s********n
发帖数: 26222 | 1 严防美国输出通胀， 炒作中国房市股市日用品物价，扰乱中国经济秩序 | f**x
发帖数: 4325 | 2 Why Is Deflation Bad?
A number of readers have asked me to explain why deflation is a bad thing;
and the truth is that while I’ve alluded to the issue a number of times, I
’m not sure if I’ve ever laid out the whole case. So here goes.
There are actually three different reasons to worry about deflation, two on
the demand side and one on the supply side.
So first of all: when people expect falling prices, they become less willing
to spend, and in particular less willing to borrow. After all, when prices
are falling, just sitting on cash becomes an investment with a positive real
yield – Japanese bank deposits are a really good deal compared with those
in America — and anyone considering borrowing, even for a productive
investment, has to take account of the fact that the loan will have to
repaid in dollars that are worth more than the dollars you borrowed. If the
economy is doing well, all this can be offset by just keeping interest rates
low; but if the economy isn’t doing well, even a zero rate may not be low
enough to achieve full employment.
And when that happens, the economy may stay depressed because people expect
deflation, and deflation may continue because the economy remains depressed.
That’s the deflationary trap we keep worrying about.
A second effect: even aside from expectations of future deflation, falling
prices worsen the position of debtors, by increasing the real burden of
their debts. Now, you might think this is a zero-sum affair, since creditors
experience a corresponding gain. But as Irving Fisher pointed out long ago
(pdf), debtors are likely to be forced to cut their spending when their debt
burden rises, while creditors aren’t likely to increase their spending by
the same amount. So deflation exerts a depressing effect on spending by
raising debt burdens – which, as Fisher also points out, can lead to
another kind of vicious circle, in which depressed spending because of
rising real debt leads to further deflation.
Finally, in a deflationary economy, wages as well as prices often have to
fall – and it’s a fact of life that it’s very hard to cut nominal wages
— there’s downward nominal wage rigidity. What this means is that in
general economies don’t manage to have falling wages unless they also have
mass unemployment, so that workers are desperate enough to accept those wage
declines. See Estonia and Latvia, cases of.
Now, alert readers will have noticed that none of these arguments abruptly
kicks in when the inflation rate goes from +0.1% to -0.1%. Even with low but
positive inflation the zero lower bound may be binding; inflation that
comes in lower than borrowers expected leaves them with a worse debt burden
than they were counting on, even if the inflation is positive; and since
relative wages are shifting around all the time, some nominal wages will
have to fall even if the overall rate of inflation is a bit above zero. So
the argument that deflation is a bad thing is also an argument saying that
some economic problems get worse as inflation falls, and that too low an
inflation rate may actually be economically damaging. That’s why the fact
that inflation, while still positive, is below the Fed’s target is bad news
; and it’s why respectable people like Olivier Blanchard (pdf) have
suggested that a higher target, something like 4 percent inflation, might
make sense.
And no, 4 percent inflation wouldn’t turn us into Zimbabwe. I remember when
we had stable inflation of around 4 percent – and it was morning in
America.
Update: Whoa, I wrote this post while away from teh Internet, and posted
before seeing the 787 billion comments on this subject.
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Share | f**x
发帖数: 4325 | 3 美国输出的不是通胀，RMB如果真的如美国所愿升值反而有助于抑制通胀。美国根本不
想无限制输出美元，有点常识就知道这么下去死路一条。
现在的通胀是用城市中产的损失来平衡底层出口工人的就业率，跟美国输出美元八竿子
打不着。 | w*********r
发帖数: 42116 | 4 怎么拿新发行的美元进口？
【在 s********n 的大作中提到】
: 严防美国输出通胀， 炒作中国房市股市日用品物价，扰乱中国经济秩序
| s********n
发帖数: 26222 | 5 借路， FDI
【在 w*********r 的大作中提到】
: 怎么拿新发行的美元进口？
| s********n
发帖数: 26222 | 6 有限度的这么做， 对美国是有利的， 代价无非是多印些纸罢了。
【在 f**x 的大作中提到】
: 美国输出的不是通胀，RMB如果真的如美国所愿升值反而有助于抑制通胀。美国根本不
: 想无限制输出美元，有点常识就知道这么下去死路一条。
: 现在的通胀是用城市中产的损失来平衡底层出口工人的就业率，跟美国输出美元八竿子
: 打不着。
| f**x
发帖数: 4325 | 7 果然，你也就看懂了这一句。其他的呢？
【在 s********n 的大作中提到】
: 有限度的这么做， 对美国是有利的， 代价无非是多印些纸罢了。
| N********n
发帖数: 8363 | 8
Completely bullshit. 通胀 hurts people across board, and it's the 底层
that suffers the biggest squeeze.
【在 f**x 的大作中提到】
: 果然，你也就看懂了这一句。其他的呢？
| N********n
发帖数: 8363 | 9
So why do you take on more debt than you can handle to begin with? You
first take on too much, then you wanna cheat with inflation to shift the
burden onto savers. That's a crime.
And spending does NOT grow economy. It's the savings and investment that
do. When you create inflation to bail debtors out, you are screwing the
very saving foundation that grows economy. Plain stupid.
【在 f**x 的大作中提到】
: 果然，你也就看懂了这一句。其他的呢？
| M*****8
发帖数: 17722 | 10 Inflation is bad.
Deflation is bad.
Contradiction?
Yes and No.
Yes, because they clearly are.
No, because they are needed
to provide convenient pretexts
to burst and re-fabricate bubbles,
typically via interest hikes and cuts.
The pretexts allow creating bubbles
and then bursting them to profit
both ways from being long and short,
the boom and the bust respectively. | d******e
发帖数: 1718 | 11 靠，没见美国通胀呀。咋输出？
【在 s********n 的大作中提到】
: 严防美国输出通胀， 炒作中国房市股市日用品物价，扰乱中国经济秩序
| U*E
发帖数: 3620 | 12 你对stevenlow在Se 20，2010年造谣国内网站把钓鱼岛新闻全撤了的事怎么看？link:
http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/WorldNews/31475513.html
【在 d******e 的大作中提到】
: 靠，没见美国通胀呀。咋输出？
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