Yeah but because the people that did them before were bad guys, we are good guys, you can trust us, twitter says so.
Writing from Canada - price ceilings can work if your government isn't fucking retarded about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Review_Board
It's why you guys keep seeing all those news articles about "why do Americans get gouged so much more on life saving insulin drugs compared to Canadians?" it's cause we as a country decided that we should limit how much profit life saving drugs are allowed to make.
They still make a profit, it's this really weird negotiation process where they're like "I want 10 billion dollars" and the Canadian government is like "you can have 5 billion dollars" and they're like "I will leave Canada for anything less than 9 billion dollars" and then they settle at 8 billion dollars.
It hasn't led to shortages or a deft of investment or research yet. In fact Canada is such a hotbed for pharmaceutical research that there was recently a big assassination of the head of Apotex in Toronto.
We also do price floors for liquor in Ontario because alcoholism but that's a different thing.
The only good that will come out of combating inflation with price controls is that in 30 years communists will piss their pants at the sound of a helicopter.
Kazakhstan begs to differ
Just because your country's bad at something doesn't mean it doesn't work
It’s not as simple as that. In some areas price increases occurred due to monopoly and a large share of the market. By applying price controls, you would merely prevent rich people from getting richer. When the market works properly, price controls distort or is as communicators of supply and thus are a bad idea
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Hey I got a better idea. How about we combat rampant inflation by not printing a trillion dollars out of thin air and giving it to corporate cronies? Vote for me for city council. Also fuck the city council.
Get elected to every office and proceed to dismantle said office.
Seemsgoodman
USA needs to be cured of this disease of a government.
This should be the new slogan vote for me for government. Why? Because fuck the government that’s why
You mean like in 2017 when the FED suggested they raise interest rates and stop spending trillions per year on corporate stocks/bonds/MBSs and Trump threw a huge fit about how they were just trying to hurt him so they didn't go through with it?
If the inflation was due to money printing you would not be seeing increased profit margins on products across the board. Companies aren’t increasing prices because they need to in order to maintain their margins, they’re doing it because they know they can do it with zero backlash because people will blame it on pandemic spending policies.
Despite all major corporations having record profits, and on their most recent earnings calls bragged about how they "got away with" raising prices and made record profits and plan to keep them there, I'm gonna say you're full of shit. They're not passing inflation or shipping costs onto us, they're milking us because everyone is doing it so they will too.
Here you go, a few examples:
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2022/01/28/apple-aapl-q1-2022-earnings-call-transcript/ oday, we are proud to announce Apple's biggest quarter ever. Through the busy holiday season, we set an all-time revenue record of nearly $124 billion, up 11% from last year and better than we had expected at the beginning of the quarter. And we are pleased to see that our active installed base of devices is now at a new record with more than 1.8 billion devices.
We set all-time records for both developed and emerging markets and saw revenue growth across all of our product categories, except for iPad, which we said would be supply constrained. As expected, in the aggregate, we experienced supply constraints that were higher than the September quarter. Before I discuss our results in greater detail, I want to first acknowledge the toll that COVID continues to have on communities around the world. In many places, case counts are higher and health systems more strained than at any point throughout the pandemic.
Thanks, Bob, and good afternoon, everyone. Excluding certain items, diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $1.06, an increase of $0.74 from the prior-year quarter. Fiscal 2022 is off to a good start as evidenced by our first-quarter results and our continued progress toward more normalized operations across our businesses. At parks, experiences, and products, operating income was up $2.6 billion year over year as all of our parks and resorts around the world were open for the entirety of the fiscal first quarter.
In the prior-year quarter, Walt Disney World Resort and Shanghai Disney Resort were open for the entire quarter, while Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Paris were each open for a limited number of weeks and Disneyland Resort was closed for the entire quarter. At our domestic parks, we were very pleased with the strong levels of demand we saw from both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. And as Bob mentioned, our reservation system has allowed us to strategically manage attendance. Overall, attendance trends at our domestic parks continued to strengthen in the quarter with Walt Disney World and Disneyland Q1 attendance up double digits versus Q4, in part reflecting holiday seasonality.
Per capita spending at our domestic parks was up more than 40% versus fiscal first quarter 2019 driven by a more favorable guest and ticket mix, higher food, beverage and merchandise spending and contributions from Genie+ and Lightning Lane.
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You all said that blowing up the dam was a bad idea, but now that I defunded the fire department and set your homes on fire it looks much more reasonable doesn't it?
We didn't want to defund the fire department but we had to, the special interest group we created was so angry it constituted an emergency. And because they're the ultimate victims according to the victim culture we've cultivated, their beliefs cannot be questioned.
And setting your house on fire was the best way to stop the ultraflu, the government health agency that we decapitated to install our own people in said so. If you questioned your government health agency head, that'd be like questioning The Science itself.
Cloward Piven strategy
“The capitalists wont accept communism as long as capitalism is good for them. We shall sabotage the system and hurt them to force them into a corner and give me unlimited power”
It's funny, this is exactly what they're doing to universal healthcare in Ontario. Underfund, take money meant for our hospitals and don't use it, then say "hey look it doesn't work, we need to privatize!!!!" . Lmao.
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You'll thank us later for the gas and TP shortages. But no worries the wealthy will still be able to buy them in abundance on the new black market!
We should all tighten the belt and pay more at the pump if it means putting the screws to Putin!!!!!
I prefer to get my oil ethically. You know, from Saudi Arabia.
How you doin Yemen? Enjoying those US-made and supplied cluster bombs?
Can't we put a monkey in charge of the country i doubt we would have a worst outcome.
Any libcenter want to be the president and eat bananas whit ice cream 24/7 ?
I do like bananas and i do like ice cream. Question is do i get to make direct fun of all foreign political leaders in person on a global stage while eating said bananas?
We are at the point where I would much prefer 538 random people in Congress.
So let's just draft them, have them serve one term, get paid 200k total, and then move on.
Anything is better than what we have now
like the based polish man said,
"A monkey is a much better voter than a socialist. Statistically speaking, if we assume that there are two options to choose from: the "A" and the "B" - the monkey is voting randomly, so its wrong 50% of the time. The socialist, however - is always wrong"
Sorry, not psychopathic enough to be a president. Things might actually get better for the little guy.
I’ll tirelessly smash keys on a thousand typewriters if you gave me 24/7 access to bananas and ice cream.
Damn it’s wild how Biden managed to make inflation go up at the same time all over the world
Biden is doing a good job given the crises he had to face. Much better job than Trump before him.
Of course the anti-American brigade here will keep attacking Biden and blaming him for Covid, Putin's aggression, etc. because what matters to them is partisan loyalty, not the well-being of fellow Americans.
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Fact check: Anyone pushing price controls doesn't count as an expert on economics.
Maybe an expert on "fucking up entire countries".
The fucked up medical prices across Scandinavia is a testament to this fact.
in fact some historians are pretty sure that what brought the roman empire down were price controls due to the rampant chronic inflation caused by currency debasement, like holy shit why would would even consider price controls as a viable option when we KNOW it has never worked once. Sometimes I really do think putting monkeys in charge of a whole country really is the best option.
The worst part is that he tried to solve the inflation problem by minting good quality money.
Unfortunately he didn't think about removing the old debased coins from circulation, thus he just increased the money supply.
He then came to the conclusion that the problem were the merchants and came up with his maximum price limits which didn't work but gave us a cool view of how much things costed back then.
Source: podcast The History of Rome by Mike Duncan.
If you’re best argument for previously unwanted long term policy is a current crisis you’re either running a con or an idiot.
But shouldn't a good long term policy not fail under our current crisis, as our current policy has?
Price controls in response to a short term crisis are common and not unreasonable. They are the only times many economists would sat they make sense, as a response to short term shocks to the market.
Didn't you hear? That's a solved problem. Just buy a Tesla. That's always the solution in America: Don't be poor, and fuck you if you're poor.
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"Experts"
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means...
Well they never said it was experts in economics. It might be a growing number of experts in ancient pottery or the history of Rubik cubes for all we know.
Don't worry guys. Dark Emperor Shwab and his cronies won't let this pass. They're in Biden's cabinet and don't want any of us plebs owning our own homes. So you're probably still screwed, just not in the way you thought.
It depends on supply and demand of the specific industry. In an industry like healthcare, where demand is virtually infinite, setting price limitations on things like Insulin makes sense.
In an industry without monopolies where demand fluctuates, like virtually every consumer cyclical product, it does not make sense.
That said, the issue is you have to be VERY VERY CAREFUL when analyzing and determining what the cap should be on a price control. The intent may be to slow inflation and increase the ability of daily consumers to get what they need, but there are a plethora of issues which can arise.
For instance, if the price controls are set too low for the companies to make a reasonable profit investors may direct their money elsewhere. If this happens production levels fall and you suddenly have supply issues even though the price is lower. Additionally, if the labor market is not in a shortage, as it currently is, then price controls may lead to reduced benefits and wages for the workers in that industry.
Planned economies don’t work because predicting demand, setting prices, and taking all of these variables into consideration while doing it for every single industry is impossible. It may be possible for a few targeted industries, but can still lead to massive problems if a miscalculation is made.
The demand for housing is pretty inelastic, yet every time rent control has been implemented, it results in poorly maintained apartments and developers not wanting to build more housing.
Insulin and other healthcare stuff is indeed one of the few , there's basically no collectibleness or similar special stuff and they are necessary for life, but yea most stuff price fixing is a horrible idea
if the price controls are set too low for the companies to make a reasonable profit investors may direct their money elsewhere
Man, good thing companies aren't run by the most morally bankrupt people in the world who jack up prices to mere whisper of inflation, so they can continue to post 40-50% gains year by year. "Reasonable profit" isn't a term that exists to them.
Additionally, if the labor market is not in a shortage, as it currently is, then price controls may lead to reduced benefits and wages for the workers in that industry.
Which of course is another thing they will use as a bullshit reason they will use to fuck people over, because they sure as shit don't increase wages to match increased growth, that profit it for the investors only.
Ironically what makes me a leftie makes me wholly against price control because I have no faith in large private companies, you would either have to commit to the economic disaster of a planned economy or give up trying to directly control the economy.
Blocking oil production
Printing loads of money aimed at consooming, not industrial investments
???
Be surprised when prices skyrocket
There only consuming done by the excess money printed is by corporate cronies/oligarchs.
Isn’t U.S. oil production actually at all time highs rn despite the theatrics of the XL component of a major pipeline (that even the company behind it wouldn’t be active until 2023)
OPEC controls the production of oil since forever. Not really blocking the oil production.
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Price controls are how you irreversibly sink an economy. The second such a policy is implemented you effectively untether the vaule of your currency from reality and head down the path to full nationalization of industry.
Hello libright can you dumb it down a bit?
having a hard time to understand as im not a native English speaker.
full nationalization of industry
That's the goal. But don't worry, it's totally going to work this time! Even china is not stupid enough to nationalize their economy.
Price controls don’t work because of black markets. They hide a symptom of a bad economy. The only way to fix inflation is to make more shit. Good thing biden hates us oil
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Hey man, price controls can work, all we have to do is solve that pesky scarcity problem
Not if we set a minimum price and no limit! Also don't forget to remove minimum wage and set a maximum one, just because you can
“…once dismissed as communist bunk”
No, I’m pretty sure it’s still bunk.
The last time this happened, there were mile-long gas lines.
OPEC oil shock everyone...
History will always repeat itself, heedless of whether or not you remember it. Remembering the past condemns you to wailing as it repeats itself anyway.
Healthcare will now cost only 0.02 $ and the minimum wage is 69 billion dollars
Wait what do you mean demand and supply? What do you mean making things cheap doesn't make more of them?
Soviet leaders: A loaf of bread should only cost 10 rubels!
Soviet farmer: Cool, I'll feed my pigs with loaves of bread then
Soviet leaders: Uh, you shouldn't do that
Soviet farmer: Lol, pigs go nom nom nom
Maybe instead you should start listening to the Austrian economists who have been saying for decades that this kind of thing would happen.
Nah, listen to Paul "Fax Machines" Krugman. It will totally work this time.
It's because the Austrians are Pootiin' Puppets they get everything right. Venezuela's economy is freedom.
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Can we stop referring to the "experts" without listing their credentials and why they should be considered labeled as an expert?
According to the Left, Faucie is an expert even though he's been a bureaucrat for the last twenty years and has not seen the inside of a lab in all that time. Meanwhile, the actual experts who work in the labs and work with viruses have been censored for the last two years. Turns out, the "expert" the Left was heralding as "the Science" was actually wrong, lying, and as corrupt and crooked as Beijing Biden. No apology from legacy media, just move along and nothing to see here. Fuck anyone the Main Stream Media presents as an expert.
Sir, you've been detected as spreading Misinformation(TM). The John Hopkins study has been thoroughly debunked by Snopes.
The man who wrote the debunking lists as his credentials that he "likes social media and mostly writes about motorcycles."
Accept his expertise into your heart, and you shall be saved. But not unbanned from facebook. Some punishment are for forever.
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An argument can be made that in the current environment price controls would reduce inflation. But from what I understand it's a band aid.
The current environment being a place where mergers and acquisitions have allowed a small number of corporations to establish systems that can exploit and crush competition to the point where we don't really have much going in the way of free market. Like lots of people shop Amazon, but Amazon sells on Amazon, and Amazon leverages Amazon to give it an advantage over other sellers in the platform. It's not just Amazon though, every company is doing vertical integration to centralize control away from competition.
Like right to repair only became a thing auto manufacturers became their own dealerships and maintenance shops. Now that they have the capability to do it all, they can remove everyone else's capability to exert control the auto repair market.
Now many of the alternatives and competitors are gone, so if the major corps wanna raise prices, there isn't meaningful competition, and we all just get to be sad about it.
I don't think price fixing is the answer. I'd go for anti-trust and Monopoly busting.
I don't think price fixing is the answer. I'd go for anti-trust and Monopoly busting.
Too bad the people who should be trust busting are the people who build the trusts.
The current inflation is not driven by that however, it's driven by rampant money printing over the past couple years, as well as wider issues since 2008 and 1971.
Yeah, Emperor Diocletian might want to have a few words about that......
“Telling the winds to go away could be the cure for America’s hurricanes.”
Oh God please no God no. How retarded can people be. First it's "inflation is actually a good thing" then "actually gas is high because of Russia only. Just buy and electric car" now this shit. Liberals are ruining this nation and doing it with a smile
I assume you mean the USA, and from outside it appears you are all ruining your country. I guarentee if every "Liberal" disappeared tomorrow you would still have massive issues and always have them.
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Solve inflation sure. Stop any sort of economic activity yes.
Because if cost keeps rising for goods and distributors can't raise prices to maintain a positive revenue stream they will be out of business after a bit.
For example let's use a Lumber Yard (because that's the example I'm familiar with)
Let's say the Government mandates that no Lumber can be sold at a price of greater than the equivalent of $1000/mbf (1000 dollars per 1000 board feet.)
Well that means that if producers keep increasing what the yards have to pay, and they, because they aren't the distributor, they are the producer, and they wouldn't be regulated since they don't sell directly to consumers (I am way to pessimistic to think the Government won't operate like this. Particularly the current administration).
All of a sudden the Yard will pay 1200/mbf and can only sell at 1000. So therefore per thousand board feet they'll be losing $200. Which may not sound like a lot but it adds up. Let's say that a unit of Lumber (so think like 294 2x4x8s.) Has 1000 board feet (it doesn't in reality, but I'm trying to make a point, there's actually about 1560). Even a Small Yard will go through 20-30 units a week. That's 4-6K a week in losses off of Lumber. You can't operate a business if you're losing money.
And let's say the Government mandates producers sell at a certain price so distributors stay in business. Back the process up. And at every step keep doing it. Now add in an unexpected shock, and the whole system comes tumbling down.
This whole thought experiment is assuming the oil industry operates at a TINY profit margin.
Oil companies are making literal historical record highs of money right now. They're passing on the ENTIRE cost of increased crude and then adding an extra fuck you percent to the consumers.
Your thought experiment also uses the literal worst form of price fixing that isn't based on revenue fluctuations. If you price controlled by capping your markup to a % revenue maximum then suddenly you're no longer at risk of a market collapse. With one single piece of elementary arithmetic. Raw lumber prices go up? Your prices go up with it, accordingly. It just stops you from jacking up lumber prices by 600% when raw prices only went up 50%.
I'm not saying price fixing is the answer, but you need to use a couple more brain cells first.
Printing money doesn't create more stuff
Setting price limits doesn't create more stuff
When you set price limits, suppliers aren't being paid as much and thus aren't willing to spend/work more to increase supply
When you set price limits, you simply shift who gets the finite pile of stuff from people with more money to people with more time
But the great reset is just a conspiracy.
Look away from the runaway economic disaster that the global leaders are positioning as a launchpad to restructure the world around a unified digital ID tied to your entire livelihood, absolutely not a social credit system either
Hardcore Leftist are obsessed with total economic control, even if it is destroyed. Equality achieved through equal misery—except the government elite of course
Who the hell are these experts? Have they literally ever taken an intro to economics class
Sounds like Canada's dairy industry. Realized they couldn't make any money by fixing prices and then they realized they could if they controlled the supply.
Salivates in Black Market profits
During the USSR, one of the best universities you could hope to get into, in Novosibirsk, was the one that produced supermarket logisticians - because folks could make mad bank selling the produce out the back door at prices that actually reflected the goods' value, rather than artificial prices, mandated by the state, that disregarded supply and demand.
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This was all planned. I'm growing more certain of it by the fucking day.
Everything from making the current admin look as incompetent/asleep/drunk as possible, to letting inflation sky rocket to exaggerating conflicts and issues. All of this is part of some fucker's plan.
That implies a level of competence I'm not sure anyone in charge has.
That's worse, probably. It'd be nice to think that people were not raving idiots. Buuuut *gestures at everything*
Please just control the price of insulin. It’s not gonna ruin the economy pleaseeeee
Or, instead of that, break the triopoly for insulin manufacturers in the US. Boom, problem solved.
Biden literally revoked the previous price control on insulin so he could lobby for it as part of his build back better crap.
Everything's a game to these folks.
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I know inflation sucks, but it seems irresponsible to characterize this situation as ‘runaway’
They want to call it runaway so that they can hide the blame for what is a deliberate act which could be stopped at any time.
Commodity prices have experienced enormous hikes across the board (wheat, nickel, coal, etc) and is only going up. The canary just died and we're trying to rationalize it as a fluke. Unironically, this is going to be a mess, I hope to God the fed can close pandora's box because they sure as hell opened it.
Effective enforcement of antitrust law and ensuring genuine competition is the solution. Also stop giving corporations billions of dollars every time they fuck the entire world economy.
Wow when did business insider become so woke. Price controls aren’t bad because of communism. Price controls are bad because it ruins the economy and causes hyperinflation.
Left, stop. Please. I'm begging you. We've been trying this since the time of Hammurabi and Diocletian and from then to now they NEVER work.
To demonstrate why price fixing is a terrible, imagine it being applied to wages.
Let's say software engineers are now price capped at 100k/year. Within a few months, you will have way fewer software engineers because they can just go do something else for that kind of money.
Yeah we should’ve learned from Rome that price controls just don’t work.
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Runaway inflation you say? Venezuela and Zimbabwe would like to half a talk. Where what you earned yesterday is worth significantly worth less today.
It worked so well in South America!!! There’s nothing bad that could ever happen from price control 😄😄
What we need is a time machine. Then, we could go back and not print $6 trillion fucking dollars. That'd cure this inflation.
Fucking worst administration ever.
Ah, yes, something that has failed every time it has been tried, let's try that again and expect different results.
Feels like there should be a word for that.
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The important thing to note here is that they are not specifying experts in what.
who else is excited for mandated gas shortages? I mean... cheap gas... yeah
Ah, the “experts” again. The same experts who presumably said inflation was transitory eh?
History lesson: price controls and rationing is how the USA survived WW2 without tanking the dollar's value.
Are we there yet? No. Why are we here? Bad energy policy.
If world events escalate I would absolutely expect a recurrence of WW2 inflation control policies, and for Americans to suck it up and buckle up.
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Here’s a wonderful concept, how about we deal with the inflation by getting rid of the root cause of it, the government?
I literally had someone in another thread tell me that price controls were illegal and I told them they're attempted repeatedly and got 30 downvotes instantly
Hey I've seen this one! This is the one that tried to fix gas prices but instead caused major shortages, and limits of how much you could buy. Hope they aren't planning on remaking that exact episode.
“Communist bunk”
Idk about that, its just commonly understood causes mass shortages
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Literally the first thing you learn in college economics classes about price controls is that they rarely work lmao
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Only medical supplies that are easy to produce but are very overpriced
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An opinion piece from the media is hardly a credible source. However it is a good topic to discuss in a what if scenario. Until some written legislation is put forward this is probably just someone stirring the pot some more for clicks and views.
Hey how about we STOP DOING STUPID SHIT AS A COUNTRY. And also we could try NOT SPENDING SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY. And then we could also give STOP PRINTING FUCKING MONEY a shot.
That would be even worse. The only solution suitable for the US is to steal more money. Preferably from it's people and companies proportionately.
It’s dangerous to play with prices. If it’s done in a smart way it is essentially taxing corporations and subsidizing their goods which is great as long as they keep up with demand despite a lack of profit incentive to do so. It’s basically a move to a more planned economy. We just need to be careful how we do it. You can’t plan every aspect of an economy, but should be able to plan oil prices. However, I think a far better and safer move would be to tax oil companies and give the money to low income people who can’t really afford the rise in gas prices.
I'm glad to see someone here with their head screwed on a little straight.
Poor people are suffering in America and someone is trying to help and the rightoids out the woodwork to scream "muh socialism!!!! It's all commies fault!" while the country is crumbling.
It's dangerous to play with prices
You can stop there. The economy is an extremely complex system. Any controls / regulations we put on it WILL have consequences. Those consequences can run the gambit from minor to major benefits and costs. Notice I said and costs.
Measurements like inflation are steps in a chain of causation than can go back 20-30 iterations or more.
The free market is the natural state of things. It's okay to prune the hedges so to speak but any kind of serious manipulation risks MASSIVE unintended consequences and almost always makes things worse.
Planned economies do not work. The best you can hope for is moderate regulation, and even that is debatable as to its overall effectiveness.
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rent controll destroyed the buildings in east germany. the west had to spend lots of money to make those building liveable after the unification.
mordern rent control was implemented but removed quickly since Berlin does not have to power to introduce it. it was too short to fully see the damage it made but within the short period many investors abandoned/froze their projects to build new blocks and it invited more land price speculants to buy and sell instead of invest in buildings. result of longtime rent freeze can be seen in Geneva or Stockholm, worst cities to live in sweden or switzerland
Which part? When?
You know rent control is basically the one thing economists agree is bad right?
Letting corpos just make up the prices as they go has not gone well for the American people
Yes it has. That is why we have the highest standard of living in the history of the world. Things are shitty right now largely because of all the intervention that the government did during Covid. Massive injections of printed money, shutting down large sectors of the economy, and everything else has caused huge problems. Adding more government interference will only make things worse.
Inflation always happened through economic growth and from what I understand you control inflation with price limitations, wage fixing, reduced money supply, and increased interest rates, which all slow growth and lower inflation. Obviously these all suck but so does inflation. Is there some other way to fix it that I’m missing or never learned about?
Reduced money supply and increased interest rates are the way. Price controls are ridiculous.
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Or, we could stop printing 20% of the money supply into existence every year. Uncle Sam caused this and price controls won't fix it. Stopping the activity causing the problem will, but the damage is done for the inflation already incoming.
Noooooo we are losing one bois.
This guy wants sexy USSR tankie girls 8(
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