Sounds like such a small number, but when I showed this picture to friends and family a few minutes ago, I told them this is what 2% inflation does to $20,000 dollars over the course of a few years, they were shocked. We all know it’s typically way higher than “2%”.
How can anyone see this and not get upset? You're working hard, breaking your neck to be the best at your job, and the money you earn for work is worth less and less as more units of it are created at zero cost. Like I told this Mrs, this is why we bitcoin. I’m ranting but this was frustrating to see.
That is only looking at the saving side of the equation.
Now look at the income side. Suppose you take home $20,000 a year (or month if you are one of those). After 10 years of inflation, assuming you did not get a significant raise, you are now taking home half of the purchasing power.
Now look at this from a tax perspective. If you were lucky enough to find a way to double your take-home to $40,000, then you only stayed flat in terms of your purchasing power. However, that is now getting taxed at a much higher rate.
This is the hidden ceiling that stops most people from maintaining a reasonable quality of life. Just look around you and see how many people are driving worse cars, living in lesser homes, and they are working they asses off.
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Really insightful post. Still wrapping my head around it.
One of the points you made is key, inflation a ceiling that stops people from maintaining a reasonably quality of life. Bitcoin is truly an incredible discovery.
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46 sats \ 1 reply \ @fm 24 Feb
Cumulative inflation is indeed one of the things that pushed me to bitcoin
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Same. I think my first lightbulb moment was the 21 million supply cap and it being an asset without an issuer.
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Without inflation, people can save towards buying a home or starting a business. Because sound money retains it's value. Sound money means hope. So many people are caught on the fiat hamster wheel with no hope whatsoever of owning a home due to inflation eating away at their savings and pay increases not keeping up with inflation. The psychological and demoralizing impact weighs heavily. Then when some autocrat comes around and tells people that immigrants (or insert some demographic) are stealing jobs and illegally consuming social services depriving you of what's yours, the mind swerves in that direction because it fits the circumstances of their suffering. "So THAT's why I can never get ahead! Immigrants are to blame." The fact is, the root cause of economic immigration has the same underlying issue. No hope of saving for a better future. The truth is less tangible and more difficult to fully understand...
Sound money changes everything.
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“The truth is less tangible and more difficult to understand.” Which we can see is by design. I have so many friends and colleagues that feel like they’ll never be able to get a house and as much as I can, work on understanding what they feel the root problem is and find a way to bring in how our money is broken as the root cause.
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After discovering Bitcoin years ago, I forgot everything about inflation. Thanks for waking me up. 😜
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We all need that nice fresh dose of cold water every now and then haha.
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deleted by author
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I imagine it’s a bit of both. They sure love increasing the money supply!
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it’s a fiat race to the bottom on all fronts, things are escalating quickly. Inflation is double digits. expect the unexpected.
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I’m literally bracing myself and our family on all fronts as best as I can. Completely agree!
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And that, as you say, is not the actual inflation, the core inflation is much worse
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