LEAPING ECONOMISTS

Japanese economists are jumping up and down because prices have risen for the first time in quite a while here, as per the CPI, but I don’t see anything to smile about, nor do all the other consumers who for decades have paid higher prices than anywhere else in the world for both foreign and domestic goods.

Japanese consumers have been enjoying “low” prices for some time now, and would like to see it continue, but government economists, strange non-consuming beings that they are (they feed on stats), prefer inflation (theft of currency value by accelerated printing of fiat money) to deflation (lack of consumer interest in spending the value they have). It’s not all that strange, though, when you think about it; economists serve the folks in power, and historically folks in power everywhere have much preferred legal theft over public enlightenment. The creation of the US Federal Reserve System is a good example of the smoke and mirrors approach.

What got me on this cynical take - apart from the improbable sight of Japanese economists jumping with joy - was the Quality of Life index for 2005 [pdf] published by the Economist, in which Japan, formerly 16^th, is now 17^th on the list (just above Hong Kong and below Netherlands) about where it was last year, just floating along with its head above water (Ireland, in contrast, rose from 3^rd to 1^st), but the US fell from 2^nd to 13^th! A very big drop for the world leader in so much else...

I remember when America was always first...

*****

Good starting point for fiat money divestment decisions: The Mess That Greenspan Made