Why do people hate inflation?

The real reason we have actual policy to attempt to control inflation is that high inflation is bad for capital lenders, and capital lenders have significant power in human culture (all over the world).

Historically, inflation was used to "pay back" massive war and reconstruction debts from WW2. It was a great deal for all the regular people in those societies, but not so great for the (1% of) folks who lent them the money.

The article covers these points are more, it was a good read!

It focuses heavily on the 1970s, which were over four decades ago. Inflation in the 1970s was driven heavily by a shock in oil prices, which contribute to just about everything else. Wages didn't match inflation because the prices of inputs went up, and out of the country.

We haven't had anything to match that since the 1980s. Inflation has largely been around the Fed's target rate. For the past decade, it's been under the target rate. There has been inflation in the asset markets, driven by quantitative easing, but not much at the consumer level.

The other cultural factor is that objections to inflation depend partly on ideology. The loudest voices about inflation are also the ones promoting supply-side economics. The claim is that anything that helps the consumer side of economics, like minimum wage increases or subsidies for health care or college, will cause inflation -- while subsidies for the supply side (such as lower capital gains and corporate taxes) will create jobs and increase the economy.

This comes primarily from one set of economists, and is widely considered faulty by other economists. I bring it up not to debate the merits, but to point out that it may have less to do with individual perceptions of prices and wages than the article suggests.

Rather, I think a lot of it has to do with ideological unity: it's an accepted fact among some people that inflation is so inherently bad that it must be avoided at all costs. Whenever I hear such discussions, "inflation" and "hyperinflation" are treated as practically synonymous; any potentially inflationary move draws comparisons to Zimbabwe. The US hasn't turned into Zimbabwe despite more than a decade of very loose monetary policy, and yet I keep hearing it.

Of course nobody likes it that prices go up, regardless of the "veil of money". People who remember sub-$1 gasoline will always think of that as the right price, regardless of what wages have done since then.

So I don't think ideology accounts for all of it. But I believe the article needs to consider it to get a full picture. The 1970s were a time that has driven a lot of American political division, and that has more to do with who people believe they are rather than any considered economics. They'll pick the economists to suit their beliefs, not the other way around.

The software industry proves this. Salary growth is rapid, but only if you are constantly churning companies.

Those are obvious physical effects, but this is basically what happens to your money.

At best, you _might_ get a cost of living raise anywhere from six months to a year from now. Anxiety is understandable.

Most other countries have similar goals. The means prices double every 25-30 yrs