MathJax

MathJax

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Inflation and Wealth Concentration vs. Asset Bubbles

The Fed has been pumping money out into the economy for some years now, leading to a continual gnawing fear in some circles that inflation is about to skyrocket.  I would say that this is overlooking a transformation which has occurred over the course of the last couple of decades.  First, I would make some hypotheses about money.  I would say that money wants to multiply, and that money wants to concentrate.  These are a bit anthropomorphic, but money is concretized human desire, so a bit of anthropomophic speculation is perfectly reasonable.  Next, money dispersed over a broad population is what sustains demand, and therefore makes it possible for prices to rise - inflation in other words.  When money is concentrated beyond a certain degree, inflation will no longer be possible, instead asset bubbles will predominate.  Money will always attempt to concentrate and multiply, so left to its natural tendencies, it will flow to a smaller and small portion of the population.  This small proportion of the population cannot sustain demand of a broad consumer market, so inflation cannot increase.  Formerly, it was necessary to hire people and pay them an increasing wage in order to make more money, but automation and financial instruments have decoupled this connection to a great degree.  Paying money to labor is dispersion, and the return is most likely logarithmic, while investing in obscure financial instruments is concentration, and the return is exponential.  It is easy to see what the trend will be.  Now, the question would be, how to put some numbers on this and make some sort of convincing case?

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