Record High Gas Prices?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by darcane

A crop failure might account for one commodity, but seeing essentially all of them start climbing at the same time indicates a currency devaluation.

Or increased demand running into constant/decreasing supply...

You seem to be implying that a gold standard eliminates inflation. This is laughable and history showed otherwise.

No, I'm not implying that. That was my counter-example to the claim that a gold standard prevents inflation, and/or that all price increases are due to inflation.

Now if you took the same island, and all of a sudden someone discovers a major new gold mine (as with California Gold Rush) so that gold becomes more common... Now that would be inflation.

In your example, no that wouldn't be inflation unless you were seeing higher prices for the majority of goods and services.

But you could still see higher prices without inflation, if they're due to scarcity. Say you're living on Easter Island during the last years of the collapse...

[darcane]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But you could still see higher prices without inflation, if they're due to scarcity. Say you're living on Easter Island during the last years of the collapse...

Sorry, but that is incorrect.

Inflation is the reduction in purchasing power of a currency and is caused by an imbalance of money supply and the general level of goods and services. Whether it is caused by an increasing money supply or by goods and services becoming more scarce, it's still inflation.

If you have a scarcity of one type of goods, but general prices on all goods and services as a whole are generally stable, then it's not inflation. When you have higher prices in general, then you have inflation.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Now if you took the same island, and all of a sudden someone discovers a major new gold mine (as with California Gold Rush) so that gold becomes more common... Now that would be inflation.

No, that would be devaluation of a commodity, and it would be more theoretical than actual. The value of gold is based on several things, but principally on its scarcity and its usefulness as a metal. The finding of a new cache of it (such as a productive new mine) would increase the supply, thus decreasing the scarcity. But the overall effect on the value of it would be relatively small in that any impact it might have on the world supply would be very slight.

Inflation is also devaluation, but it usually pertains to monetary (paper) currency - which (when there is no precious metal backing it) is based purely on faith in the government that issues it.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

The finding of a new cache of it (such as a productive new mine) would increase the supply, thus decreasing the scarcity. But the overall effect on the value of it would be relatively small in that any impact it might have on the world supply would be very slight.

But this is not the world, remember. This is a small island with no contact with the outside world, so that a major new discovery does make a significant impact on the total amount of gold in the local economy.

[Thymeclock]

You don't seem to understand the concept of inflation. Here is a quote pulled from the Wiki page on the topic:

The term "inflation" originally referred to increases in the amount of money in circulation, and some economists still use the word in this way. However, most economists today use the term "inflation" to refer to a rise in the price level. An increase in the money supply may be called monetary inflation, to distinguish it from rising prices, which may also for clarity be called 'price inflation'.[23] Economists generally agree that in the long run, inflation is caused by increases in the money supply. However, in the short and medium term, inflation is largely dependent on supply and demand pressures in the economy.

To underscore that point of which I have not been able to convince you: inflation is largely dependent on supply and demand pressures in the economy.

You keep saying it is "only" supply and demand - but that IS a form of inflation!

Absolutely not. The increased cost of exploration is because all the easy-to-get-to places are already explored. A century ago an oil company could drill a few hundred feet into Texas, and hit oil. Nowadays they have to run a drilling platform and drill 10,000 feet into the Gulf...

And it costs more to do the survey, and it costs more to buy or lease the drilling equipment, and it costs more in every other aspect - but you choose to ignore all that because it doesn't bolster your narrow argument.

Saving the planet is idealistic? It's always seemed pretty pragmatic to me. I mean, where exactly are you planning to go if the planet isn't saved?

"Saving" it from what, exactly?

But there is no elsewhere, at least that I know of. No place on Earth where I could afford to own a decent tract of land

There are fifty states, probably a zillion real estate listings for available property in them and you say "No place on Earth where I could afford to own a decent tract of land".

Who are you kidding, other than yourself?

- and I'm far from poor, too. It's just the reality of an overcrowded planet: only the super-rich can afford to own land.

So according to your bizarre, radical definition, every homeowner in America is "super-rich". Do you realize how absurd all these statements of yours sound?

And finally we now have an admission of your subscription to the old Malthusian nonsense (click here). I am not surprised.

Where do you keep the horses? Or the garden?

My garden is half of my back yard. I have no need or desire for horses.

I said: Why do you feel a NEED for 100 acres or more upon which to live? Do you have a need to be alone, away from society? Or do you just envy anyone who builds a large new home on a small plot of land?

I can't tell you why, any more than I can tell you why I get hungry or sleepy. Can you tell me why you apparently don't? It just seems an inherent part of being. Nor do I envy those people at all.

Then why did you voice your disdain for "Mc Mansions"? And why did you cite the real estate listing for an enormous tract of land that virtually no one can afford? It smacks of class envy.

Apparently you cannot distinguish the distinction between a need and a desire.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But this is not the world, remember. This is a small island with no contact with the outside world, so that a major new discovery does make a significant impact on the total amount of gold in the local economy.

Childish analogies, far-fetched scenarios, bizarre conceptualizations... yours is a very surreal landscape.

[groar]

...done

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by groar

unsubscribe from this thread...
...done

+1

[SentraSE-R]

+2

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

You don't seem to understand the concept of inflation. Here is a quote pulled from the Wiki page on the topic:

Yes, that is the correct definition of inflation. Changing the language so it means what you want it to mean isn't playing fair...

And it costs more to do the survey, and it costs more to buy or lease the drilling equipment, and it costs more in every other aspect - but you choose to ignore all that because it doesn't bolster your narrow argument.

It costs more (in large part) because there is more effort involved: you have to send survey teams to more distant places, use faster computers & more complex software to analyze the data, use vastly more complex drilling rigs & drill far deeper to get to the oil... None of this is inflation, however you want to define it.

You could do exploration much more cheaply by going to e.g. West Texas with 1920s or 1950s style equipment (which would cost somewhat more because of inflation), but it wouldn't get you anything :-)

"Saving" it from what, exactly?

Keeping it so that it is a good place to live, of course. Do you clean your house & maintain it? Or do you let the dirt accumulate & trash pile up in the yard, and let everybody and his brother use it as a crash pad?

There are fifty states, probably a zillion real estate listings for available property in them and you say "No place on Earth where I could afford to own a decent tract of land".

Look at the prices on those real estate listings, then look at my bank account :-) Then consider that I'm probably in at least the upper 20% of Americans. If I can't afford it, what hope does the rest of the country have, not to mention the world?

So according to your bizarre, radical definition, every homeowner in America is "super-rich". Do you realize how absurd all these statements of yours sound?

No, do you realize your own ability to read simple English? Most homeowners live on small plots of land: usually not more than an acre, often much less.

And finally we now have an admission of your subscription to the old Malthusian nonsense...

What do you mean, finally? If you'd asked, I'd have told you from the start. And it's only nonsense to those terminally invested in wishful thinking...

I said: Why do you feel a NEED for 100 acres or more upon which to live? Do you have a need to be alone, away from society?

And I replied that I can't tell you WHY, all I can tell you is that I do. It's built in, and seems the normal, natural, & desireable way to live. Tell me why would you want to live surrounded by houses, streets, &c? (And not economic reasons: assume you've won the lottery, and can afford to live where you choose.)

Likewise, why would you think that living in a place where I have a bit of space & natural landscape around me equates to being alone or rejecting society? Quite the contrary: it's only (in my experience, at least) when you have few neighbors that you can actually get to know them as people. If I wanted real social isolation, I'd move to Manhattan.

Then why did you voice your disdain for "Mc Mansions"?

For the same reason I'd voice my "disdain" (though that's really the wrong word) for favelas & shantytowns, except that then it'd be tempered with an understanding of poverty. I can understand living like that when you have to ('cause I've been there); what I can't understand is doing it by choice.

And why did you cite the real estate listing for an enormous tract of land that virtually no one can afford?

Enormous? You have to be kidding: it's only about 40 acres, which is quite small by my standards. And the fact that virtually no one can afford it simply proves my contention that there are few if any places left where an ordinary person can afford to own a decent-sized bit of land.