buying junk trades made of mostly illusory assets

No. Pork bellies and orange juice pulp and stocks and mortgages are in fact real assets.

complete failure to control or properly report the risks = ratings agencies, bank overseers and management in banks

Except I sat in accounting classes in the late 1990s with lecturers talking about this issue, reading quotes from banking and financial CEOs talking about the need to build regulations around this. This was a major focus with all manner of senior financial staff wanting it fixed.

That was then, this is now.

Yes, but the economy remains a mechanical system and the only way to understand it is through understand its mechanical elements, not through moralistic nonsense. As such, the people to listen on future inflation are still the technical experts, who are expecting inflation within accepted bounds well in to next year, and not the moralistic people on the internet with opinions.

Inflation is now here.

It can get worse, the question now is how much worse.

No, the first question is if it will continue, or if it the product of supply shortages due to disruption in global supply chains, and if it will stabilise or drop as those disruptions end.

However to answer you we are seeing more than supply constraint inflation, we are seeing general opportunistic inflation (that ole' greed again).

"No, no, don't you see, some of it might be price rises due to supply shortages... but some of it is people being *greedy*."

Seriously dude, this is not a morality play.

Hardly the first thunderstorm, we can see Zimbabwe from here

Yes, Mugabe's Zimbabwe is entirely just like what is happening in liberal democracies. Definitely.

Laughing off a cabal of international financiers and power elite, not so rational

Ah yes, that annual event where the most influential and the wealthiest people in the world all meet and talk with each other, with the topics of conversation put on the public record... and it causes everyone to make up all sorts of wild conspiracies.

Meanwhile, over at the actual great reset forums, you just get Prince Charles talking to some apparatchik from the World Bank about how giving people a bigger stake in the world economy would produce more social resilience or something or other.

We might get too much of a normal thing.

Of course we might. And yesterday it got quite hot here and if that heat continued and just got hotter and hotter then they would have been awful, and if it got worse than that then people would have started dying, everything would have caught on fire, and if that heat continued spreading out to the rest of planet, never ending, just getting hotter then it would have eventually been a planet killing event. But instead evening came, it cooled down and in hindsight it was quite a nice day, except for that period for about an hour just after lunch.

I mean seriously, do you remember the early 90s as a period of impossible economic suffering? Do you often talk about the early 90s as the last time a secret cabal of billionaires attempted a great reset? No, because inflation then, at similar rates to today, was something that had to be managed but was not in fact some inevitable snowball of hyperinflation and total systemic collapse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 John Prins wrote:
The money from Quantitative Easing has mostly gone into stocks and housing, thus the high stock market and high housing prices lately.

1) Money doesn't and can't disappear in to housing and stocks. In an asset trade for every buyer there is a seller. On buying an asset, the buyer loses $100 and the seller... gains $100. The transaction will change which person ends up purchasing goods and services, but the level of overall economic activity is not affected.

2) The unemployment rate has gone from over 10 to sub 4. There are people buying more stuff than they were, and no reason at all to think money supplied by QE is somehow the only money that isn't part of that increase in demand.

China's tiff with Australia has caused power shortages to the point where their manufacturing is at a standstill in some provinces.

As much as I'd like to think my little country is driving worldwide issues, China's policy to our coal is far from the biggest issue with their energy sector. They've got deeper problems than not taking our coal, but you are right to raise China's energy problem as a major issue with the disruptions we're seeing right now.

 sebster wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
The "flaws in the economic system" were due to greed and corruption.

No. People are greedy. This is true in when an economy is going fine, and its true when part of an economy is struggling. But we only notice the greed when the economy has an issue because that's the only time that people on the internet with opinions start thinking that calling some other group immoral is a solution.

You are on the internet too.
However a lot of us notice the greed at other times. And there are levels of greed, fighting the boss for a pay rise matches clashes desires on both sides of a desk.
However there is an expectation that speculators in major banks can make high risk bets and expect to keep their winning if they win and pass on all losses to the taxpayer if they don't.
That greed gets peoples backs up, with good reason.

 sebster wrote:

This is moralistic twaddle. Seriously, please just stop thinking you can call some other person greedy and think you've reached any kind of conclusion. It is nonsense. Please go and learn what a derivative is and what it is for (because no, it isn't just a speculative bet). Because most derivatives are actually taken to reduce risk, control exposures to asset & commodity price fluctuations that companies don't want to be exposed to. But when the size of the derivative market grows rapidly then the complexity of interactions between derivatives grows even faster, and you need new layers of accounting & financial regs to bring transparency to exposures and local & market wide risks.

When you are triggered by facts Sebster, it is time to quit.
Derivatives might have labels about risk reduction, but that is not the reality. You are only making it worse when you admit that derivatives have a well sounding narrative, because the historical reality is the same derivative market being used to ruin millions of people, and place a tax burden on the citizen for bailouts to cover the handful of suits fething over for a goddamn percentage.

 sebster wrote:

The problem came because regs didn't come close to keeping up with derivative growth. So while individual companies might have been able to build their own systems to track exposures, the lack of public reporting led to no understanding of whole sector exposures and how instability among companies tied to each other by derivative exposures could drag down the whole financial sector.

The problem came because regs could not keep up because of massive scale corporate lobbying.
Exasperated by the bailouts which enabled and abetted further lobbying that meant that nothing could be done in hindsight.

 sebster wrote:

explosion in derivative and shadow financial assets = dishonest bankers buying junk trades made of mostly illusory assets

No. Pork bellies and orange juice pulp and stocks and mortgages are in fact real assets.

It is all part of the illusion.
Bankers add non-stocks into tranches for easy profit, went all in due to corruption and greed and bet the house on them.
It doesnt matter what cards you draw the hand after you are all in and lose. You need money to buy pork bellies.
So it doesn't matter if the F.C.O.J. projections are good and the cold weather has not damaged the orange harvest, because its overshadowed by the catshit wrapped in dogshit.
I can have fun playing with memes too.

 sebster wrote:

complete failure to control or properly report the risks = ratings agencies, bank overseers and management in banks

Except I sat in accounting classes in the late 1990s with lecturers talking about this issue, reading quotes from banking and financial CEOs talking about the need to build regulations around this. This was a major focus with all manner of senior financial staff wanting it fixed.

Plenty of people could read the signs, plenty of people counterlobbied for regulation, or ran shorts or recommended people keep a hand in apocalypse stocks. But none of these voices were heard over the lobbying that called for statis or even further de-regulation.

 sebster wrote:

That was then, this is now.

Yes, but the economy remains a mechanical system and the only way to understand it is through understand its mechanical elements, not through moralistic nonsense. As such, the people to listen on future inflation are still the technical experts, who are expecting inflation within accepted bounds well in to next year, and not the moralistic people on the internet with opinions.

It isn't moralistic nonsense if:
- It's true
- There is something that can/could be done about it.

Assuming you are able to read your own excuses you yourself are aware the 2008 crash existed and that there were causes that could have been prevented.

It is entirely good sense morality to question when a situation could have been prevented by regulation and was not due to vested interests

 sebster wrote:

Inflation is now here.

It can get worse, the question now is how much worse.

No, the first question is if it will continue, or if it the product of supply shortages due to disruption in global supply chains, and if it will stabilise or drop as those disruptions end.

Will they end though?
- Sabre rattling is increasing not decreasing.
- Covid has not gone away and some countries are doubling down on draconian measures.

Forum rules prevent me from quantifying those points further so don't get picky. Just turn on the TV and observe. You will see that the only certainty is uncertainty.

 sebster wrote:

However to answer you we are seeing more than supply constraint inflation, we are seeing general opportunistic inflation (that ole' greed again).

"No, no, don't you see, some of it might be price rises due to supply shortages... but some of it is people being *greedy*."
Seriously dude, this is not a morality play.

Are you so divorced from reality you don't understand that because some people put up prices because they have to others will because they can.
Welcome to planet Earth, enjoy your stay.

 sebster wrote:

Hardly the first thunderstorm, we can see Zimbabwe from here

Yes, Mugabe's Zimbabwe is entirely just like what is happening in liberal democracies. Definitely.

Stop trying to mince words, you implied this was the current generations only encounter with hyperinflation. I showed otherwise.

 sebster wrote:

Laughing off a cabal of international financiers and power elite, not so rational

Ah yes, that annual event where the most influential and the wealthiest people in the world all meet and talk with each other, with the topics of conversation put on the public record... and it causes everyone to make up all sorts of wild conspiracies.

If people with tinfoil hats put words into the mouths of these people you would have a point. That would be conspiracy.
But these words came from press conferences from official websites and from quotes directly from delegates mouths.

 sebster wrote:

Meanwhile, over at the actual great reset forums, you just get Prince Charles talking to some apparatchik from the World Bank about how giving people a bigger stake in the world economy would produce more social resilience or something or other.

If those delegates or members were denounced as cranks by the majority you would still have a point.
But these delates were not denounced by any other delegates and appear to speak for the majority.

No one said 'Prince Charles doesn't speak for us'.
Also it was not just Prince Charles saying these things, it is echoed by others with more power, and they were not denounced as fringe either.

 sebster wrote:

We might get too much of a normal thing.

Of course we might. And yesterday it got quite hot here and if that heat continued and just got hotter and hotter then they would have been awful, and if it got worse than that then people would have started dying, everything would have caught on fire, and if that heat continued spreading out to the rest of planet, never ending, just getting hotter then it would have eventually been a planet killing event. But instead evening came, it cooled down and in hindsight it was quite a nice day, except for that period for about an hour just after lunch.

You manage to get it wrong even when you try reductio ad absurdem. That takes 'skill'.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49628275

Mass casualties in an advanced nation from a simple relatable and entirely normal cause. And it happened before in 2003.

 sebster wrote:

I mean seriously, do you remember the early 90s as a period of impossible economic suffering? Do you often talk about the early 90s as the last time a secret cabal of billionaires attempted a great reset? No, because inflation then, at similar rates to today, was something that had to be managed but was not in fact some inevitable snowball of hyperinflation and total systemic collapse.

The early 90's had other problems. Saddam for one.
But the information age was in its infancy.
Corporate feudalism was not possible then, it is entirely possible now. The infrastructure for a global digital only economy is in place, it was not there either end of the 90's.
It is now possible to control a population via social credit, that is happening already in China. And it is possible to drive a cashless society and force digitisation of all transactions, there are even some quotable benefits in doing so which can be used to drive through opposition.