Bar Ran Dun posted:

they are constricting supply to make more money. it doesn’t really have anything to do with interest rates. it started with the supply chain crisis, but has continued on because gently caress you more money.

Engorged Pedipalps posted:

I just encountered one of these trying to disconnect a line with AT&T and it routed me to their DSL tech support department. I was not impressed.

alarumklok posted:

we're trialing it with dianne feinstein but it doesn't look promising so far

RealityWarCriminal posted:

making debt servicing more expensive will make everything cheaper because

Justin Tyme posted:

dang if only there was a way to plan out the supply chain, maybe from a single, big agency dedicated to it that centralizes logistics decisionmaking, they could "command" what prices should be given supply and demand

Sanlav posted:

The rise in CC rates is gonna clean this countries clock.

I'm some weirdo who doesn't use CC cards cause discover defrauded me when I was 19. My sisters are big in the points game and thought they had it all figured out. They mocked me for not building credit to buy a house or w/e.

During covid 1 lost a job and took ~ 8months to get a better one after 2 part times. Other took a 30% haircut to keep her job, just got it all back 3 years later. Then rates spiked.

They didn't adjust their spending and in that 3 year span they've both capsized. Entered payment plans and tore up the cards. 5 years of austerity queued up just to be rid of it. I think they owe 25-35k each.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Sanlav posted:

The rise in CC rates is gonna clean this countries clock.

I'm some weirdo who doesn't use CC cards cause discover defrauded me when I was 19. My sisters are big in the points game and thought they had it all figured out. They mocked me for not building credit to buy a house or w/e.

During covid 1 lost a job and took ~ 8months to get a better one after 2 part times. Other took a 30% haircut to keep her job, just got it all back 3 years later. Then rates spiked.

They didn't adjust their spending and in that 3 year span they've both capsized. Entered payment plans and tore up the cards. 5 years of austerity queued up just to be rid of it. I think they owe 25-35k each.

Sanlav posted:

The rise in CC rates is gonna clean this countries clock.

I'm some weirdo who doesn't use CC cards cause discover defrauded me when I was 19. My sisters are big in the points game and thought they had it all figured out. They mocked me for not building credit to buy a house or w/e.

During covid 1 lost a job and took ~ 8months to get a better one after 2 part times. Other took a 30% haircut to keep her job, just got it all back 3 years later. Then rates spiked.

They didn't adjust their spending and in that 3 year span they've both capsized. Entered payment plans and tore up the cards. 5 years of austerity queued up just to be rid of it. I think they owe 25-35k each.

Gato posted:

it can't be that stupid surely?

super sweet best pal posted:

Been thinking about how the canal is the global economy's biggest weak spot. All a terrorist group has to do is fill one of those bigass freighters with bombs and detonate it in the canal and they'll break international shipping for months.

Gato posted:

please tell me I've missed a step there, because I can see so many obvious problems with that model and I'm not even an economics understander. it can't be that stupid surely?

Gato posted:

I've been trying to wrap my head around the conventional model of inflation vs interest rates and none of it makes any goddamn sense to me, can someone tell me if I've got this right:

1. inflation is caused by beneficent employers giving their workers too much money (and absolutely nothing else whatsoever), meaning that enlightened businesses raise their prices to take advantage of all this extra money floating around
2. stupid workers complain that prices are going up, even though it's apparently their own increased purchasing power that's caused this
3. the government sees that wages are going up and freaks out responds to public concerns and raises interest rates, making debt more expensive
4. in order to deal with the increased burden of debt financing, businesses (reluctantly and with a heavy heart) accept that they've got to lay off their workers or at the very least cut their pay
5. because workers no longer have so much purchasing power, enlightened businesses look at the market (calmly and rationally) and lower prices reduce the rate at which they increase their prices because they know workers can't afford to spend as much
6. problem solved

please tell me I've missed a step there, because I can see so many obvious problems with that model and I'm not even an economics understander. it can't be that stupid surely?

wynott dunn posted:

buddy… what does your heart tell you?

Justin Tyme posted:

dang if only there was a way to plan out the supply chain, maybe from a single, big agency dedicated to it that centralizes logistics decisionmaking, they could "command" what prices should be given supply and demand

euphronius posted:

strange how terrorists never seems to want to do that huh

Ardennes posted:

I would say there is a difference between how the media portrays inflation (its the workers fault) and how most mainstream economists do, which is the rise of of oil prices in early 2022 cause a domino effect where there was a huge spike inflation and that flowed into the rest of the economy, if anything it didn't flow into wages as much as people thought. It has been sustained though in a rise of consumer credit.

Animal-Mother posted:

Animal-Mother posted:

Gato posted:

but if that's something that economists accept, why advocate for a remedy for inflation that's based on the premise that inflation is being caused by workers having too much money?

I know, I know,

Father Wendigo posted:

https://twitter.com/HielkeDoorslaer/status/1661717659161882624?t=xPKWxhaKyFADZo8zbk89Ww&s=19

RealityWarCriminal posted:

making debt servicing more expensive will make everything cheaper because

Animal-Mother posted:

Gato posted:

but if that's something that economists accept, why advocate for a remedy for inflation that's based on the premise that inflation is being caused by workers having too much money? if the increase in consumer credit is improving purchasing power disproportionate to actual wages, why would businesses ever lower prices if they know that consumers will just take on more debt to afford necessities? how would raising interest rates affect that?

I know, I know,

Animal-Mother posted:

Gato posted:

I've been trying to wrap my head around the conventional model of inflation vs interest rates and none of it makes any goddamn sense to me, can someone tell me if I've got this right:

1. inflation is caused by beneficent employers giving their workers too much money (and absolutely nothing else whatsoever), meaning that enlightened businesses raise their prices to take advantage of all this extra money floating around
2. stupid workers complain that prices are going up, even though it's apparently their own increased purchasing power that's caused this
3. the government sees that wages are going up and freaks out responds to public concerns and raises interest rates, making debt more expensive
4. in order to deal with the increased burden of debt financing, businesses (reluctantly and with a heavy heart) accept that they've got to lay off their workers or at the very least cut their pay
5. because workers no longer have so much purchasing power, enlightened businesses look at the market (calmly and rationally) and lower prices reduce the rate at which they increase their prices because they know workers can't afford to spend as much
6. problem solved

please tell me I've missed a step there, because I can see so many obvious problems with that model and I'm not even an economics understander. it can't be that stupid surely?

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1661794268388679681

Antonymous posted:

yah it's pretty much like that

The theory is that from the perspective of monetary policy inflation and unemployment are 'twin evils' in that one can only be traded for the other. And that there is a difference between inflation and rate of inflation. Historically these usually move opposite from eachother except in the late 70s they moved together so Volker crashed the economy on purpose.

We can print money, or make money cheap by lowering rates, and then certain jobs/businesses which wouldn't be profitable will become profitable and therefore unemployment will go down. At some point, labor will have the power to ask for more pay, because they can't be easily replaced, which will raise prices because wages are a large cost of production, and because demand raises with higher incomes, which will cause them to ask for even more pay because prices went up, and the rate of inflation will take off like a jet engine.

Or we can restrict money and lending, and more jobs will become unprofitable, and people will lose their jobs, and there will be price stability but unnecessary unemployment.

There is a baseline unemployment called 'non accelerating inflationary rate of unemployment' or NAIRU where the most people are employed before that takeoff in wages/prices happens. The fed's existence is tied to a mandate to manage this rate, it's the fundamental reason (on paper) that the fed exists.

And of course there is a strong bias toward price stability at the expense of labor and they will say the NAIRU was 4% unemployment but now it is ~naturally~ 6% unemployment and whatever. The unemployment rate now is 3.4% but that is by America's bullshit unemployment metric which is defined as people who did not work at all and looked for a job in the last month. if you got fired from your career job and did gig work to cover the bills you are not unemployed even though you are looking for work.

Some inflation is good because it encourages consuming now instead of later and makes debts easier to pay off in time. so the target of inflation is usually 2-3%, low enough to be background in labor demanding wage increases but high enough that you don't wait until next year to finance a new car.

Antonymous posted:

Or we can restrict money and lending, and more jobs will become unprofitable, and people will lose their jobs, and there will be price stability but unnecessary unemployment.

SKULL.GIF posted:

I don't think this is a shutdown, I think it's an offer to have 0% increase in spending for 2 years in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Hence, "freeze", but not "freeze" as it's usually used.