Melonius [he/him]

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  • 15 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 24th, 2023

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  • A transaction for stock is the same as any other transaction. It terminates once money is exchanged. You do not extrapolate what happens after. When I pay my check at a restaurant does the cook run out the door to spend my money or does it go in the register?

    I saw your other posts and wanted to point out a few key points.

    1. fiat money has no intrinsic value. Doubling or tripling the supply doesn’t change it’s value. Halving it doesn’t make it suddenly more valuable.
    2. commodity based currency, like a gold standard, does have intrinsic value. Finding new supplies of gold will reduce the intrinsic value of all gold, so it would see a change from the money supply changing all else equal.
    3. you mention it several times in other posts - it is the circulation of money that can (not necessarily) cause inflation. Imagine I sell $10 of goods at market and go home, vs selling $10 of goods then buying $10 of groceries. Money supply is irrelevant to the inflationary effects, so long as there is sufficient currency to account for all goods that are currently traded.
    4. post housing crisis, the US money supply increased tremendously during QE, yet inflation was low. Monetarists shrug, but the simple reason is money supply doesn’t cause inflation.

    Have you read Capital? It goes through money and velocity pretty thoroughly early on and I think addresses some pretty big assumptions econ classes tend to present.



  • The rich are spending the money

    If a rich person gets money, what evidence do you have that they would spend it or invest it? It is not a factual assumption and depends on many factors, and not just in a pedantic way. If market conditions are sour, a rich person would avoid investing it for fear of losing it.

    Capitalists are middle men who sell our labor + a product back to us at a higher price. If they don’t need cash right now, they will raise prices and sell fewer units at a higher rate to maximize the margin (on durable goods). If they do want cash, they will lower prices and trade margins for volume. Take oil as an example - if you can sell a barrel now for X or tomorrow for more, you would price the oil higher as long as opportunity cost < selling it lower now. How does other people having more money affect this?

    Consider your labor and pretend you are fairly compensated right now. If the money supply increases, do you demand, or at least deserve, higher wages? If so, why?


  • Money supply is a specific term and it will not always result in inflation. You’ve acknowledged that several times but still repeat it. It will depend how that increase in money supply is used, if at all.

    If I got a trillion dollars printed and did nothing with it, no change in inflation. If I deposit it at banks, there would probably be some knock on effects on interest rates that make their way to the broader system.

    If I go on a coordinated buying spree of oranges with the explicit goal of owning every last orange and orange producing land possible, inflation in oranges and substitute goods of oranges will occur. Easy conclusion.

    You can argue that: When the capital owners get free money in bailouts, while workers get crumbs, there is an obvious disparity. Capitalists see less value in currency and will want more of it in exchange for their contributions (leeching) to society. So they raise prices because selling an orange for $1 doesn’t feel as good as before.

    If workers got more money while capitalists got nothing, that disparity is reversed. Capitalists want to compete for a supply of cash that they didn’t have access to before. Prices will rise in inelastic markets because the opportunity to exploit presents itself, but in competitive markets there is a real drive to entice more purchasing. That’s not to say that prices will go down (they can!) But raising your prices on food because everyone got $1000 could mean missed sales if the price raise isn’t coordinated across the industry.

    You saying that inflation is driven by money supply is not the direct reason for prices rising.









  • Long term they may axe hulu but comcast still has an ownership interest. For now they have subscribers and show contracts that are probably limited to that platform. Let them expire, renew what’s earning, and write off any homegrown content for whatever % of goodwill of the acquisition price it accounts for. Most importantly though - they’ll continue to raise prices unabated.

    I can’t predict the future but they’ll probably let hulu stagnate for the next few years and payoff remaining shareholders when its time to snuff it.

    Can’t comment on Microsoft and Activision too much, but it will be the same drivers. Microsoft has been pushing game pass aggressively at a loss, and when companies are operating at a loss in a product segment they’re in the extend phase. They’re also very publicly focused on xbox market share. Maybe the next COD game will be gamepass exclusive or something dumb like that, idk.

    Streaming could be a whole other post really. All these companies have bought into having their own app and they are all losing big time.

    I’d be cautious jumping to that conclusion. Netflix, Disney, and Amazon are all extremely profitable. The news makes it sound like there’s blood in the street but its just that earnings aren’t growing exponentially as fast as before. The smaller ones might be having trouble competing but I haven’t really looked in to it.