Fiat Money Inflation in the United States

Bad is Good

"What is a safe asset? I tell you one thing, it's not a government bond, but that's what the authorities keep saying...Go back to 1919 after the end of the first world war, and just before the German hyperinflation, what was the safe asset then? German government bonds, okay?How did that end? It ended really badly."

Michael Howell

Via Grant’s:

“Dollar Tree will add scores of new items to its shelves over the course of 2024 at price tags ranging as high as $7, management announced on its March 13 earnings call. The discount retailer, which imposed a $5 price cap only nine months ago, first “broke the buck” in fall 2021…”

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No single policy did more to widen the divide between the rich and poor than ZIRP

“…because assets like stocks and real estate are disproportionately held by the rich, ZIRP helped produce the largest spike in wealth inequality in postwar American history. From 2007 to 2019, according to calculations by the economist Austin Clemens based on Federal Reserve data, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their net worth increase by 46 percent, while the bottom half saw only an 8 percent increase. A report from the McKinsey Global Institute, not exactly known as a bastion of economic populism, calculated that from 2007 to 2012, the Fed’s policies created a benefit for corporate borrowers worth about $310 billion, whereas households that tried to save money were penalized by about $360 billion. The journalist Christopher Leonard wrote in his 2022 book, The Lords of Easy Money, that “no single policy did more to widen the divide between the rich and poor” than ZIRP.”

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Lowe’s Credit Card APR: 31.99%

I saw this mentioned and looked it up. The culprit really is Synchrony Bank. If you don’t pay off your credit cards every month you are setting money on fire.