Research Finds Link Between Inflation and Laughter In Federal Reserve Meetings 144
schliz writes "A one percentage point increase in an inflation forecast brings about a 75% rise in laughter, according to an American University PhD student, who studied transcripts of the Federal Open Market Committee at the Federal Reserve. Laughter usually comes in response to witticisms during a meeting at the time of the inflation forecast, and has been shown to be a mechanism for coping with the stress of a perceived threat."
Fed laughter correlated to the housing bubble (Score:3, Informative)
From 2012: http://multiplier-effect.org/?p=3362
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
The powerful are fine with inflation. They hold a wide range of assets, some of which will be inflation proof.
While their net wealth might go down in a time of high inflation, it will go down more slowly than the vast majority of people and the powerful's income is likely to be somewhat inflation proof allowing them to buy up yet more assets as people are forced to sell the few things they own that are inflation proof in order to raise funds for day to day living.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Rofl. Yeah, money in the bank. Julius Baer, Switzerland, in several european currencies. Tokyo, Japan, in several asian currencies. OK how about financial instruments. Short term bonds in dollars (US, Canadian, Australian, NZ), euros, pounds, reals, yen, rubles... Stocks, in several stock exchanges around the world, in diversified sectors. Gold, silver, platinum, copper, diamonds (and I ain't talking jewelry or certificates here). Now let's talk real estate....
Seriously, you are full of shit. The rich don't give a damn about inflation in one country or the next. What they DO care about is how to profit from the situation. There's always profit, if you're big enough.
Re:So? (Score:2, Informative)
Like how destructive to everyone the "deflation" of the cost of technology over the last 30 years has been?
"Deflation" is a canard. It simply means that the actual value created by human innovation and efficiency increases, for a particular lucky domain, hasn't been siphoned off entirely by the financial system. The "goal" of 0% means nothing other than it's a number that the public has been hypnotized into thinking is optimal, for which the siphoners should be praised in acheiving. Quite the opposite. Human progress means the costs of goods and services -should- be going down, and the standard of living going up correspondingly. Those savings on particular goods in a massive scale translate into investment in more jobs and more prosperity, precisely as we have seen in the tech industry, despite having every imaginable impediment and rent-seeing drain placed on it.
Respect history and the economic realities directly before your eyes before blindly repeating the mantra of theft that keeps the majority of the country making no net economic progress, year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation.