The Wealth Redistribution Scam that Is "Inflation"

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/wealth-redistribution-scam-inflation

Authored by Thortsen Polleit via The Mises Institute,

The world over people are told that central banks pursue “price stability” by making sure that consumer goods prices do not rise by more than 2 percent per annum. This is, of course, a big sham. If the prices of goods rise over time, it does not take that much to understand that prices do not remain stable. And if the prices of goods increase over time, it necessarily means that the purchasing power of the money unit declines.

As money loses its purchasing power, income and wealth are stealthily redistributed. Some individuals and groups of people are enriched at the expense of others. Savers and workers are swindled out of their deserved income and retirement benefits, while those who own goods that rise in value or who borrow money typically reap a windfall profit. Clearly, the banking industry is a major beneficiary of monetary debasement.

"Inflation" Is a Rise in the Quantity of Money

Central banks are the very source of the phenomenon that all prices of goods tend to rise over time. They hold the money production monopoly and increase — in close cooperation with commercial banks — the outstanding quantity of money through credit expansion, an increase in the supply of credit that is not backed by real savings. It goes without saying that it is rather profitable to be active in the money-production business.

The increase in the quantity of money results, and necessarily so, in higher prices compared to a situation in which the quantity of money has not been increased. This is no arbitrary assertion but stems from logical reasoning: a rise in people's money holding lowers the marginal utility of the additional money unit, meaning that the marginal utility of other goods that can be exchanged against money rises.

Consider the case in which the quantity of money in the hands of market agents rises. People will then exchange money balances (which have, from the viewpoint of the money holder, lost in marginal utility) against other vendible items (which have gone up in marginal utility). As people exchange money units against other goods, money prices go up (compared to a situation in which the quantity of money has not been increased).

The Mainstream Explanation and Its Problems

Of course, in real life additional factors (such as, for instance, demand changes, market introduction of new products, etc.) interfere with the link between the increase in the quantity of money and the rising prices of goods. This, however, by no means refutes the economic insight that a rise in the quantity of money in the economy leads to goods prices that will be higher than if the quantity of money not been increased.

The increase in the quantity of money is what deserves to be called inflation; rising prices are just a possible symptom of an increase in the quantity of money. However, mainstream economists typically define inflation as rising consumer goods prices. This, however, is problematic for at least two reasons. First, by equating inflation with rising prices, the real reason for higher prices, namely the rise in the quantity of money, is obscured.

This, in turn, gives rise to arbitrary explanations of why goods prices may go up: sheikhs who force up oil prices, unions that cause wages to rise, an overall buoyant economy that creates shortages in production factors, and so forth. All these pseudo-explanations deflect from the real culprit — the central bank, in cooperation with commercial banks, which issues new money, so that people no longer understand who, in fact, harms them.

Asset Price Inflation

Second, changes in consumer goods prices do not tell us the entire story, for they do not take into account asset prices such as, for instance, stock prices, housing prices, and land prices. However, the newly injected money can be expected to not only push up consumer goods prices, but also drive up asset prices. And like rising consumer prices, rising asset prices diminish the purchasing power of money.

In other words: asset price inflation destroys the purchasing power of money in the same way that price inflation of consumer goods does. Take, for instance, stock market prices. If prices rise from, say, $100 to $200, the purchasing power of the money unit would drop by 50 percent. The owner of the stock becomes richer, while the holder of dollars become poorer. In fact, this is precisely what has been happening in the last decades.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/wealth-redistribution-scam-inflation