• Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    That’s how literally every central bank works. If there’s too much money chasing not enough goods, you get inflation. The only way to solve it is to either make more things or reduce the amount of money. Central banks can’t do anything about the former, so they concentrate on the latter by raising interest rates.

    • HardNut@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You’re not wrong about interest banks, but in regards to inflation you actually have it backwards. Inflation is the expansion of currency, not the rise of prices. Definitions get entangled because inflation causes a rise in prices, and people don’t know better. Expanding the currency increases the market availability of said currency, thus making it less valuable relative to other goods.

      Think about the word inflation. If you inflate something, are you raising it, or making it bigger? Inflating a balloon with helium is not the act of raising the balloon, but rather expanding the balloon. That expansion triggers a rise when it’s helium. Likewise, inflating the currency is to expand the amount of currency.

      Inflating the currency too much causes there to be too much money chasing not enough goods, as you describe

      • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        We can debate semantics, but the practical reality is that it is how it’s measured and for inflation that’s CPI, which is a measure of prices.