Quote from: Hydrogen on April 03, 2018, 04:09:51 AM

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The issue, as the piece explains, is that deflation in the unit of account leads to unemployment, thanks to the fact that wages generally don't adjust downward. Mr Hearn suggests that the idea that deflation might be costly is controversial among economists. I must disagree; it really isn't. Economists would love it if he were right that deflation didn't matterthat money, in economists' parlance, is neutral. If wages adjusted quickly and cleanly then they could go back to applying really straightforward classical economic models and everyone's life would be simpler. But the data are very clear on this point; wages are "sticky", and so deflation in the currency in which wages are set is costly.

What they could mean when they say that wages "don't adjust downward" is an employee who is paid 5 pieces of gold, can't be paid 4 pieces of gold later so that more gold can be paid to CEO's or one percenters. Deflationary money supplies do not inflate at a high rate which makes wealth redistribution more difficult.

The way things are now, an employee who is paid $15 an hour in 1980 is paid significantly more than an employee in 2018 who makes $15 an hour due to inflation. Numerically it may seem like the pay is the same, but the money supply is inflating which reduces the actual purchasing power over time. This could be what they mean when they say "wages adjust downward". Inflating the money supply in order to give the wealthy a pay raise, without it being transparent and obvious to everyone.

So, the question being debated here may be how to get away with paying employees less (wages adjusting downwards) with deflationary currencies in order to give one percenters a raise. Frameworks like trickle down economics have been devised to justify this precedent in the past. That could be the area where all of the money in economics is being thrown, and so like they say necessity is the mother of all invention

That's an interesting point, I never considered the wage increases also take into account CEO/one percenters getting basically the same, if not more percentage wage increases on top of all of that.

The bolded part is actually a pretty interesting question in itself. My personal opinion is that a coin that doesn't have a true hard cap but a very small tail emission is probably the best approach of something like this. hitting a limit and letting a small block reward go to miners to keep the supply somewhat level around the cap (due to loss of private keys, etc.) can help keep the coins not go hyperdeflationary (?)... idk.