It's more about people holding out on buying things because they believe it will be cheaper later. Food is a bad example because people will always buy food, regardless of the cost. But why would you buy a car if it might be $2,000 cheaper in a few months? Then a few months pass and now it looks like that car might be even cheaper, will you spend now or keep holding out to see if it goes lower?
It's such a bad system when the logic follows the other path too. "I should buy a car now because it's only likely to get more expensive, while my income stagnates"
yes that's the entire point, to make money move(also known as an economy), instead of having money hoarders that just hold money for no goal and so does nothing for anyone.
Oh wait, that's what's happening right now as the flow of the economy goes into the glorified hoarders of the top 1% and the real economy is rotting from the inside out.
Tax the rich hard and make the money move again into the real economy.
Yeah, I don't disagree on most of what you're getting at. I just disagree that the inflationary pressure is the main, or should be the main driver of consumer spending (I should buy now cause it'll be more expensive later). Normal consumers are buying as they need.
Give 300 people $1, and they'll spend it in their local economy. Give 1 person $300, and they're saving. The velocity of money increases when it's returned to normal consumers.
I agree with the sentiment that aggressive inflation shouldn't be used as the sole tool of moving money around. Decades of purposeful mismanagement of the economy to favour the few as got us into this position.
taxing the higher brackets like we used to would spread out the money throughout the economy and we could go back to sensible regulations that stamp down on the excesses of the stock market, so the money can get invested into more diversified spread of the economy that would help build out the middle class again.
All I'm hearing is that the system succeeding requires buying power to decrease. Which just makes me want the system to fail cause why the fuck would I care when I'm already making nothing and can't afford shit. Let the whole thing collapse idgaf anymore.
I wish people would just say the thing out loud that matters - what is best for you is not necessarily what is best for the economy at large. Your financial success quite literally threatens others', almost by definition.
Take away the means of production and give it to the people who are actually doing the labor that creates the economy. The endless accumulation of wealth for the few, siphoned from the many with state-glorified approval, is what is ruining pretty much everything. Solidarity, not the illusion of choice, is what actually creates systems that address the entropy of the human condition.
never understood this "tax the rich" thing. Rich people can make their money disappear on paper = not rich on paper = cant tax them and/or wont pay too much tax.
Exactly what Elon does for example.
Yup, that's why many economists agree that having very low inflation (0.1-2% YOY) is better for the economy compared to no inflation. But that also only works so long as salaries increase alongside it, which in many parts of the world, they haven't.
Because at the end of the day money is for spending. Having some savings is good, but over saving is a trap for both the economy and an individual person. Imagine you live incredibly frugally your whole life, always saving. One day you die, and what did you work your whole life for? How much of life, or things you could have enjoyed, did you miss out on?
Actually it could theoretically be any number as long as it's generally accepted that that's the target- it's only 2% bc some dude in New Zealand thought that sounded good. The economy/stock market is all about managing expectations.
Well, the other advantage of inflation is that wages are sticky downwards. It's very unpopular and difficult to cut workers' wages, so if wages in a particular job are too high, inflation provides a natural release valve to gradually reduce the real wages over time. Sucks to get your real spending power reduced but it beats being laid off.
All that to say that some salaries not tracking inflation is a feature, not a bug. But you're right that if median wages fall behind inflation, that's bad news for everyone's standard of living.
You want that Porsche? Get it now rather than wait as it will be more expensive next year. Don’t feel like paying $1MM for the Porsche, that’s where free market comes in and says go get a Miata.
Then the cycle repeats until company XYZ is willed into existence because the Miata got too expensive, or wages have caught up.
Instead of a car, think of a house. If you buy a house now, you want the value of the house to increase or stay the same. You don't want the value of your house to lose 50% of its value after 10 years.
Not really. My example was just about inflationary driven spending, and how it's not really the driving factor of consumer behavior.
It's possible that the difference in rate of inflation and compensation leads to a decrease in purchasing power, without decreased economic activity (on paper). Maybe less people are spending, but those that are, are spending more (the niche driven spending we're currently seeing where prices are inflated and specific consumers are paying those prices, offsetting the lack of spending from others).
You mentioned “while my income stagnates.” That’s the decreased economic activity which is the crucial difference in inflation vs stagflation. Inflation isn’t necessarily a bad thing provided wages are rising at a comparable rate.
People do this exact thing with iPhones ("I can wait one more generation before upgrading") and Apple is doing just fine.
There is no real reason to fear deflation. It is feared by the owning class because it would enable the working class to build generational wealth, rather than slaving away their entire lives for nothing.
Is it going to apply to a culture that FUCKING LOVES SPENDING? Something by like 80% of Coachella apparently went into debt to go, meanwhile, Japan doesn’t, unanimously accept credit cards still.
But inflation doesn't lead to me buying a house now because it would be more expensive later. Inflation led to me not buying a house because it got to expensive to buy one with my wage, which didn't get a proportional rise. It also didn't lead to me buying more stuff in general because of fomo.
On the contrary, if deflation would lead to my money being worth more and I would be able to buy a house, I wouldn't wait to buy one.
There are massive cultural differences at play between Japan and the US though. There is a major austerity movement built into much of Japanese culture that the US just does not have.
I feel like economists underestimate how poorly people manage their money. Most folks don't wait for prices to come down, they make purchases whether they have the money or not.
I don't believe that theory holds up. Spending is more of a psychology thing rather than economy. People would definitely buy more with deflation, no sane person would think that not buying something is better because it would be cheaper later. People would buy more because things are cheaper and they need those things, simple as that. Inflation is good in theory but it make people spend less because things are getting expensive. People don't buy things or pend be cause they have to keep the depreciating money to be able to afford basic things while they increase in price. I never saw inflation being good at ney point. Theory only works in some specific perfectionist scenarios. After I see what deflation does in real life than I'll decide if it's bad or not.
"no sane person would think that not buying something is better because it would be cheaper later."
But you already see this all the time with people holding out for sales. If people have a reasonable expectation that something will be cheaper, the impulse is to wait for it to be cheaper. And nobody is saying "inflation is good", it's that a small amount of inflation is expected in a healthy economy.
But they’re not talking about some imaginary theory, they’re talking about something that has explicitly happened in real life. The original commenter in this thread even gave an example, which you could verify with [two seconds of googling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades)
When you zoom into a single grocery store item, it’s great. When you zoom out to a mortgage, you’re borrowing $400k from the bank and promising to pay them back with dollars that are more valuable than the dollars you’re spending today. Plus interest. While the value of your property drops year after year.
It’s also toxic to farmers who have to borrow to buy for the same year’s harvest. Again, the dollars they pay to pay off the loan will be worth more than the dollars they borrowed at the beginning of the year, and again, plus interest. The commodity they’re selling is also going to be worth less by the end of the year than at the beginning. Look into the Cross of Gold speech by William Jennings Bryan, it explores the same theme. Back in the day, the dollar was based on gold. As new gold was discovered, the value of the dollar would drop as more money/gold entered the system. In the absence of new gold finds, there would be deflation. Bankers loved it. Farmers did not. They preferred silver, which we were mining quite a lot of back then.
They're functionally the same thing, but it's all relative to what you're comparing the money to. Eggs in America are the same as eggs in Canada, but they cost different amounts based on how much the respective dollar can buy. If you know the American dollar is crashing, it might be worth hoarding money while it's worth less because people are more willing to let it go, then it will be worth more once the dollar recovers and becomes worth more. During that whole thing, the Canadian dollar remained steady and continued to grow in value. Canadians were not incentivized to hold their money, so more eggs were sold in Canada because people wanted to buy asap since their dollars would be worth less the longer they wait to spend them. Americans bought less eggs because they were holding out for the dollar to start increasing in value so they don't miss out on potential gains/even cheaper eggs. Continuous, steady inflation incentivizes spending, while deflation incentivizes holding.
As others have said, food prices (like energy) are volatile and can be affected by idiosyncratic factors like supply chain issues, weather events, cattle/crop diseases etc. Also, as others said, these are necessities. This is why economists also track inflation via Core CPI, which is the consumer price index excluding food and energy.
Why economists are concerned is that fundamentally deflation is a lagging indicator of demand destruction. This, in combination with 50 years of worsening income inequality, means that the economy is indicating a paradigm shift in the broader US consumer psychology: people are less willing to pay for things at current prices, so companies are lowering prices until they see people are willing to buy again.
This is why economists say some inflation is a good thing. Again, the problems we see now in the US are due partly because inflation has outpaced income growth for decades.
"Oh wow, I can buy 2 packs of eggs now when $10 got me 1 pack last week... I shouldn't buy eggs this week, next week I might be able to buy 3 packs for $10."
Then put that thinking to more impactful investments long-term
Economic study is basically psychology of the masses, the first thing you learn is that the biggest factor is public trust/beliefs in the market. Market doesn't operates on logic, it operates on vibes and feels.
Also remember, the Economie with a big E is not the same as personnal finances, it doesn't work the same at all
So to make it clearer, it's not that things will cost less thats the problem for small items like food. You will likely buy eggs regardless because food are essential items. We will always buy eggs regardless of the price. It's the larger items like houses, cars, tvs, etc. The big, expensive purchase that aren't necessarily required right away are put on hold, i.e. the non-essentials. This creates a downward spiral because companies start cutting costs more to clear inventory and make sales, thus reinforcing the waiting till it hits the bottom price before buying. And since they aren't making sales and generating revenue as high, they start down sizing employees to make up the loss. This means more people who now can't afford these items and have to wait on more essential products until they can hopefully find work.
Debts also don't shrink because of inflation. Your student loan payments, car payments, and/or house payments don't change. You'll still have to pay those in a period when people are losing jobs. Well now you're spending the money you saved on the non essential items on your debts while you're now job hunting in an economy where you have more and more people joining that hunt more often while companies are also freezing hiring or cutting wages to minimum to save costs, which means even if you have a job, you're making less and can't afford the reduced costs.
Now, this is for full economic decline. If individual sectors (for example smarthphones and computers) experience deflation because technological innovation or increasing efficiency, that can be good because incomes and productivity rise with it and the sector will experience a boom. For example when cars became easier and cheaper to make so more families could afford them, thus making the car market over all better.
I hope this helps explain better what you were asking.
Maybe it’s that businesses start laying off employees because the income stream is built on prices going up. So that 2 for $10 eggs are a great price but now you don’t have a job. So you sell your house to a big corporation and then they rent it back to you. But now everyone is selling their house and more people need to rent. So the corporation sees this and raises your rent price. Now you are paying in rent what your mortgage was. This makes you mad so you say no way! So you decide to live in a tent. And now look up Hooverville. Cause that’s all part of the Great Recession.
You can buy 2 for 10 dollars because "money can buy more"
After deflation you can't buy eggs.
Because the farmer realized feeding and housing chickens was going to cost now much more than it would return later. So they sold off EVERYTHING, paid off their loans, and decided they'll buy it all back at a discount when / if the deflation stops.
It’s “You can buy 2 for 10 dollars because ‘money can buy more’” but still no one is buying because 20% of the country doesn’t have a job and another 20% are fearful they will lose their job so they spend enough to just survive.
They are the same, but I feel that how I said it is the better way to explain the issue with deflation, since it focuses on the future, which is the root of the problem.
Food is a necessity so it won’t be affected as much as other purchases. So let’s use cars.
If the avg car price is $50k, and this month the avg price drops to $45k, we may see some people buy. The issue is when everyone thinks the price will drop more. Why buy a car for $45k when you think it will drop to $40k, or even $35k?
That spiral is great for buyers, but life destroying for workers (the same people who get laid off. And it wouldn’t just be cars.
Usually the fed will lower interest rates to combat deflation. The ideology here is that if the cost of borrowing is lower, people will
Borrow and spend more.
But what if inflation rates hit zero? Can people just take loans with no interest? And what happens when even zero interest isn’t enough to correct the deflation spiral? Negative interest would mean that the government would pay you to take a loan, which presents its own slew of wacky issues.
The person you’re replying to put it poorly, but I think I see what they’re trying to say.
An egg costs X-amount of actual materials and labor to produce (maybe a certain number of pounds of feed, a certain amount of land, and a given number of labor hours). That X-amount doesn’t really change (the “cost”).
Separately, a dollar is worth Y-amount of that cost. If you think the value of Y is increasing (deflation), why spend it now instead of wait until Y can buy even more X?
In inflation, it’s the opposite: invest Y money NOW, because it gets the most X you’re ever going to get moving forward. Inflation incentivizes investment.
Wouldn't that mean that the long term effects after deflation are better for quality of life though? Cost of living goes down, which results in people being able to live more comfortably on the same wages. Sure, the economy isn't growing but it doesn't sound that bad to me
Yes and no. On the one hand, putting off buying things as a consumer is good for personal wealth, but it also means the economy stagnates. Why would a company invest in making their products better if no one is buying the current models and they aren’t making money? Heck, why are they paying 100 workers when they only need 50 to make their demands? Then people get laid off because no one is spending. This can then lead to a rush of people buying the things they put off because they no longer have income, reversing things and causing inflation again, but now there are 50 people from that company without jobs who are getting pummeled by the increased prices. It dan, in theory, cause a cycle of this that leads to a lot of people being left holding the bag
If people were willing and able to defer consumption to when things got cheaper, nobody would have bought any electronics for the last 70 years and nobody would ever have high interest consumer debt
It's a myth that deflation causes material drops in consumer spending. The inverse is what's true: drops in consumer spending cause deflation, as producers are forced to lower prices to move inventory that people stopped buying
There are literally zero example of deflation causing drops in consumer spending. Invariably the increase in real income caused by lower price level has a stronger effect on increasing consumption than any temporal substitution effect that might cause people to delay consumption in anticipation of lower prices. Also, you can compensate for the temporal substitution effect by lowering interest rates
What you have are examples of falling incomes causing drops in consumer spending
Consumption dropped because incomes dropped, not because consumer prices dropped. Income dropped because of, inter alia, collapses in agriculture, collapses in trade largely attributable to smoot-hawley tariffs, and collapses in the money supply caused by 10,000 bank failures (itself compounded by falling incomes - especially falling income:asset ratios which compounded the losses of farm loan defaults and margin call defaults (caused by stock market crash) and inaction of the Fed, failing to inject liquidity when it was needed).
Deflation didn't cause those things. Deflation was caused by those things
None of that applied to the rich people in the depression, who were hoarding money and gold. FDR literally issued an executive order confiscating the private gold reserves in the country as a measure to reintroduce liquidity into the economy.
Usually a drop in disposable or discretionary income. Sometimes an increase in the real interest rate
Another cause could be perceived economic instability, so people try to save more
Another cause could be markets behaving comparatively less efficiently, causing people to engage in less market labour and more domestic labour (i.e. instead of working more at a job and spending money on prepared meals, they spend less on groceries and cook for themselves; or instead of working more at a job and spending money on daycare, they look after the kids at home).
What I don't get about that explanation is that the same happens with investments. If you stop spending and invest your money on a low risk asset, you can buy more with it in the future. Yet people spend money, because then need some stuff and want some other stuff
If you could buy a car for $10,000 today but if you waited a month you could buy it for $9,000. Would you buy it today?
Based on the 2008 recession and the 5 or so years following no one had the jobs, capital, risk appetite to really buy like that even if they wanted to. Historically America and Americans have been piss poor at saving for a rainy day.
Deflation would be absolutely devastating for the US.
This is essentially already true when the stock market pumps out consistent +15% returns every year across 3 decades, so I don't see what the massive difference is. Why use your money for things when you can buy any index you want and beat inflation several times?
>Isn't it better to save that money for the future, when it's probably gonna be able to buy more?
But hasn't that always been the case? YOu could buy stocks and they'd grow faster than inflation, therefore why but $100 shows now when you can invest it and but the same shows next year for $103 with $5 left over (assuming 8% stock growth and 3% inflation)?
I don't know how we can tell people to save for retirement and sing the praises of compound interest at the same time we say deflation would cause people to delay spending.
all these theories assume that every person is a financial strategist, most normal people don't track prices like crazy, most people will see that they can finally buy the thing they always wanted but couldn't afford without considering if it might be worth more next month.
If people were actually that smart with their money, then 80% of industries wouldn't exist, because their products is useless junk at the end of the day
That's great for purchases that aren't needed right now, and for people who have their basic needs met and extra money to spend or save as they prefer. That's who this "low inflation is bad" wisdom favors.
How about people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck and spending everything as soon as it comes in? People who actually benefit from low inflation because they can buy almost as much today as they did two weeks ago?
You’re literally just proving their point. You’re going to wait till prices drop to buy. In a deflationary environment, everyone will do the same.
“But when they go back to normal, I’ll buy” you keep saying. 1, what’s normal? And 2, what happens when they go back to normal but the expectation is that they’ll go lower than that? Do you buy at the “normal” price or wait till it goes even lower?? You’ll say you’ll buy at the normal price to be argumentative on Reddit, but the reality is most people will keep waiting if they believe prices will continue to fall.
Food is a bad example, since we all have to buy food anyway. All you’re doing is quibbling over which foods you’ll buy.
Better to use an example like a new car or TV (assuming they’re upgrade purchases and not necessary replacements.)
In the context that we’re talking about here, the main issue is how these factors affect discretionary spending, not spending on necessities.
Run your examples back, inserting “new TV” in place of eggs or beef or whatever, and then the answers will more cleanly lead to the understanding you’re looking for.
Why would you buy eggs today for 2$ if they drop to 1.50tomorrow? why not jsut wait till tomorrow? but tomorrow you understand that they will drop to 1.25$ the day after, so you wait. And so on and so forth, people in deflationary economies wait until the las possible moment to buy food. And they never buy consumer goods like shoes/clothes etc. unless it is absolutely critical.
Not what previous incidents have shown, your trust me bro doesn work when we have historical examples of deflationary crisis. Ok then dont think eggs, think a shirt, why would you ever buy a shirt, if it constantly gettign cheaper, you dotn need a shirt to survive.
You are either being obtuse on purpose or just plain stupid.
But you'll still buy only what you can eat right? Why would you buy eggs for one week if they'll get cheaper? You'll only buy things when you absolutely need them and delay your purchases as long as possible. That's hell for economy.
I think the miscommunication is stemming from your different perspectives. You're describing a tree. The person you're talking to is describing a forest.
The other issue, largely ignored in the comments, is that wages also will get smaller. When things are sold at lower prices, that means the people selling those things make less money. So you're either laying off employees or cutting wages to stay solvent. Everyone is making less money, which means they spend less, which causes prices to cut drop further, which causes lower profits, which causes unemployment and lower wages, which causes less spending, which causes ... and on and on.
Deflation means that every single day your money is worth more, so for example
(Effectively)
Day 1: Eggs cost $12
Day 3: Eggs cost $10
Day 5: Eggs cost $8
So on and so forth, but for everything.
What happens is people start only buying what’s necessary immediately, because in a few days things will be even cheaper. It’s a constant spiral that’s really difficult to stop, because you either have to take a nuclear option and implement price floors, or figure out how to incentivize people to actually spend their money.
Computers and smartphones would drop their prices (per computational power) at a ridiculously high rate and it lasted for decades. I don't think it reduced the demand for them, quite the contrary: people would constantly abandon their electronics in order to buy better and newer models, just because they'd become more affordable every year.
Computers dropped prices not because of deflation, they cost less because parts became optimised and production became cheaper, but eveyrhting else was increasing in price due to inflation.
I'm wondering if consumer spending is a bad way to look at this (even if it's true as a whole). But it makes more sense if you look at what the wealthy will do with investments - why invest in something today if you think it's going to be valued at less tomorrow?
Not only would you be literally losing money as the value of your investment drops, but you'd be able to buy more for the same price if you wait it out. So investments dry up and companies start running out of money and new companies can't start, etc. And the dragons sit on their piles of gold while the rest of us starve.
This isn't a hypothetical, we've had real world examples of deflationary spirals. It happened in the Great Depression from 1930-1933, again in 2009. You can go back and look at any year where inflation went negative and see "things were pretty horrible that year."
More than that, if you look at the years where inflation is causing significant problems, it's usually 8%+. If you look at the years where deflation is a problem, it might only be -1-2%.
Maybe a bit of correction to our overconsumptive habits is called for. So many people trade in 1-2 year old cars just because they want the shiny new one. Maybe that needs to slow down.
It's not the price that makes people buy less, it's the expectation that things will be cheaper in the future. If you know that an expensive item will cost less next year, then you will hold on to your money which is bad for the overall economy. On the other hand, if you know that the price will increase due inflation, then you are more likely to spend your money today which is good for the economy. That's the basics of it at least. The sweet spot is a low level of positive inflation that keeps the market active without driving a spending frenzy, the kind that occurs when you expect your money soon to be worthless due to massive inflation and which generally leads to even higher inflation.
The real reason is that most spending done by anyone is done by investing. Most people aren’t putting a cash offer on a house they are going to their local bank and pulling out a loan from the communities money to pay for it and paying the community back with interest.
In deflationary states this whole system breaks down and the world is much less liquid.
There is a limit though, 2% yearly inflation is good, if this number gets too high the borrower loses desire to actually pay back the loan and the economy starts to fall apart in the other direction
More supply than demand. Usually happens when cost of production keeps dropping, as a result the compilation drives the prices down, supply increases, but the demand isn't going to increase over night.
More supply than demand causes further decline in prices. It spirals into economic collapse. Businesses start paying low wages or layoffs. Cause further reduction in demand.
Investors won't invest cause of uncertain market and economic conditions. More issues.
Imagine you want a car, and yours is still kinda ok, so you can buy one for $50k right now but you know in six months it’ll be $40k, would you buy the car?
Or would you just put your money in the bank knowing that by spending nothing you’ll get richer and richer in real terms?
Right now if you leave money in the bank you lose value. So you’ll invest it, you’ll put it back in the economy for other people to spend and try to make money. Deflation removes the incentive to invest, the smartest thing is to do nothing, which kills growth.
If your $10 dollars today could buy 10 apples, but tomorrow it could buy 11 apples, why would you spend it today?
It’s a High School level basic economics principle. Rational people respond to incentives. If prices are declining, you’re incentivized to save your money as it will be more valuable in the future.
This leads to a large chunk of the money supply becoming illiquid and sitting around in banks or stuffed under mattresses. Less goods being bought and sold, companies make less money, companies have to cut costs and fire people, and it escalates from there
Things costing less means demand has dropped which mean people are probably out of work. So yes some people might be making enough but a recessions means a lot of people aren’t making any money to buy things even if they are cheaper.
As I understand it, decreased prices means overproduction relative to demand. Overproduction leads to reducing production to maintain profit margins. Reducing production leads to layoffs. Layoffs lead to underemployment and unemployment. Unemployment leads to reduced purchasing power. Reduced purchasing power leads to depressed demand. Depressed demand leads to even lower prices and businesses folding. Return to top.
This is a spiral until the Gummint steps in (see farm crisis of the 1920s).
The economy is about how people behave on average. If people think something will be cheaper later, some percentage will wait to buy. For example, how many people wait until Black Friday/Cyber Monday to buy something? It is the same thing, except now, if you wait you can get it cheaper next Black Friday.
How can wages stay the same if the price of goods is lower?
Maybe profits take a hit, maybe you can’t reasonably cut profits because you’re on the edge, do people take pay cuts? Do people get laid off?
We rely on a moderate level of inflation to pay off debt over time. What starts as tough becomes easier as your wage grows relative to your debt. If that reverses its serious trouble.
It’s a downwards spiral for the economy, it’s what caused the length of the Great Depression and it’s what caused the response to the Global financial crisis (quantitive easing) although the way that was structured was stupid and just caused asset price inflation which ballooned inequality.
Wages don't stay the same. Supply and demand. Prices drop, because demand drops, demand is dropping because wages are dropping and people can't afford to buy.
In both inflation and deflation average workers get hit worst. Inflation wages trail inflation so prices go up before wages do. In deflation, wages are the first to drop and prices go second.
*This is based on high school level economics classes as I am not an economist.
But to be actually helpful, you cant look at it in a vacuum of "x costs 2% less now yay", you need to understand why it is that it costs less. This is generally due to less liquidity which comes as a result of reduced productivity and thus wages.
People consume less because 1. They have a culture of savings, 2. Why spende today when you know things would be lower tomorrow, 3. They consume less because they lost their job (because demand is lower) so they need to ration their savings ---> they consume less.
If prices wildly increase is hyperinflation, prices wildly decrease is a deflationary spiral.
People who can hold out to buy the dip will want to hold out for as long as they can to make sure they're buying at the absolute lowest. The problem is, the fact that they're holding out is what's making the dip get dippier and so you never actually make it to the lowest.
Things are forecast to cost less tomorrow.
People slow consumption, companies slow investment because it’s a better “deal” tomorrow.
Overall consumption slows.
Companies produce less to match consumption.
Companies fire unneeded workers.
Unemployed people consume even less.
Cycle repeats.
If things get cheaper, then company/store selling said things receives less money for the same sales, meaning they have to either fire employees or reduce wages.
If this continues to happen, you get a deflation spiral, which is actually much harder to fix for the government than an inflation spiral.
First off, you're thinking in terms of assets, not products.
It's not just the gold that is worth less; it's everything except your dollar bill.
If you work at the widget store, widgets went from $1 each to $0.90. Widgets aren't an appreciating asset, they're just a thing people use. If you sell 100/day it's maybe becauss people only use 100/day. Plus, in a few weeks they'll be $0.80. People have no use for more, and they're only worth less each passing day, so while yes, you could buy the dip and be king of the widgets, you're just sitting on a pile of useless junk.
Some assets, like gold or stocks, are in fact on sale and will be useful again when prices rebound. But what are you buying them with? You used to make $100/day as your cut of selling widgets, and now, you only make $90/day, and next week you'll be making $80/day. Are you going to justify buying the dip when your income gets smaller by the day and the dip is nowhere near rock bottom?
What happens is people focus their budgets on necessities, buy fewer other products, those products get cheaper due to lowered demand, companies slash wages and go under, and the cycle feeds itself.
Holy hell, are you really that dense? Just read the comment I posted. It is literally an answer to the question you asked. If you're too lazy or illiterate to read 200 words, there's really nothing I can do to help you.
As should be clear from that comment, the answer is no, I would not buy gold during deflation, and the explanation for why is also in the comment. I really can't make it any clearer, and I'm not sure what you want from me other than to waste my time with inane questions.
businesses need to lower prices -> businesses don't make as much money -> businesses can't pay their employees as much -> the employees still can't afford anything even with the shrinking prices because their wages are shrinking with them
Short version, say you're selling your house but the market prices for houses goes down. Sounds great for potential buyers, right? Would increase the number? But what if this results in more people out of a job so they can't afford even the lower price? Then the next month, it continues to drop? Now you have people who COULD afford your house, but why would they? Next month it might be lower, which causes people to hold off buying. Why buy if it's just going to lose value?
Things cost less to account for a fall in demand. Companies having to lower costs make less profit, and will then start considering scaling back their operations to survive. That includes layoffs. Layoffs means fewer people earning money, fewer people able to buy things, demand falls, prices go even lower, repeat.
Both inflationary and deflationary spirals are deadly.
If your national interest rate is zero or even in the negative (eg Japan in the recent past), people will borrow money local and invest in/buy bonds in other countries where the interest rate is higher, meaning the local economy slows because money is going elsewhere to get better returns..
Japan never suffered from deflation. The CPI stayed roughly flat for about 25 years. The most deflationary period, from like 1998-2013 saw average deflation of like 0.3%, which had a trivial effect on spending
At the same time, didn't this also play a role in Japan's economy shifting value in businesses from short term profit to long term stability? Which ultimately helped them crawl their way back to where they are today where consumer spending is a huge part of their economy again.
Liquidity trap is one of the easiest things to fix - Japan just refused to, lmao.
There are two trivially simple way to fix it:
1) Give cash transfers to the poor. They spend most of their income, so they tend to stimulate the economy quite well. The more permanent the transfers seem the better - so raising unemployment/ universal/ whatever equivalent benefit will produce the best results.
2) Spend lots of money on useless projects. Build missiles and fire them into the ocean, dig out quarries and then refill them, build roads that lead nowhere. The government makes up a large share of total consumption. Just increase that share.
Things Japan did:
-increase transfers to the much wealthier pensioners (who have the greatest propensity to save) rather than the poor.
-gave universal one-off transfers to every Japanese citizen rather than making the transfers targeted.
-austerity.
Like you'd think with a population of 100M you'd be able to find at least one competent economist but apparently not.
It's insane because also in Japan you have an economy that fosters and embraces small businesses and highly niche businesses in ways that the inflationary economies of the west absolutely reject. We have to minmax every business decision here and teenagers are opening profitable personal businesses doing custom candy floss arrangements complete with whole storefronts in Japan from minimum wage seed income.
So low inflation can lead to deflation, which is when the value of money increases, which makes saving money much more attractive, which leads to lower spending, increasing the value of money, but the lower spending means the economy doesn't expand.
Also debt; the real value of your debt becomes a lot worse in a deflationary environment (set in a pre-deflation value but paid back with post-deflation lower salaries), so many people would go bankrupt trying to make payments.
So then...deflation is just a correction? It's a situation where most people are being wiser with their money? So whatever businesses can't survive because people are buying less will go bankrupt, but there will still be businesses that can survive because people will always need goods and services. How off am I here? Idk much about economics
What happens is that people are afraid to invest money in new business, real estate, investments, etc. because they are better off holding onto their money, which pushes asset prices down, which incentivizes people to not buy assets. It's a downward spiral that is hard for an economy to get out of.
Deflation is the opposite of inflation. Essentially, the market value of golds and services decreases as time goes on. For example, with 2% deflation, a loaf of bread that would cost 1€ will cost 0.98€ next year, ~0.96€ the next, and so on.
This is not ideal, because consumers will expect prices to continue to drop - and they actually will. This leads to less people spending money, which will in turn reduce demand, which will reduces prices further, which will increase deflation which will... You get it. Modern economies only work as long as money circulates, and deflation has a chilling effect on that, ultimately leading to a weaker and weaker economy. Deflation is hard to control, since you can't exactly convince people to start buying more things for higher prices. Anyway this is slightly outside my area of expertise. Google Japan Deflation for more info.
Here is the deal, the Japan is the largest holder of US debt (treasuries) by large margin over anyone country on earth. The promise being that the interest earned from economic investment into the US debt (interest rate) would guarantee positive economic intake. Japans Yen has recently experienced a rather strong devaluation over the last decade and is at a critical point where they need to do whatever they can to save the value of the yen. One of the biggest levers they have is to offload US treasuries and sell it back into the market to raise money to prop up the value of the yen. Not if, when this happens, this is going to send the value of the US debt down the shitter, and devalue the poo out of US debt. Nobody is going to want to exchange money for an asset that the largest holder in the world is offloading. This is very very bad for the US as the us will not be able to raise money to fund itself, because they rely on the sale of treasuries to fund its services.
Investors putting money into the economy is a good thing.
Overall, when the value of your money is increasing on its own, you don't have a motivation to put that money into the market. Why risk the stock market when my money goes up by 5% while stuffed in a mattress?
Inflation is the opposite. Money just sitting around is decreasing in value, and so you want it in the market in order to keep up.
The feds desire to have about 2% inflation. That creates an incentive structure. It means that holding money is bad because its value is decreasing. That encourages everyone to invest their money which causes growth and thats good for everyone.
No inflation is bad. But deflation is worse. That means its better to hold your money rather than invest it. Businesses sell less stuff. They start letting people go. Then those people try to save their money. Its a self reinforcing problem. Its bad for everyone.
Exchange of goods and services is a crucial component of capitalism. It means that for all the things you offer (labor, money, goods), you are constantly exchanging those things to find a more efficient / more valuable place for those things to be. Maybe you have a car. You work from home. Your neighbor needs it more than you. So he is willing to pay a lot of money for the car so he can own it instead. You need money more than you need a car. He needs a car more than he needs that money. Now you are both making more efficient use of the resources you had. Everyone benefits.
It means that your money is moving around the country until it finds more and more efficient places to exist. If that slows down then quality of life standards for everyone decreases
To cut a long story short, Japan is trying to break out of the aftereffects of its asset bubble bursting back in the 1990s, which caused a tonne of economic stagnation that eventually led to deflation.
Deflation is where prices keep falling across the economy. That might sound good but it eventually becomes a problem because people know things are going to get cheaper, so they start saving their money (buying things right away feels like wasting part of your income). This means businesses earn less and so they start cutting wages and hiring less or getting rid of jobs. The actual burden from people's debts also begins to rise because debts don't drop like prices do. So in the end you get this vicious circle where the economy slows down because everyone has it harder. If it goes on long enough you get a recession, where everyone is struggling because the economy is struggling.
Imagine having bought a house for 300k and a few years later its only worth 250k...if you were a buyer and you saw prices going down...would you buy or wait for prices to keep going down. It is good in some regards, such as your paycheck going a bit further and being able to buy more...but once you buy those assets they will depreciate and for things like cars...they will depreciate quickly.
Alright so the best example of deflation is Bitcoin. It suffered from hyper deflation. Remember if you would many years ago Bitcoin was supposed to be a new currency. But it never succeeded and instead became an investment. That's because of deflation. No one wants to be the guy who spent 30 Bitcoins to buy a Pizza when that is now worth millions. That means that in general no one wanted to spend Bitcoins because the price was increasing every day. The end result was Bitcoin became worthless as a currency.
Slight inflation is good because it incentivizes you to spend your money or invest it in something, which keeps the economy flowing. High inflation is bad because it starts screwing people over and making their money worth less and less and things get weird.
Deflation means your money is worth more and more over time if you just hold onto it. This might seem good at first, but it is quite bad for an economy overall, because if people realize this and just sit on their ass not spending money, then the economy starts grinding down to a halt. People stop investing as much. Your goods and services go unsold because people would rather just hold their money instead of take risks. Etc.
You need people spending money to keep the economy moving and growing. While "some" inflation is good and HIGH inflation is bad, deflation is (as far as I know) universally a bad thing for an economy.
If you knew the price of something is going down tomorrow would you buy it today? Now think you have to ask yourself that everyday? Any big purchases will keep getting put off a long time and the consumption part of the GDP equation goes down. Even the savings/investment from that money will not offset the decline.
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u/nebileyim_ben 8h ago edited 8h ago
its japans economic trap, worse than inflation.