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Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
by
criptix
on 22/03/2015, 01:12:57 UTC
I don't know what you mean by "pegged".

i mean the way you evaluate what wealth is. you explain it as the sum of your properties/possessions.
so my interpretation of wealth pegged to real products shouldnt be far off or did i misunderstood you?
 
To a first approximation, if the dollar lost 90% of its value tomorrow, the US would not become significantly poorer.  Everybody woudl still own the same homes and cars and tamagochis, the same bridges and roads would still be there,  barbers and doctors would still serve as many patients as before.  By hypothesis, all prices would go up 10 times, and thus all salaries and fees would have to do the same.  (In the countries with hyperinflation, most people manageto survive somehow).

i agree that all properties in fact dont change in value and everyone with real estate etc will be on the better side.
but the problem starts when you are using the currency itself especially in foreign trading/importing international goods.
everything becomes 10x more expensive. ergo you are losing your wealth. (most people living on earth manage to survive somehow)

Such a massive devaluation would have plenty of secondary bad effects, for sure.  There would be all sorts of financial disasters due to contracts with fixed payments in the future, dollars held by or owed to foreign parties, etc.. People would need to carry and use a lot more banknotes when paying in cash.  The devaluation presumably would be due to massive emission of new currency by the government, which would result in wealth being taken from citizens, as a form of global tax on money holdings and unindexed credits.  It is these secondary effects that make high inflation and hyperinflation so bad.

But it is precisely because of the possibility of inflation, money printing, and wild excursions in currency exchange rates that one should ignore the money when evaluating a nation's wealth, and focus only on actual things and services.

Of course, central banks and economists who are interested in the money itself, rather than real wealth, will have a different approach.

of course it would make alot of sense, but the world just doesnt work like this.
governments and their money policies just scream for it just in different volumes.
what you perceive as wealth can be taken from you any moment - not sure if you can call that real wealth