Originally Posted by
Steven Douglas
That isn't "a very basic Micro Economics fact". In fact, it's gibberish. What the hell does that mean: "If you change relative prices...but you give someone enough..." - Who is doing all of this? Who is 'changing' relative prices, and by what mechanism, and who is 'giving someone enough'? You think you're talking Micro Econ, but you're doing it with gibberish, and from a decidedly statist, monetarist Macro Econ social engineering perspective. Which then begs more questions...which you evade while pretending to talk Micro Econ only...which you are not.
You throw out terms like "...able to afford their old consumption bundle...", in the context of substitutions that are NOT the old consumption bundle at all!
Your standard for "better off" is also flawed for a number of reasons. For one, you take EXTREME liberties with "better off" attribution for things NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO MONETARY INFLATION; things like efficiency and technological improvements, which, it can be argued, might otherwise have been greatly INCREASED in the absence of wasteful resource misallocation and malinvestment. Ergo, we could be much WORSE OFF, because you have completely ignored the potential LOSS OF AN OTHERWISE GAIN.
Once again, you are fixated on the notion that so long as someone's "standard of living" (as YOU loosely, presumptuously and subjectively define it) remains the same, nobody is harmed in the process. That is an absolute absurdity, which brings back full circle to the point I made--which you ignored. So here it is again, to give you another opportunity to address it. You don't have to answer. You can attack the phrasing or relevance of my question--but not out of ignorance or hand-waving dismissal. At least be logical about it.
You think that if you can demonstrate a zero-sum-game, (i.e., so long as people can make substitutions, or can afford exactly the same $#@!), that you can then argue that they are "as well off", if not "better off" (in the context of CURRENCY DEBASEMENT and resulting PRICE INFLATION).
ONCE AGAIN: You hold stock. That stock periodically pays you dividends. I steal those dividends, intercepting them, forging your signature, and cashing those checks EVERY TIME YOU RECEIVE THEM. And let's say that you're none the wiser. You didn't even know you had a dividend coming. Furthermore, I don't touch your stock. That's yours to keep. Can I now declare with a straight face that you are "no worse off" than before, or "as well off" as before, and is there anything whatsoever even meaningful about that?
Oh, and to sweeten the pot, as we roll up our sleeves and decide things for others: What if I see you can't quite afford next year what you could last year, and "give you enough to be able to afford" yada yada yada. Would that make you "better off", if I, as a thief, did that for you?
It's a simple question. If you think it doesn't apply, or has no relevance, EXPLAIN WHY.
WTF is with your "if you give someone just enough"? You make it sound as though allowances are being doled out from some parent figure who is looking over your shoulder and approving a personal budget. What the $#@! kind of Orwellian bull$#@! planet are you living on?
Furthermore, what you said MADE NO SENSE! How can having just enough to be able to buy next year as last year make anyone BETTER off? Explain. Is your Inflation Normalcy Bias so freakishly ingrained in you that merely keeping pace with an artificial treadmill counts AS A GAIN?! The $#@!ing gain would be if there was no treadmill, and you actually ADVANCED.
Holy crap, what a loaded, screamingly fallacious, compound question. "...and attempt to make seniors no worse off by indexing..." WTF DOES THAT MEAN? What does that mean, first of all, and who, exactly, is trying to do whatever-that-means?
I deliberately avoided reference to that monstrously tortured scam called Social Security, and its relation to CPI. We're talking about the CPI and its accuracy or inaccuracy with regard to price inflation only, without respect to anything else. Even so, wow. Total meltdown--"...better off than the previous year, because of substitution(?!)..." is absolute gibberish! How is that true, and what, exactly, does that have to do price inflation?
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