# Inflation is not currently a menace **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 8, 2021, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738 "2021-12-08T22:40:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/41 "2021-12-15T18:24:04Z")
What in the world is a profit control and how in the world do you actually implement that? And why would you want to? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/42 "2021-12-15T18:29:05Z")
While we’re asking questions, I’m curious about what government spending is supposed to be profitable, Dr\_Paprika.\* \*Other than growing the IRS to increase tax enforcement, something that both parties appear to shy away from. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/43 "2021-12-15T18:36:03Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Quoting ridiculous numbers like $3 trillion when it’s a $2.2 trillion bill, and attributing that to the CBO I said that it would add three trillion to the debt if the big spending programs weren’t ‘sunsetted’ early as they are. I specifically pointed to the child care provisions which expire in six years while the funding continues for 10. But maybe you are okay with offering parents subsidized child care then pulling the rug out from under them in six years? Why would six years of funding be smart policy? Why do it at all if you are going to kill it in six years? Are you going to dismantle the agencies and shut down the offices of the people managing it? Of course not. The expectation is that once the program is in place it will be very hard to kill. As I said, thus is an old trick to game the CBO numbers. From the source: > **[Budgetary Effects of Making Specified Policies in the Build Back Better Act...](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57673)** > > CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation project the budgetary effects, including the effects on interest costs, of a modified version of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, that would make various policies permanent rather than temporary. > [@](#): > > The Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation project that a version of the bill modified as you have specified [making the programs permanent] would increase the deficit by $3.0 trillion over the 2022–2031 period (see Table 2). If you don’t think this is reasonable, maybe you could explain why build back better’s most expensive programs are ‘temporary’ and due to sunset six years into a ten year bill. Do you think it’s a good idea to create a subsidized child care system then take away the subsidy in six years? It’s not a 2.2 trillion dollar bill. It’s a 5 trillion bill masquerading as something smaller through gimmicks. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/44 "2021-12-15T18:48:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > what government spending is supposed to be profitable, Dr\_Paprika I’m not Dr Paprika but, in theory, all or nearly all government spending should be profitable to the people and enterprises of the nation (and, since the government feeds off the people and enterprises, profitable back to the government). One example which I can think of, that many might argue doesn’t slot under the “profitable” tab is NASA, but that’s probably down to the question of what time frame you want to look at. Infrastructure is profitable. Minus it and commerce would be severely reduced. Schooling is profitable. Minus it and industry would be severely reduced. The military keeps the country in existence. No country, no national wealth to grow. For each of these, to be sure, there’s a point where you’re going past the point of return on investment. In the case of the military - if we’re looking purely at it as a question of how much we need to spend in order to keep people from invading our territory - we’re probably way past the ROI. But actually, if you look at the military as being also a force for protecting international stability so that trade can take place reliably and at low costs, it may well still pay itself off. (Though, I’m not confident that we’ve properly done the math on that one.) To find something that’s losing money, you’d probably need to look at things like support for AA (given that AA - last I heard - does not perform better than a control) or tax exemptions for churches. You only get the latter by considering a tax exemption to be equivalent to “spending”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/45 "2021-12-15T18:50:43Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > It’s nothing more than vote buying. Slightly O/T, but this remark is false and deliberately inflammatory. “Vote buying” is a specific infraction where you offer a voter an immediate material reward for voting for your candidate: a reward that is irrelevant to your candidate’s actual policy agenda. What you’re describing, on the contrary, is politicians designing their policy agenda to appeal to voters by proposing policies that will materially benefit the voters. That’s what politicians in a representative democracy are supposed to do (although there are always debates to be had about how much benefit to which voters is optimal, and how to deal with the concomitant disadvantages). Calling it “vote buying” is just elitist propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/46 "2021-12-15T19:23:55Z")
The point about inflation over 2 years reflects the dip in prices in the first year or so of covid, so the increase over the last 12 months is a little skewed. If a coffee cost a dollar, then fell to 50 cents, and now is $1.50, where you measure from matters. We can therefore knock a point or two off the quoted inflation rate for a slightly more realistic number. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/47 "2021-12-15T19:29:52Z")
Of course most Canadians, and I believe most Americans, do not have portfolios they can manage; many do not have pensions or savings. Thus the swings in the markets have only secondary effects on their income. Boosting their wage, lowering unemployment, and increasing social welfare would bring about immediate improvements in the lives of the majority. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/48 "2021-12-15T19:36:36Z")
Of course government spending is valuable and often necessary. But “profitable” is simply the wrong word to apply to it. Stretching word meanings that far shut down arguments rather than add to them, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/49 "2021-12-15T20:39:18Z")
Boosting wages at the expense of less purchasing power is counterproductive and only works to buy the votes of the ignorant. Which is how we got into this problem to begin with. Counterproductive government policy that is implemented to benefit the political class. People are talking about in addition to inflation being in part due to increase in money a decrease in supply. Or at the very least large problems with the supply chain. Doesn’t it make sense that if we incentivize behavior that leads to a less robust supply chain that we incur real risks that may not be properly accounted for? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/50 "2021-12-15T20:51:41Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > only works to buy the votes of the ignorant See post #45 for the correction to your misuse of the accusation of “vote buying”. I wouldn’t have to keep microhijacking this discussion to point out this error if people wouldn’t keep misusing the term. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/51 "2021-12-15T21:10:23Z")
Language evolves. So I’ve been told. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/52 "2021-12-15T21:37:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Of course government spending is valuable and often necessary. But “profitable” is simply the wrong word to apply to it. Probably true but it deserves to be said in such terms every once in a while, lest everyone forget (I would hold). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/53 "2021-12-15T21:40:59Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Language evolves. Sure, but at present there is still a very strong normative interpretation of the phrase “vote buying” to designate an actual criminal act violating federal election laws, as in [this recent example](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-louisiana-police-chief-and-current-city-councilmember-indicted-alleged-vote-buying): > [@](#): > > According to the indictment, Trabona, 73, of Amite City, and Hart, 49, of Amite City, conspired to and did unlawfully pay voters to cast their ballots for certain candidates during the 2016 Open Primary Election and the 2016 Open General Election in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. The indictment alleges that, in furtherance of the scheme, the conspirators solicited and hired individuals to identify potential voters, transported those voters to the polls where they were provided with the names and candidate numbers of candidates, and paid the voters to cast their ballots for candidates. I get that many conservative propagandists are currently trying to “evolve” the language to normalize the equating of legislative policies that benefit and appeal to voters with “vote buying”, in order to taint such policies with connotations of criminal bribery. But I think it’s worthwhile for anti-propagandists to resist and call out such dishonest rhetoric. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/54 "2021-12-15T23:37:42Z")
God, can you imagine the economic impact if we had to start _paying_ our slaves? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/55 "2021-12-16T00:44:34Z")
I eagerly await Kimstu’s lecture on how any usage of a word that deviates from it’s strictest denotation is propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/56 "2021-12-16T00:51:05Z")
Nah, the people who used to make that plea were talking about actual slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/57 "2021-12-16T01:02:53Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > any usage of a word that deviates from it’s strictest denotation is propaganda. Strawman argument. Just because language naturally evolves over time doesn’t mean that there aren’t also propagandists trying to “artificially evolve” it for certain desired characteristics. In this case, the characteristic desired by conservative propagandists is to discredit Democratic politicians who propose legislative measures that appeal to their constituents, by encouraging their audience to confuse such measures with the illegal and corrupt practice of actually buying votes. Other instances of conservative propaganda deliberately crafted to confuse their audience about semantics include terms like “Communist Democrats”, “Marxist Democrats”, etc., applied to Democrats whose political ideologies are in no way communist or Marxist. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/58 "2021-12-16T01:24:35Z")
Government investment can be profitable in many ways. Loaning money to support failing businesses at lower interest rates that also save the business, supporting infrastructure that increases the tax base substantially, getting money and credit into the hands of people who need it and spend it (rather than save it or have it inflate prices), investment in tax collection. Not all government spending is equally beneficial to the goal of fighting inflation. Profitable may be a confusing word, though. I meant not only profits but benefit. I did not mean increasing the money supply inefficiently with handouts to people who will not use it to stimulate the economy, yet increase inflation through such “quantitative easing” or rewarding supporters. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/59 "2021-12-16T02:19:48Z")
The problem with this argument is that it is very difficult to hand money out that does _not_ get used to stimulate the economy. Are people converting the money into cash and burning it? My point is that claiming that some money “stimulates” the economy while other doesn’t depends totally on definitions of terms. I would consider the term as ill-defined as saying that new spending must be “profitable.” Again my question is what you mean by the term. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738/60 "2021-12-16T02:23:37Z")
Just saw this: > **[Fed accelerates taper of bond purchases, eyes three interest-rate hikes in 2022](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-accelerates-taper-of-bond-purchases-eyes-three-interest-rate-hikes-in-2022-11639595645)** > > The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it would accelerate the pace of its taper of asset purchases, and eyed three hikes of short-term interest rates in 2022. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflation-is-not-currently-a-menace/955738.md?page=4)