To: waverider who wrote (55436 ) 12/21/1999 1:48:00 PM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 152472
<...realize inflation is a money suppy thing. It has nothing to do with employment. Top it off with all the hidden (via govt. stats) gains in productivity by way of tech... > Sure, it is mostly a money supply thing, but it's also a function of availability of other things. Say they suddenly found there really was only oil left for 10 years, that would cause oil prices to go up because of scarcity. That would mean inflation. If people stop breeding, which they have done in many countries [well, they've continued the activity which normally results in breeding but they've been smart alecks and stopped the end result by various trickery], there will be not many people. So, when the many Qillionaires want to hire somebody to make them a castle, a Lexus, a nice meal in a nice restaurant, there won't be many volunteers. They'll all be counting their Qillions in their WWeb devices in some vacation destination. That will mean the Qillionaires will have to pay $100 an hour to get their tyre [tire] changed, bonnet [hood] lifted, boot polished, and fevered brow wiped. Ooops, hang on, they might already be paying that in the USA and Japan. Okay, make that $200 an hour. Hang on, that's inflation! See what I mean? Now, there are about 1bn people in India who would mop your fevered brow or lift your bonnet for $10 an hour. So, somehow, the answer is to get them in on the act. They have done a spendid job of producing about 1bn kg of human brain. They will be in on the act as soon as they open up their borders to capital and stop using 'cargo cult' mentality. Which they might not do. Thre are plenty of cargo-cultists in the USA and NZ, even right here in this very thread, [who, for example, think that Microsoft is greedy, selling their software for a hundred dollars or so and telling people they can't mess with it, or use it in conjunction with other products - try making an operating system yourself for $200 if you think that's expensive], so it's not surprising that India has a lot. They haven't been brought up with much idea of capitalism. Fatalism is not a good substitute. Employment is inflation related. 20% unemployed and prices drop. 1% unemployed, prices rise. Unless they do something serious with the money supply. Mqurice