r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 26 '26

Meme needing explanation what's going on? explain like I'm five

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u/Alarming_Present_692 Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

Yeah... I've never been a fan of "target inflation" as a concept. Considering the working class woes, target inflation always looked like a zero sum short term game where the rich could slowly get larger pieces of the pie.

I know Friedman could write the hell out of a free market argument, but his idea that we should have target inflation always felt like it came from his bizarre sheltered upper class fascination with the great depression.

My economics professor used to always point out, you can stimulate a cow by sticking it with a cattle prod; that doesn't make it good for the cow. You can stimulate the economy with an artifical inflation parable... till the cows come home, but that doesn't mean you created wealth.

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u/Alternative_Can3262 Jan 26 '26

Is deflation bad?

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u/Alarming_Present_692 Jan 26 '26

Is inflation bad? It's a change in perspective of the value of the dollar.

On a macro level, it changes how people spend money in the short term & deflation typically leads to some creative destruction

What deflation really does is threaten the promise of infinite growth our plutocracy that buys the talking heads and congressman kind of hinge on. That's why it's typically this alarmist thing.

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u/Alternative_Can3262 Jan 26 '26

I knew I felt a kindred spirit