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Everyone talks about inflation and how $100 today has the value of only $5 one hundred years ago. Today you can buy a smartphone for $100 and have access to a camera, access to the music catalogue of the worlds greatest composers performed by the worlds greatest musicians, the ability to read every book ever written, the ability to communicate instantly with anyone, the ability to teleport digital value to anyone anywhere in the world and so much more. Good luck going back one hundred years and doing that with $5 or $5,000 or any amount of money. It is easy to imagine inflation into the future but it is hard to imagine deflationary abundance.

Replies (14)

↩ replying to Karnage
Ah I was trying to contrast that it is easy to understand the past but hard to project the future. I can imagine a $5000 TV of many years ago costing only $100 today. I can not imagine what a TV that cost $5000 in the future would be like or what it would possibly cost in today’s dollars. Depending on how far you go in to the future no amount of dollars today could buy you the features of a TV costing $5000 many years in the future. Perhaps I am not clear. What is clear it is past my bedtime and I am sure I am making less sense than I think I am.