Why do you think these are good things? We should strive to only use what we need. There is plenty of waste in human nature as it is, there is no need to encourage more useless spending by inflating away saved money.
"Banking" is really the reason for all of our recent economic problems. The housing market collapse in particular. I don't see why making it "possible" is a good thing
If we only tried to use what we 'needed', we'd still be living in caves. And different people need different things. Do we need the LHC? Do we need the Smithsonian? Do we need twinkies? No, not in terms of survival. But does that mean we'd be better off without them? And further, could they (and so much more) have been achieved without economic growth?
To me, prosperity is best achieved with mild inflation and prosperity begets culture and makes it possible for people to do more than just what's 'needed'. Humanity is a culture, not a commune.
I think we should strive to grow responsibly. There's just as great of a potential for abuse in both inflationary and deflationary systems, that's not an issue of economics but one of human nature. Same for banking; if lenders had done their job responsibly there never would have been a housing bubble nor crash, or at least not one so huge. Fault the player, not the game.
This is called a straw man, where you make it look like my argument was something that it isn't and then try to knock it down.
Actually, price is the only relevant value we are talking about here. Something that is constantly advancing and changing isn't the optimal choice to compare prices on. Look at the price of corn or beef or something. If you remove inflation, I am fairly confident prices today are cheaper than they were 100 years ago. Farms get more efficient and technology makes everything easier. Of course there are some things where the highest possible level of efficiency was found some time ago and it's no longer becoming more efficient over time, but NOTHING becomes inherently more expensive over time, except for when you add in inflation.
Production price per unit is not equal to retail price per unit. Price is where supply and demand intersect. If over the last hundred years the output of corn and beef has only increased Xfold but the amount people demand has increased X+1fold, it's still going to drive the price up, no matter how efficient it's become. If demand outstrips supply the price will rise; but that's not inflation.
Inflation is prices rising to keep their cost stable relative to interest rates. Supply and demand shifting to change prices is the invisible hand at work. Highly volatile markets, such as food, are often excluded from measures of inflation (or given less weight) for this very reason. They're subject to large supply or demand swings due to health trends, health scares, weather, natural disasters, disease and more. All of which would cause prices to change, and none of which are inflation.
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