posted on December 08, 2021 09:52 PM by
u/Limp-Perspective-763
62
u/hypersoar46 pointsat 1639019976.000000
Our conclusion is that the main contribution of the Malaney-Weinstein
work is that it provides a striking example of how to obscure simple
concepts through an uneconomical use of gauge theory.
That’s the most vicious insult I’ve ever seen in an abstract.
I 100% support more econophysics sneers here. Grossly undersneered
“field” and mostly in that rationalist-adjacent way where it’s not
(necessarily) so much that what you’re doing is wrong --
although often it is – but that you’re not even asking the right
questions.
Becoming a quant or something is significantly less contemptible. But
then there could be some measure of whether or not you knew what the
fuck you were doing.
I’ll leave this up because while it isn’t really in our wheelhouse -
IDW stuff is not SneerClub material - it is in mine (and I am a
narcissist)
Calculating inflation is, in general, incredibly simple, in fact one
of the simplest things you can do with macro-economics: you take a
number you can easily find on an index tabulated by a lowly or set of
lowly jobbing economists, and then you see if it goes up or down over
some period of time
The hard part isn’t using gauge theory, although if you insist upon
it it would be hard, the hard part is qualitatively assessing what to do
with those numbers and when
Inflation isn't that simple tbh. Or at least this simple inflation number is pretty useless. (As there can be a huge variance between the sources of inflation). [Do you want to know more (service guarantees citizenship)](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2021/11/24/the-truth-about-inflation/) (doctorow also wrote something about inflation recently, but I didn't save a link. I did link it to a cryptofan in r/buttcoin a while back). Unrelated to that, a lot of the recent worries about rising inflation should use the Rationalist trick of not using the word inflation and just mentioning 'rising energy/oil prices'.
It gets even more problematic because a lot of people when they talk about inflation somehow think it is only created by governments printing money. (And thus cryptocurrencies were created because they worry the US will start hyperinflation).
I am well aware of the deeper complications involved in calculating inflation, I was simplifying what goes on in professionals’ heads when they try to do things *practically*
The sob-story crypto types tell about hyperinflation is a political invention, deriving from an abreaction to the events of the 60s and 70s, at least in Britain and America, and the decline of the Bretton Woods system
How ordinary people *think* about inflation is the problem, not how to resolve the numbers in inflation calculations
Hyperinflation is certainly doable, Russia did it when transitioning to capitalism.
I’m convinced it was done entirely on purpose though, with the motivation that ordinary people had savings, denominated in roubles, and various shady folks engaging in corruption could obtain government loans. Hyperinflation wiped out both.
In the US ordinary people have mortgages and such, denominated in dollars, removing the motive. If there was hyperinflation it would hurt my lender the most, me i’m already shorting the dollar simply by buying a house.
Something like hyperinflation did happen accidentally in the UK during the 60s and 70s, due to a policy phenomenon commonly labelled “vulgar Keynesianism”, which along with a number of other issues created an economic environment where it was almost impossible for the government to control inflation
In the US a similar set of circumstances created the Nixon Shock, which took the US off the gold standard (something Keynes himself had warned about two and a half decades earlier)
That is hardly "hyperinflation" though... in Russia the value of the rouble dropped something like 1000x and there was a re-scaling, 1 new rouble = 1000 old ones. And granted the original soviet one was definitely over valued, but not 1000x over valued, closer to 2..5x (e.g. using soviet time underground markets of western contraband as an indicator).
That also happened around the time / before a rather bitcoin-like very large naked ponzi scheme MMM, "privatization" of almost all industry where a few future oligarchs got to buy gas and oil industry for a small fraction of a percent of their market price a few months later, etc. Given the context I'm assuming it was either on purpose to eliminate people's savings, or a happy accident. People setting the policies literally considered economic inequality a good in and of itself.
I’m merely making the observation that hyperinflation, or at least runaway inflation, can in fact happen by accident
I’m well aware of what happened in the former USSR
I think even as an accident with some 2x or 4x fall over a few years, it would be sort of like worrying about my lender accidentally cutting my mortgage in half.
Possible, I guess, but theres more than enough corporations with lobbying cash to spare, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way how not to let that happen.
It is deflation that is more worrysome when you have a mortgage. Suppose dollar rises in value 4x, you get laid off, get a new job at 1/4 the pay (if you are super lucky. Most jobs would be gone), get kicked out of your house. Landlords are gonna cling to old prices, so it would suck big time.
That’s the most vicious insult I’ve ever seen in an abstract.
I 100% support more econophysics sneers here. Grossly undersneered “field” and mostly in that rationalist-adjacent way where it’s not (necessarily) so much that what you’re doing is wrong -- although often it is – but that you’re not even asking the right questions.
Becoming a quant or something is significantly less contemptible. But then there could be some measure of whether or not you knew what the fuck you were doing.
That man had a family
I’ll leave this up because while it isn’t really in our wheelhouse - IDW stuff is not SneerClub material - it is in mine (and I am a narcissist)
Calculating inflation is, in general, incredibly simple, in fact one of the simplest things you can do with macro-economics: you take a number you can easily find on an index tabulated by a lowly or set of lowly jobbing economists, and then you see if it goes up or down over some period of time
The hard part isn’t using gauge theory, although if you insist upon it it would be hard, the hard part is qualitatively assessing what to do with those numbers and when