I am disgusted by the lack of understanding here.

Same here.

Inflation is necessary to create a half-life to money. Without inflation, there is no incentive to spend now, invest now, give now- only to hoard.

B.S. We experienced the greatest period of prosperity in human history under the gold coin standard. You are advocating monetary fascism — central planning to “encourage” spending. This is why we have a negative savings rate, a massive trade deficit, and debts (personal and collective) that can NEVER be paid off.

Inflation is necessary to create a half-life to money. Without inflation, there is no incentive to spend now, invest now, give now- only to hoard.

The problem is that our world is using more dollars- more people, more USD transactions, more services, more production- but the Fed has constrained growth because of the “scarcity paradigm” crowd who thinks we’ll run out of energy, land, water, breathable air, etc. And if we don’t have enough money, we get deflation and hoarding, not production.

The solution is very simple, and the Fed has FINALLY started to pursue it- quantitative easing. They should have done it sooner, but the EU central banks were worrying about inflation.

Why, in a world of pandemic excess labor and technology obviating commodities (think wireless for copper, high-rises for land, and solar for oil) they would do that is beyond me, other than the crowd who wants to hoard their money and kill the “eaters” who threaten to take their precious natural resources…

The Fed has vast powers but it is also limited in its ability to control inflationary forces. It couldn’t control the raging stagflation during the Carter era, for example.
It also has to take into consideration other economic and political factors. Price inflation is generated by changes in aggregate supply and demand-in which demand (real or perceived) exceeds supply. But the Fed-being a government controlled bureaucracy, can be slow in responding to market forces or it has to implement monetary policy in conjunction with some governmental initiative-which may or may not be workable under market conditions.

Politics and economics often operate on different levels. What makes sense-politically, may run counter to economic principles-and vice versa.

$1.00 in 1913 = $22.12 in 2008

Have an econ professor glance at the figures while you read the mission statement
of the Federal Reserve on their website. See if you hear anything resembling economics as an explanation.

The actual amount taken in by these “greedy” bankers is but a drop in the bucket, but I’m certainly not defending their actions.

What about Franklin Raines at Fannie Mae? The man took in $90 million for himself and had the full support of key Democrat lawmakers even as the institution overstated its profits to the tune of $9 billion over a four year period (2001-05)!

Personally, I’m not comfortable with discussions on economic issues where there is a regular use of normative statements and emotionally-loaded words.
I remember how my professor in both macro and microeconomics used to constantly remind my fellow classmates to always discuss their position or views in economic terms and not to resort to mere rants and fingerpointing.

Greedy bankers didn’t take any of my money — until the government stole it from me under TARP.

The answer is very clear……greedy wall street bankers who cheated the American public while filling up their pockets.