I do have like 2 people I only talk to once or twice a year that I don’t have any other known contact for. But I only use it very rarely because of that. If I ever stop talking to them, I’ll finally delete the whole account.
Yeah, that’s the real “internet explorer of messaging services”. Absolutely sucks to use it (doesn’t even.deliver messages to me half the time), but 90% insist on it for chat groupa and such.
The problem is that cold is merely the absence of heat, you can’t inject cold into something or generate cold, because there is no such thing as cold. It’s kind of like how we can make a light bulb, but we can’t make a dark bulb.
Sadly, a mini black hole would suck up everything around it. Much like a tiny Katamari Damacy, it would quite quickly consume everyone and everything around it. Of course after not too long it would become a regular sized black hole.
Some mini black holes do not grow into black holes. They collapse. The issue is that they aren’t stable for any decent length of time. Fractions of a nanosecond.
Like when OG AdBlock was created and there was an all-out race between individual websites and AdBlock?
Then OG AdBlock sold out and allowed “approved” ads to still show.
We are seeing history repeat. The only reason ads survived was due to increasing number of users who weren’t using adblock.
Now, with market saturation, Google is starting to fight back.
I would absolutely love to see a revitalization on proxy software specifically designed to eliminate ads and tracking. I haven’t looked into this in quite some time but I think we’re crossing into this territory now.
The pessimist in me says to look out for a bill authored by Google to make adblocking illegal.
But the optimist in me says “the Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.”
If adblocking becomes illegal people will still do it (and you should too), some really stupid article tried to claim circumventing Anti-Adblock was illegal under DMCA a while back (interestingly they took it down when people continued to block their ads) and the filter providers did it anyway. Piracy still happens in countries where it’s criminalized, ad blocking will continue, though the Quorans (used them as an example because they’re the biggest snobs about the law and ethics) and people like them will likely use it less, though it’s not like they don’t already think it’s wrong (some also think it’s already illegal).
To be fair I don’t think it is possible to come up with a legitimate argument for making adblocking illegal. You would have to argue that people aren’t allowed to own anything such as their computers.
The only real argument that could work would be that watching ads to get content is a form of transaction and not watching ads is therefore akin to piracy. However, this exact same argument could be used to ban ALL forms of unsolicited advertising (billboards, junk mail, etc) because under that model, many advertisers are essentially committing theft of your time and attention, which is shown to have some amount of monetary value by the previous transaction argument.
Without JS, you wouldn't have ad blockers and youtube could just bake their ads on the videos themselves while streaming them. Thinking about it, I don't think it's off the table for them.
The pessimist in me says to look out for a bill authored by Google to make adblocking illegal.
“These brave content creators, who produce such culturally significant shows as ‘Ow my balls’ and ‘Matrix 1999 [full rip]’, are being literally murdered by hackers who use adblockers. These pirates use their hacking technology to steal this content and threaten our very way of life. While we regret resorting to legislation, we are left with no choice but to show these thieves the harsh reality of the criminal justice system.”
The pessimist in me says to look out for a bill authored by Google to make adblocking illegal.
Not a lawyer, but that doesn’t sound legally possible. It’s like turning off the sound when the ads on TV start, you must have the right to consume the data that has been delivered to you however you desire.
The current Google approach is adding attestation to Google Chrome. They claim that it is to stop bots, but it can (and will be, they are slow boiling us) also used to block adblockers.
Anyone who cares about free (as freedom) should stop using chrome and clones and switch to Firefox.
No, thanks. Mozilla is the worst of the open source world. I prefer not to give them market share. Brave works beautifully for me and YouTube may disappear tomorrow and my life wouldn’t change a single bit.
Boy, I’ve been a FF user for 20 years before. Don’t try to school me, please. And yes, Brave is actually much better than FF and I enjoy a lot using it.
You keep saying that you were a proponent of FF back in the day, but the fact that you aren’t giving credence to the experiences that made you switch lessens your credibility and weakens any persuasion power you might have on people switching from FF to Brave.
It would help your cause to explain what made you switch so others might understand you.
But from your demeanor, it seems like you dgaf about other people. So I guess that’s fair.
Brave is based on chromium, which is open-source via Google. Now, I may have this wrong, but my understanding is that the reason why Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Chromium-based browsers are the only browsers still around is because Apple, Google and Mozilla are the only companies with the money to keep up with all the new “standards” and features Google keeps shoving into Chrome. While Chromium may be open-source, if Google pulls the plug then it’ll only be a matter of time before the Chromium browsers run out of steam and can no longer keep up. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s part of Google’s plan. Keep people in the ecosystem by giving them the illusion that they’re using a different browser while maintaining control over the browser they use and the ability to force them onto a different browser at any time.
This is all ignoring the fact that Brave is a shitty browser. I can’t remember where I read this, but supposedly Brave collects a lot of data on your usage despite advertising itself as a privacy-conscious browser.
I would absolutely love to see a revitalization on proxy software specifically designed to eliminate ads and tracking. I haven’t looked into this in quite some time but I think we’re crossing into this territory now.
Privoxy is still being actively worked on. Not sure how well it works for YouTube though. I suppose we may see a flurry of activity on that front if they keep pushing this.
I do this too, but I use the moves I learned during my breakdancing days to spin on my head and evenly distribute a layer of suds all over my body. It’s super efficient!
The reason we shrink heating devices down but not cooling devices is a combined consequence of economics and the laws of thermodynamics.
First an analogy: Making a boat that moves downstream a river is easy. Take any buoyant material like a log or a branch and drop it in water. Presto, you’ve got a mode of transportation of any size. Want to go upstream? Now you need motors to fight the current. Putting a motor on a large piece of wood, (a boat) is economically viable. Putting one on thousands of sticks? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
As a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics, the the universe naturally converts all potential energy (fuel, electricity) into heat. The universe will do this basically on its own, over time, constantly. This is called entropy.
Doing the reverse, taking heat and putting it back into potential energy, i.e. cooling, is difficult. You basically have to pay a price to the universe in some other way, kind of like how a motorboat has to push more water downstream than the current would have naturally moved on it’s own. This is what heat pumps (AC, fridge) do. Heat pumps put some of that heat back into potential energy, in exchange for also releasing potential energy into heat… The trick here is to do these two things in different places. The fridge’s motor converts some electrical energy into heat in exchange for being able to move some of the heat in the fridge outside of the fridge. The consequence of this is that the room the fridge is in is now hotter. Mostly because you took the heat in the fridge and moved it into the room, but also because the fridge’s motor also added some MORE heat to the room in the process in order to fight entropy. So to actually make this useful, you need to insulate what you are cooling (or it will just get warm again, warmer than it was before, because you added heat to the room), and you also want to dispose of the heat in the room. So you pump that out into the atmosphere…
Anyway, long story short, you need insulation, refrigerant, motors, heat changers, lots of power to fight the universe’s tendency to spread heat everywhere. Technically you could miniaturize these things, but they become less efficient as you shrink them down, to the point where things smaller than a fridge are just not practical to make compared to the benefit you get from having them.
Making small heating devices is easy. You don’t need to fight the universe. You just need an apparatus that will “go with the flow”.
I don’t like the idea of conflating falsely accusing people of being a pedophile with calling someone out for holding harmful right-wing beliefs.
The first (saying someone is supporting pedophiles) is oftentimes used as a method to support bans on anti-encryption technology. It is a bad-faith justification for harmful and 1984 type legislation.
The second, however, is an argument used by right wing extremists to justify hate speech.
To be clear - I’m not saying the government should mandate a ban on conservative media. I’m just saying that as a normal citizen, it is a justified, non-harmful act to call people with harmful right-wing beliefs ‘right wing extremists.’
I don’t like the idea of conflating falsely accusing people of being a pedophile with calling someone out for holding harmful right-wing beliefs.
Here in the states, among common harmful right-wing beliefs is the assertion of calling LGBT+ folk groomers, especially when protesting trans folk existing.
The use of bad-faith child safety and child victimization rhetoric to push questionable legislation, especially targeting general privacy or the rights of marginalized groups is so prevalent that it dwarfs by order of magnitude actual child welfare interests (like healthcare access, free school lunches and bullying in schools)
So I’d be skeptical of any rhetoric that asserts a policy might protect children.
I’d also be skeptical of IAccidentallyCame’s good faith regarding right wing rhetoric. As the world’s plutocratic elite runs out of lies to justify the hierarchies that keep them in power, right-wing rhetoric, including hate speech, is on the rise as a last defense against general unrest. They would rather the world literally burn than give up their wealth and power.
Yeah I intentionally didn’t go through their post history. Don’t have time for that lol. I mostly wrote that out for anyone who read his post and thought maybe there wasn’t a counter argument to what he said.
Well I had time to waste and this comment seems a little out of pocket from the rest. Dude actually said we are outgrowing profit motives as a species. People’s opinions are like a stained glass mural, each piece can be different.
It was a good faith comment, I’m merely pointing out another tactic that the powers that be try to use to discredit people. I’m not comparing pedophilia allegations against being called a far right extremist. I’m just pointing out it’s a separate tactic.
I guess I wasn’t too clear on that, wasn’t expecting these sorts of replies.
I mean I know about using being a murderer, terrorist apologist, pedophile being used in bad faith, when was someone touting “if you are against this law, you’re a rightwing extremist” in bad faith?
When they actually do have far right beliefs sure. But I think they were referring to people using the “right wing extremist” tag as a bludgeon for any views right of their own, or things that may not even be right at all.
I guarantee you being called a pedophile vs “too far right“ or even a “right wing extremist” will yield incredibly different results in a crowded room. This is an absurd comparison.
Yes, I agree. My point was left v. Right or anything like that. I was just pointing out that it’s another label I’ve seen thrown out label I’ve seen thrown out there in the last few years when trying to discredit people.
I guess my point didn’t come off they way I meant it looking at all of these replies.
It’s all good dude. You are right, it has been used in the past to discredit people. I think there is an argument to be had that in most instances, the label was applied for good reason, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it was correct 100% of times. Kinda like the label “Nazi.” Honestly that is thrown around so much that it starts to lose it’s meaning! (Perhaps that is the intent…?)
There is absolutely no need to bring left vs right identity politics into the discussion, please stick to the topic of piracy. Same goes for the replies below. Thanks.
He explicitly told the person to stop doing what they’re doing. I’m relaying how best to get the results he wants. Whether or not he has some moral obligation to listen to every person who wants his attention is immaterial.
Could you give an example of a situation where people who are against such a law are unfairly dismissed by being falsely accused of being right wing extremists? I think this might be a valid comparison but not sure how often this really happens.
As an US citizen, I pretty much count on EU regulations to protect me since my own government is too rife with fascist agitators and oligarchs to respond to the needs of the people.
This opinion reminds me a bit of Covid. I live in NJ, and was often grateful that our governor (Phil Murphy, Democrat) tried to protect us from Trump’s idiocy. He actually accepts science, unlike some other governors.
What idiotic Trump COVID policies did he protect you from specifically? The only reason I ask is because a lot of the COVID denier conservatives I have to listen to in my community (deep red state) have repeatedly expressed disappointment in Trump for “trusting the experts” about COVID, pushing the vaccines, or some other nonsense. So it’s interesting to see you express that Trump didn’t do enough to trust the science when I have to repeatedly listen to complain that he followed the science too much. Lol
I never claimed that Murphy protected us from specific policies. What he didn’t do was endorse a deworming drug to fight a virus, or question medical experts. That was reassuring.
Did you actually do your research on that “deworming drug”? It’s been used to treat a hell of a lot more than parasites. That is just its most common use.
This has always been funny to me as someone who actually works in healthcare and regularly reads scientific studies. Of all the things you could choose to hate Trump over, the example you give is one that plenty of people in the scientific community considered to be a treatment avenue worth researching.
Damn, the media propaganda machine is effective. Trump could run into a burning building to save a litter of puppies and they’d still find a way to make everyone hate the guy. It’s impressive.
Yes. I did. Please show me a reputable, peer-reviewed study showing any evidence of Ivermectin efficacy in treating viral infection. Just one. Go on, we’ll wait.
What I do know is that over the counter equine Ivermectin should never be consumed by humans, and that this spate of idiocy gave science way more data than they ever asked for on the deleterious effects of Ivermectin toxicity in humans, including blindness and death.
But go on, tell us all about how you’re the expert.
Worth researching, yeah maybe. Covid was new, there was no medicine against it, so you’d expect any worthwhile scientist to throw whatever they got at the wall to see what would stick.
But it’s a whole different story between scientists testing something in a study and a non-medically-trained politician recommending the non-medically-trained public to off-label self-medicate with a drug that hasn’t been tested, with no dosage recommendations and with no medical oversight.
As someone who works in healthcare and regularly reads scientific studies you should know the difference.
This is not actually a joke in the strict sense of the word. There is no punchline. The humor is entirely in the context.
Your friend does not understand any of this and is just repeating the “joke” because other people laughed about it at some point. It has nothing to do with the Windows operating system, so if that was part of his explanation he is probably just making shit up to cover his own ignorance.
Interesting take, but I don’t think I can agree. While typical American humor is often based on question-answer/punchline structure, many comedians managed to excel at purposefully breaking it.
Think about Joe Cera, John Wilson, Nathan Fielder even Jon Benjamin or David Cross. They are all very funny (it the audience that vibes with their style), yet usually avoid the idea of buildup-punchline.
For a more universal surreal humor you need look no further than the granddaddies of the entire school: The Monty Python crew. They often went out of their way to ridicule the idea of a punchline and were/are some of the funniest people in history.
(You could always argue that humor does not equal jokes I guess, but these were just my 2 cents)
The only thing it’s serious about is being a decentralized platform - if you want to access something, then choose an instance who’se admins are serious about being heavily censored.
It’s the old adage of “if you don’t like something, do something about it”
The fediverse gives you the tools and ability to surf the fediverse how you want, all through decentralization. Don’t like the rules on one instance? Move, simple as that.
It’s the same context of “vote with your wallet” - only put your accounts and time into instances you want to put your account on and only donate to instances you want to donate to, vote with your time and money, that’s how we can make this platform better, for ourselves and for others.
It’s not censorship, it’s just smart people protecting themselves from liability. Some things are clearly illegal and the admins should not be expected to take the heat for people who participate in those illegal activities.
Some things are clearly illegal and the admins should not be expected to take the heat for people who participate in those illegal activities.
But aren’t they protected under the same laws that other sites like Reddit are already protected under?
As far as being responsible for what their users post, last I heard that already had laws that protected the sites that hosted them so they were not responsible.
Legal / illegal is the wrong term here because this type of thing is a civil matter.
If you were a volunteer admin and receive a cease and desist notice from an expensive law firm with an army of lawyers representing a client with infinite money, what would you do?
Would you pay your own lawyers out of your own pocket to stand up for your freedoms and rights, or would you just roll over and let someone else take up that fight? Would definitely be the latter for me.
That may be true, but it’s easy to say that as a third party who is not receiving threats of litigation.
Well I’m not saying it out of ignorance as a third party, I’ve actually read articles going all the way back to the time of BBS sites, where US laws protect those who host these sites from being responsible for the comments that people make that sit on their servers.
I don’t remember the exact law name right now (IANAL) but I know it exists, I’ve read articles about it before.
Even if you’re 100% confident that you will ultimately be found blameless, most people would take action to avoid facing a civil suit.
A well resourced opponent will drag you to consultation. Even forcing you to respond to a legal demand is an arduous task. You might grind through it and even get awarded costs, but you’d have to bear those costs while you’re going through the process.
Point is, they can still destroy your resolve without winning a case.
Even forcing you to respond to a legal demand is an arduous task.
You’re over exaggerating the effort required to initially defend yourself against something like this.
Plus the safe harbor laws are very defined, so a judge would most likely throw the case out of court early on, if it even ever got that far. The safe harbor laws as I understand them are very clear on this.
You’re overexaggerating the desire for volunteers invest any effort whatsoever in defending themselves against a sophisticated and well resourced civil lawsuit.
You’re overexaggerating the desire for volunteers invest any effort whatsoever
Now that’s hyperbole.
And again, while I am not a lawyer, my understanding is the law is very specific and very clear on this matter. Companies that host sites that people put comments on (as long as they follow the hosting requirements of the law) are immune from prosecution. Safe harbors.
Lemmy.world is hosted on a german Server and afaik run by german people. Hosting or even just linking to anything piracy related in germany would be suicide.
My bad. I was sure i read somewhere they are hosted in germany. guess i was wrong. Still, hosting or linking to illegal stuff inside the EU is probably still a very bad idea. apart from it violating the ToS of the hoster (Hetzner).
It's funny how out of touch with reality Americans are.
Here in Brazil I'm paying around 20 USD for fiber optic 1000mbps down and 500mbps up without data caps. Brazilian law also only considers piracy a crime if there's profit (i.e. trying to sell a movie I've downloaded), so there's no need to hide anything.
Editing for more information:
My home internet speeds almost never drop below 90%, there's also a law that requires ISPs to deliver at least 80% of what was paid for. You can easily port forward, there are no blocks or anything. We also have dynamic IPs, but you can easily get around that by using a DDNS.
My mobile plan is around $15, I get 45GB monthly with 5G at no extra cost (5G gets around 300-600mbps down depending on the time of the day), unlimited calling to any number in the country, unlimited SMS (nobody uses SMS though), and for roaming I get 1GB daily internet and 1 hour daily calling with no extra cost.
All of this is cheap and very accessible to everyone.
I mean, I’m not going to defend our internet in the US which can be absolutely shit, but salaries are quite a bit different in Brazil. I also don’t recall internet options being all that glamorous an hour outside of Porto Alegre.
I live in the countryside of Minas and I can get the same 1000mbps speeds for less than 20 USD, the quality of smaller ISP has become pretty good in the last decade.
While the salaries and economic power in Brazil are a lot lower than the US, our internet and phone plans are a lot cheaper, accessible and provide a better service than most of the US, that still stuck in data caps, feature blocking and low speeds.
The thing it’s missing the most is better multi device support and an updated desktop client.
For me, I think Matrix is more complete (specially since it backs-up your chats and media encrypted). The only thing it’s lacking (at least Element specific) is encrypted chat search support on mobile.
I use it for linux. Recently there was a bug where if you had a chat opened, it would pin one core to 100% usage. It also lacks feature parity with the mobile client (ex: gif search and send).
I use it on windows. The client is totally fine for the most part.
Though for some reason it regularly screws up the device-connection, forcing me to reconnect the device, loosing access to every old message. Seems to be a rare bug though, as my family also uses the windows client and theirs never has this problem (out of 8 device 1 has this problem)
Yeah, it sucks that if I were using Signal only on my phone and eventually decide to start using it on desktop, it doesn’t sync any conversation history, resulting in the desktop client showing nothing from before you set it up. It should have older devices send history to new ones. If you’re permanently switching devices, are you losing that history for good?
It has bridges for most messaging services so you could use a matrix frontend for most of your messaging needs without having people on matrix so long as the server admin has set up those extensions
iMessage can’t be “the mainstream” app by locking out most of the world tho. Plus it is definitely the ugliest thing Apple has ever made in its lifetime that I know of.
I don’t think it’s really a chat app. Isn’t it just a text replacement? Or does it just use that number as your ID to use it? I have it, but only ever used it with one guy.
It has lots of nice features over SMS: read/typing notifications, image/video support, proper groups, message expiration. I think that makes it a chat app
This is because inflation isn’t a bug it’s a feature.
Anything that transfers wealth up the chain, from working class to middle class and from middle class to upper class, is a feature of the western economic system.
For example, in England and Wales the Bank of England is charged with keeping inflation at a target of around two per cent. This means that the pound in a workers pocket is supposed to devalue. The advantage is that the government borrows money in its own currency so inflation means that its debt goes down (in real terms) when inflation goes up.
In other words, it’s similar to a tax in that the money you earn today, by the time you spend it, is worth less by design.
Inflation does has have a positive feature of encouraging investment and spending, rather than hoarding under a mattress. The money is put back into the economy because every day it isn’t, it loses value. If money were getting more valuable over time (called “deflation”), you’re incentivized to treat it like an asset—not a currency—and hold onto it as long as you can (like Bitcoin), rather than reinvest or spend.
Yes, this is true but you also have to factor in the marginal propensity to consume, or in plain English, the poorer you are the more of your income you have to spend on necessities like rent or groceries.
There are always high interest investments available to people with a large amounts of spare cash floating about even when inflation is low.
If your rent + utilities + food = your income then you ain’t hoarding money even in a deflationary spiral.
Always. If inflation runs away, the poor suffer. If we get stuck in a deflationary cycle the poor suffer. Apparently it is impossible to construct an equitable system that works without gross inequality (spoiler: it isn’t but some people love inequality and will do anything to prevent things being distributed more equally.)
Well, yes but no. The typical worker (sadly) has zero real savings and ideally their union manages to get at least an inflation adjusted raise each year. So those people are actually not effected by inflation at all.
It’s mostly a tax on upper middle class savings and a way to sneakily decrease wages if there is no strong labour representation preventing it.
Which union secured their members a 10% wage increase in the past year?
The poor are the most affected by inflation. Just because their spending pattern doesn’t shift doesn’t meant they aren’t affected. The shift in spending patterns is a way to avoid the effects of inflation. A person whose income cannot be diverted is the most effected.
It’s like a plane is crashing and one person ejects while the other person doesn’t. Yes getting ejected from a plane’s cockpit is a high energy event. But crashing in the plane is an even higher-energy event.
The people who you are saying are “most affected” by inflation are experiencing those effects in the activation of anti-inflation mechanisms in their life. Those anti-inflation mechanisms while they do represent an effect are not as big as the effects felt by those without access to those mechanisms.
Some managed to do so, but 10% inflation is exceptional anyways.
Otherwise I don’t agree. Obviously the poor are effected “the most” by any adverse economic effect due to their low coping capacity / economic buffer. But that they are especially affected by inflation is not universally true.
You need to drill down a bit further what inflation actually entails. The common “basket” used for calculating “the” inflation is far from perfect and depending on your consumption pattern you might hardly see any inflation in your personal expenses if it is mainly driven by an increase in energy costs as was the case in Europe during the last year.
Classic inflation aka devaluation of money only effects those that have money (savings). Of course if you have an increase in certain prices due to some external shock this can have a much broader effect, but it is actually wrong to call that “inflation”.
You need to improve your reading comprehension. I never said any of these things.
Obviously energy prices can have an impact on food prices, in fact they do a lot with conventional agricultures dependence on fertilizers made from natural gas.
While we’re discussing reading comprehension, I actually made an argument as to why the poor are especially, universally, affected more by inflation.
You can’t just counter the conclusion without countering the argument. How is what I described not something that’s always operating anywhere inflation is happening?
No, my argument is that people with savings are effected more by inflation specifically, but of course due to low coping capacity poor people are more effected by any negative economic situation. However if you have no savings, but a relatively stable inflation adjusted income, then inflation does not effect you much.
Less provocatively, economic growth “increases the size of the pie” but each individual piece makes up less of it. And those who can save, gathering up more pieces of the pie for themselves, can see gains from economic growth that those who can’t save won’t.
That’s the difference, they hoard wealth and not currency. The value of assets do not go down when currency loses its value with inflation.
Wealthy have little to no cash that would lose value with inflation, they just buy everything on credit and have their wealth tied to assets and investments that probably gain value at least at the pace of inflation.
It’s still true that a deflationary economy would be a mess though. If we had deflation, the rich wouldn’t even bother investing and would literally just sit on a pile of gold like Smaug. I know trickle-down doesn’t work but an economy where nothing circulates would be hellish.
A little bit of inflation is a fuel for economic activity. If money doesn’t lose value people have less incentive to put it to work; if it gains value(deflation) people have all the incentive to hoard money.
Currency has no inherent value, it’s purpose is to facilitate trades(economic activity). Products and services are the real value in an economy.
That being said inflation is a real tax and disproportionately hurts the poor.
There are a ton of issues with our economic system, and there are a ton of structures in place to funnel money up, but keeping a moderate inflation is not one of those things.
Inflation is a specific counter-measure against people who already have a ton of money. It provides a reason for them not to just “take their ball and go home” once they have a pile of money.
To shelter their money from inflation, they need to either risk it on the open market, allowing that capital to do things like pay worker salaries, or buy things like GICs which are essentially loaning money to the government so the government can do things like build roads or fund social programs.
In either/all cases, inflation is designed to do the exact opposite of funnel money upwards, it’s a mechanic to wrench that money out of the hands of the wealthy.
You have a point but how much cash are we talking about? If you have $10k-$20k sitting around in a chequing account that’s only $200-$400 you are losing to inflation. Things like the earned income tax credit would give you back like $500-$8000. They may not seem super related but in general it’s easier to compensate those lower income folks for inflation than trying to change the inflation target.
Gold is a shiny bauble material, but never grows. It can be a good investment for that part that you want to put aside and will just sit. Bitcoin is invaluable for money laundering, but very unstable for saving/investing. Look at how many have been fleeced when someone gets their keys, or lost their coins by a hard drive failure. It is costly in electrical use to mine.
There are far better things not tied to the value of a dollar. I would suggest very low-fee indexed mutual funds as one better alternative. They offer an accessible way for people to get a share of the means of production. My experience is that for people who can can learn to not be ruled by fear or greed can, over time, build enough wealth to live better lives.
Investing in a company puts your money in a non-inflationary asset. If inflation goes up, your land, machinery, buildings, raw materials as well as finished product just jumped in numbers of dollars of value, thus holding its real value. The same can be said of any hard asset, and dollars could also be switched with any country’s currency. I like large index funds because they are largely diverse. There are big swings, but I have gotten 9-12% average, over long periods of time.
Inflation is similar to a stock split. If you can understand stock splits, you have a rudimentary understanding of inflation.
Here is some extra information that may be too much info: Add in population growth, and realize how money supply has to at least increase to keep pace, for every worker to maintain the same pay. (in theory) Some nation’s citizens like the relative stability of the dollar’s value, and trade or have savings hedged with dollars. These dollars essentially drops out of money supply. Their trade velocity drops for these dollars. There are so many variables, that economists look at inflation measures to see how they are doing. These indicators are always 6 months or so behind, so they are always flying by only being able to look behind their plane.
It provides a reason for them not to just “take their ball and go home” once they have a pile of money.
If that’s the reason for it it’s not doing its job. Investments are much like savings to high net worth individuals and their investments are managed by someone else and they simply lay in the cut and collect dividends. Yes there is a risk to investments but if you’re in a good wealth fund then over time you’re almost guaranteed to win even if you have disastrous months here and there.
Yes, and the people at the top do keep their money in circulation, and as a result their wealth stays constant across inflation while workers’ wages and savings go down.
I have no idea why you don’t see that as a transfer of wealth.
You say it incentivizes the rich to not hoard cash. Well, they don’t. In fact, it incentivizes everyone to not hoard cash, but the rich are the only ones with sufficient cash to trade that cash for income-generating assets.
It incentivizes everyone by punishing everyone for holding cash, but only the upper class is able to evade that punishment by converting their wealth. Poor people don’t have though cash to transform it into wealth. Their cash is only useful to them as cash.
This is why the poor are feeling the inflation the worst. People who own no stock are the ones hit hardest when the government printed a bunch of money and injected it into the stock market.
What you describe would be worse without inflation. The rich would still have most of the capital, but they also wouldn’t bother investing it either, which at least recirculates the money and becomes income for others.
I feel like this story is essentially propaganda at this point- at least in the USA where the ‘risk’ for the rich never plays out.
The rich don’t actually risk their money. They risk the government’s money and other’s lives and livelihoods. When they fail, they get bailed. Bailed out by the banks. Or they simply don’t pay their bills and lay off all their employees and let everyone else take a bath.
Rather than inflating everything, why don’t we tax the shit out of their held wealth? Seems more direct without all the side effects of making FOOD, HOUSING, AND HEALTHCARE UNAFFORDABLE
There isn’t anything wrong with the mechanic of inflation as a means to encourage money to be reinvested into the economy.
You’re right about cost of living not keeping up with wages. You’re right about fucked up taxes on the ultra wealthy. You’re right about a massive erosion of social services. you’re right that the USA healthcare system is fucked up.
These are all issues that are distinct from the plan of maintaining a moderate (2%) inflation rate.
Yes, we SHOULD get living wages, unions and legislation should do that. The top tax bracket SHOULD be taxed at 70% that’s tax policy. We SHOULD reinvest in social services that’s government poicy. You SHOULD get universal healthcare, that’s a government program. Inflation isn’t the thing keeping you from any of these things.
Inflation happens when rich people find out you’ve got more money and rush to fuck you out of that too.
That’s why any kind of tax break, stimulus or welfare is met with “but inflation!”
Experts in pseudoscience may claim “it encourages people not to horde wealth!” but it’s just another lie that makes rich people richer when it fails to deliver for the 1000th time.
lemmy.dbzer0.com
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