So Saylor has looked at the monetary aggregates and reckons we are in for 15% p.a. inflation. Well I have a much better way for him to cash in on that insight and it is not rocket science. US 10 year Treasury nominal yields are 1.77%. Inflation linked yields are -.67%. In other words the Wall Street consensus is that 10 year inflation will be around 2.44% p.a. If Saylor is right he has himself a way of printing money. Short the nominal yields and long the index yields. Much much more certain way of cashing in on his inflation hunch, after all it is not impossible that he will be right about inflation and yet the bitcoin bubble will still burst.TIME recently interviewed Michael Saylor on his strategy utilising BTC on the corporate balance sheet to counteract the great monetary supply expansion.
Here's how I've understood this. When he says this he's not talking about the official CPI inflation rate, and he's actually saying it's already happening in things that are scarce, desirable and don't get cheaper due to economies of scale - bitcoin, healthcare, real estate in prime areas, ivy league educations etc.So Saylor has looked at the monetary aggregates and reckons we are in for 15% p.a. inflation.
Like you start thinking about it and you think what an idiot I am. I could have actually gotten a 22% yield every year for 10 years, you know, buying a long bond, which struck me, you know as a tech investor is the most awful investment decision ever. Right? So I ended up in this bizarre situation and I developed a more nuanced appreciation of inflation like that you know, there's an old saying in propaganda, you know, all of our focus groups, all of our studies that they've shown us, that we can't tell people what to think, but we can tell them what to think about. And so when the media talks about inflation, they talk about CPI and everybody nods, and they all worry about CPI coming. But in fact, CPI is an arbitrary measure where you cherry pick a market basket of things that are not going to go up in cost, if you like, and then you call that CPI.
And so if you actually, if you actually create an array of all the products, services, and assets in the world that you might purchase with the cash flow that you generate from working, then I think that there's also, there's almost like there's four standard buckets and one special bucket. The first bucket is deflating products like a video and music and maps and information and generic drugs and commodities, anything manufactured news and books, and anything that could be dematerialized during the mobile wave that's on your iPhone, you know is deflating or, or anything dematerialized to an iPad or a computer and anything manufactured by a robot or in a big factory or anything with a low variable cost and a high fixed cost, computer chips, what have you, they get stamped out and massive amounts, and they're all deflating. There's no inflation there.
And then the next category is flat to 2% and that's like secondary property, property in the secondary markets are manual labor, unskilled, branded consumables. They kind of hold their value, take up a little bit, 1, 2% a year government services, regulated services. And I might not be perfect here, but it's a rough bucket of ideas. And then, you know, then the third bucket is what nobody talks about a bucket where prices are going up like 6 to 8% a year. And that's like luxury products, scarce products, elite education, elite medicine, elite services, like an Ivy league education or good medical care. And I know this cause I went to MIT. It was costing $9,600 a year when I went there 30 years ago. And it costs $60,000 a year now. And so you kind of do the math 30 years going up by a factor of five or six, and it's not 2%.
And so that's your 7% monetary supply expansion, I suppose. And then I get to this last horrifically painful category where inflation is going up between 8 and 24% a year. And that's equities debt, prime, luxury property, and scarce art. So the S & P 500. I mean, if we look at the S & P index from 1000 to 3,500, over 10 years, that's that gets you a decent clip. And then if you look at that 10 year treasury bill that I talked about, so 22% rate for 10 years, and if you look at penthouse apartment in New York or house in the Hamptons, or an acre of beach front property in South Florida, anything water, I joke LA New York, Miami, San Francisco, London. You know, if you wanted to get a house in the middle of the country that nobody wants to live in, that is not going up 8% a year, but if you're in the magic mile of London or downtown in Central Park or wherever it is, then that stuff's going through the roof.
And so those are the scarce assets. And of course, I've got one last category, which is, which is inflating faster than 25%. You want to guess what that is,
That explains two things. First why he would not consider the Long/Short Index Linked/Nominal bond yields.Saylor said:But in fact, CPI is an arbitrary measure where you cherry pick a market basket of things that are not going to go up in cost, if you like, and then you call that CPI.
If he offered his staff an option to have their salary denominated in btc I wonder how many takers he would have. Same goes for Saylor.Tesla accepting BTC as payment and holding it in BTC whilst having outgoings down the line in USD opens up the possibility for further adoption by Wall Street. This is entirely independent of companies deciding to invest spare cash in BTC. That should be obvious.
If he offered his staff an option to have their salary denominated in btc I wonder how many takers he would have. Same goes for Saylor.
Here's your cult!But more significantly we see a typical attitude of the crypto cult.
Ah, yes - yachts and fine art, Dukey. That's why the CPI excludes food and energy, is it!? And the average punter doesn't aspire to have a roof over their head so lets not consider house prices either.CPI is all a big con job - cherry picked goods that are destined not to increase. Though he is probably right that as inequality increases the prices of yachts and fine art will increase at a faster rate than the CPI which has been tailored to suit the average punter.
You know perfectly well that this sovereign money world is one we all inherited. Therefore, it's not realistic to have people switch to a 100% crypto payment scenario. That said, I'm aware of quite a few folk who do get paid in crypto. I've been paid myself in crypto on occasion. And in the meantime, the bridges between those two worlds continue to be built. Any crypto I possess today - I can spend in crypto or I can spend in fiat via a plethora of visa/mastercards. Yesterday, visa announced that they will accept crypto payment to settle payments on their network. Later today, Paypal will facilitate US account holders to spend crypto at millions of online merchants.Duke of Marmalade said:If he offered his staff an option to have their salary denominated in btc I wonder how many takers he would have. Same goes for Saylor.
Ah, yes - yachts and fine art, Dukey. That's why the CPI excludes food and energy, is it!? And the average punter doesn't aspire to have a roof over their head so lets not consider house prices either.
Once again - here's your cult.Food, Housing, Electricity and Gas.
So the cult believes that these are excluded and that anything we see on official websites is fake news. Okay, you think I'm nigh eve to believe this stuff.
Saylor has spoken extensively over the course of the past year about the CPI not being a true measure of inflation in real terms. He has repeatedly pointed to major asset price inflation - again, not reflected in the CPI.Saylor isn't going to care if the price of milk goes up 5%.
The cult (cue picture of a greenback) is cherry picking its story. Apparently economists in the US prefer to exclude the things you say. Cult grabs this titbit and screams "told you so" even with some faux concern for the housing problems of the poor. But the official US CPI most certainly does not exclude those items. The following is an extract from the FAQ on the official calculation of the CPI provided by the US CSO.Once again - here's your cult.
There are various means of calculating inflation. The one that is rolled out to the general public is this one - with its exclusions.
US CSO said:A particular type of cheese item will be chosen, with its likelihood of being selected roughly proportional to its popularity. If, for example, cheddar cheese in 8 oz. packages makes up 70 percent of the sales of cheese, and the same cheese in 6 oz. packages accounts for 10 percent of all cheese sales, and the same cheese in 12 oz. packages accounts for 20 percent of all cheese sales, then the 8 oz. package will be 7 times as likely to be chosen as the 6 oz. package.
The Duke of Pot Calling Kettle Black Marmalade is correct. Any unreasonable tar and feathering 'cult' references will be accompanied by a demonstration of the cult of fiat money -> 'In God We Trust' .....you think they didn't have cult in mind with that - and that's before we get into the rest of the symbolism on a dollar bill.The cult (cue picture of a greenback) is cherry picking its story.
You've just proven my point. People are fed this nonsense - with the exclusion of food, energy and housing - to blind them from the real rate of inflation.Apparently economists in the US prefer to exclude the things you say. Cult grabs this titbit and screams "told you so" even with some faux concern for the housing problems of the poor. But the official US CPI most certainly does not exclude those items. The following is an extract from the FAQ on the official calculation of the CPI provided by the US CSO.
The Fed target 2% inflation - this is the official CPI not the one that is preferred by some economists. The cult seems to get great buzz from a belief that the reason for these economists to take this position is part of a grand conspiracy to hood wink the ordinary punter who are not as enlightened as the cultists.You've just proven my point. People are fed this nonsense - with the exclusion of food, energy and housing - to blind them from the real rate of inflation.
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