• ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPM
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    1 year ago

    It absolutely affects inflation because there’s more money chasing the same number of goods/services.

    Since the money is going predominatly to the wealthy then there isn’t more money chasing goods and services. The average consumer is not benefiting from QE as you yourself pointed out.

    Business owners are raising prices in way that’s increasing their profits, they’re not doing it to keep up their rate of profit steady. https://thehill.com/business/3756457-corporate-profits-hit-record-high-in-third-quarter-amid-40-year-high-inflation/

    • hexi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The wealthy don’t just put it under the mattress.

      If they do some big ego projects, the people they hire take that money and increase their own consumption.

      If they park it in investments, some company takes the capital injection and increases their spending.

      All that money chases labor, and labor can be reapportioned to meet different needs. A billionaire can buy a slightly bigger yacht with their share of the Fed printing. That bigger yacht needs a little more labor, and someone ends up building more cabinets for the interior rather than building housing for the poor.

      The billionaire doesn’t blame themselves for inflation, and someone at the bottom can’t figure out why suddenly a full time job doesn’t pay for housing. But that Fed decision moved labor from benefiting the poor, to benefiting the 1%.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPM
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        1 year ago

        They don’t put it under their mattress, but the projects they invest into aren’t resulting into wealth being generated by the working class. When these people create a new business ventures, they still pay subsistence wages. So, you get more employment, but it’s low quality employment. Any actual wealth produced ends up going to the capital owning class.

        So again, people who own capital are the ones who decide the prices and the wages. These are the people in control of what we call inflation.

        • hexi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          the projects they invest into aren’t resulting into wealth being generated by the working class.

          Irrelevant, because I never claimed it did. I only said that money ends up competing for labor and other resources.

          If they could just raise prices, they would have done it before. So why didn’t they?

          Because what actually changed was an increase to the money supply.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPM
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            1 year ago

            Again, they have raised prices before. Inflation didn’t just start yesterday. I’m really not following the argument you’re trying to make here. You still haven’t actually explained the causal chain between the increase in money supply and inflation, nor have you provided any counter argument to my point which provides a clear and direct explanation of what’s happening.

              • spiderplant@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Ah yes econ101, taking a complex and interconnected system that we don’t fully understand, boiling it down to its simplest and most incorrect model.

                This is a global issue, the fed pumping money shouldn’t have had a big an effect. My best guess would be a mix of covid money from many countries going to the rich increasing the wealth gap, gas and oil companies hiking prices because of Russia even though a lot of them have no link to Russian oil or gas and causing a knock on effect. You’ve also got a number of bubbles around the world such as housing and car loans, these are definitely caused by greed.

                  • spiderplant@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    My issue was with using econ101 as part of an argument, I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying about economics is that you spend most of the course learning why econ101 doesn’t actually work when applied to most real world scenarios.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPM
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                1 year ago

                Rapid inflation did start at the same time the money supply was increased.

                There was a brief period when people got direct cash during the pandemic which businesses used as an excuse to hike up prices. However, once again, it was the choice of the business owners to raise the prices.

                If there’s more money circulating, there’s more businesses can ask for.

                Only if that money goes to the working people who can in turn spend it. If the money stays at the top then it does not result in increased spending power. Most of the money that was created did not end up in the hands of the people who are spending it day to day. Bulk of the money went to the oligarchs, you get that right?

                Do you think they weren’t greedy before? Do you think it’s a coincidence this inflation happened the same time the Fed suddenly pumped trillions into the money supply?

                I think they saw an opportunity to jack up prices. In fact, we see this happen any time there’s a disaster, no money printing is needed here. There’s even a term for this: disaster capitalism.

                  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPM
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                    1 year ago

                    You still haven’t explained what your thesis here is exactly. If capitalists aren’t raising wages then people don’t have more spending power no matter how much money is printed. What you still haven’t established here is how there’s more money circulating in the economy when wages have remained stagnant. Nobody is arguing that the oligarchs aren’t benefiting from the QE, but it’s not a direct cause of inflation.