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Comment by luma | Hacker News Reader

Inflation isn't the problem, it's investors. As others have noted, inflation is a wash for most cases. Investors expect regular returns and they sit on your board and they are NEVER satisfied.

When you put the world's greediest individuals in charge of what your business should do next, don't be surprised when the answer is ALWAYS "give us more money".

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People expect their assets to earn 7%+ per year, both via individual retirement accounts and taxpayer funded defined benefit pensions. If that assumption is not met, then those debts cannot be repaid, which means someone (or everyone) has to take a hit on quality of life. This is politically unpopular because people get disappointed when their expectations are not met.

Your argument here is that rich people expect to continue getting richer on account of... already being rich.

I will sleep like a baby if their expectations of continued "being rich for no work" doesn't pan out for them.

Get a job, slackers.

My argument is that a very large proportion of people benefit from borrowing from the future (obviously some more than others). Enough that it is politically unpopular to vote against the government ensuring these returns.

For example, taxes are lower today because of off the books borrowing from the future via these expected future asset valuations, as well as people liking their own 401k/IRA account numbers going up.

> My argument is that a very large proportion

What is the actual proportion?

The proportion you argue is neither here nor there.

Whatever the actual proportion is, it is evident over many decades, that it is sufficiently large to ensure the election of leaders that will backstop asset prices.

> Whatever the actual proportion is, it is evident over many decades, that it is sufficiently large

Sufficiently-powerful. Don't confuse the two. In an ideal world, one would be indicative of the other, but history suggests this hasn't been the case. (No comment on the contemporary political situation.)

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