Profiteering means prices inevitably rise. Does increasing cost mean the countries with the oldest currency charge more for, say, a pint of milk? If prices consistently increase, would the oldest currency's prices have increased the most? For example a country that has existed for longer may charge millions for something that costs tens in a younger country.
Inflation.
- Thread starter TheFrogger
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I reported it yesterday, to have it moved.
I wanted to provide some sort of response. Pretty sure there's an index of inflation that adjusts economies across nations to keep the costs competitive, but I don't know the details.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
"Profiteering" implies taking advantage of an economic situation. If there is a natural disaster and bottled water is immediately doubled in price...that might be an example of "profiteering".
So, your question isn't about profiteering.
Your question, of course, is nonsensical in the first place. Inflation has nothing to do with which currency is the oldest currency.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Costs aren't kept competitive due to an "index". Supply and demand tends to keep prices in general, competitive, in competitive economies.
In non-competitive centrally planned economies, it's whatever the government says it is (Cuba, North Korea).
That hasn't been my experience. I haven't really noticed major price shifts in products between countries I've visited. What I expect to pay 5 USD for is around 5 GBP and/or 5 EURO. The exchange rates between the currencies fluctuate - both up and down. But not by magnitudes.
No. Profiteering is defined as unfair increases in prices during times of emergency or other artificial scarcity, and is illegal in most places.
Prices rise because the supply of money keeps increasing, generally under orders of a government. In a society where money was made of a material of which there was a fixed amount (say, gold) then prices would reflect the supply of gold vs. economic output. If your economy grows faster than the supply of gold, then prices go down out of necessity.
Most countries use fiat currency, and thus control the supply of money - and indirectly control the prices of things.
Of course, but that's just semantics. Currency is valued differently in different places, and if there are no links to keep the currencies tracking, then they often diverges.
But again that doesn't mean much. Imagine if you said "this thing I bought in Europe costs two pounds, but here it costs two hundred and fifty cents! Over a hundred times more!" Just change your units.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Indeed, the Japanese yen is worth less than a US penny.
As Seattle pointed out your question comes across as gibberish. It doesn't make sense. Profiteering has nothing to do with inflation or other countries or the age of a currency. Profiteering and inflation are 2 very different things. Inflation is a state in which too much currency is chasing too few goods and services.
I was merely asking if rising costs means a country with an older currency now charges more for goods than a country with a younger currency.
Your question was answered, the answer was no.
Fair enough, and yet people felt the need to continue replying.
Healthcare is a microeconomic issue. Inflation is a macroeconomic issue. American healthcare is a oligarchy and oligarchy aren't good for consumers. We need an oligopsony. We need fewer buyers/payers and more suppliers.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
That's what tends to happen on discussion forums.
Side issues are thrown up, minor tangents are explored...........and eventually Write4U shows up, and wrenches the thread onto the subject of the mathematical universe, Bohm and microtubule quantum woo.
C'est la vie.
It's explicit.
The reason for it is that deflation is immediately and unavoidably disastrous, and perfection in balancing is impossible.
The bad effects of inflation, milder in the first place (humans are by nature risk averse, and will pay for security), can be forestalled by progressive taxation of income and accumulated wealth.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
This is a few things.
ecconomys of scale refrs to the ecconomic cost to produce something.
what your post suggests is the corresponding cost of production.
the question is, what about all the people in between ?
should the transport companys, wharehouse companys and other such middlemen be removed as a process of ecconomic base line costing to the customer ?
why does the customer not get the opportunity to purchase directly from the producer ?
while you have corporates trying to self validate their market canabalism into a monopoly you also have the cost of modern life.
things like health care and housing in modern 1st world mixed market ecconomys.
the usa system leans on private everything to remove the cost of living from the equation only to then apply it to corporates and assign them rights as a human.
this process has been maintreamed as a morality.
dealing with that morality is awkward and with soo many fingers in the pie it is almost impossible to have a fair debate about the real ecconomic costs of 1st world ecconomys.
you could ask why Religion is soo expensive and why it is not taxed.
this is an ecconomic question of massive megnitude.
imagine how much tax is being denied from the government and peoples services by letting religion avoid paying income tax.
is the 1st world cost of religion equal to the cost of inflation ?
why is there no taxation model that suites the equal religous status of income as a compulsory facet of modern 1st world cultures/ecconomys ?
inflation is like a balancing stick to make up for people being born into poverty.
but that balancing stick has been stolen by corporate interests and miss used to serve their own profit margins.
this is why inflation and the cost of production are almost imposible to seperate.
there are several other issues interconnected
currency hedging is a big way that costs and profits are extracted from the currency value.
this is hidden as inflation & write offs. it is much easier for a country to write off billions by changing its currency rather than dealing with the imbalance of poverty and the cost of the middlemen and corporates.
the act of giving something for nothing to the lowest end of the income bracket to balance the entire market is dispised by the greedy because they want to suck the market dry and watch it die as they are left as being the only on on the top of the shit heap.
a suicidal canabalistic personality which is also normalised as a morality in most countrys.
there are several well put together papers on "cash/currency hoarding" by ecconomists that you may find interesting.
they talk about the process of corporates or other entitys stock piling currency and pulling it out of the market while the currency value is maintained or increased.
this has a direct effect on inflation but it is deliberately covered up because the intellectual and moral ability of those in power to come up with a better solution is somewhat lacking.
it is also vastly easier to just simply let the existing system continue.
the nature of boom n bust ecconomic ideology is the principal which maintains inflation as an escalating cost rather than a market tool.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Inflation used to be used as a tool by governments to reduce debt by, in effect, getting those with savings to pay for it, since inflation reduces the cost of debt and reduces the value of savings.