Josephus has a single paragraph about Jesus. It had been debated whether this is a later Christian interpolation into the manuscripts. The oldest manuscripts of Josephus' works that survived are from the 9th or 10th century. It might be possible that all our text witnesses go back to a single intermediate "Christian" Josephus. What speaks against such a conclusion is a) that (if I remember it correctly, I didn't cross-check) the passage uses the non-standard spelling "Chrestos" instead of "Christos", a so called iotacism, caused by a shift in the pronounciation of Ancient Greek where the sound of iota and eta morphed into each other, and b) that the paragraph appears in the context of Roman religious scandals, a quite unfavourable location. The counter-argument is that a clever forger has deliberately made a spelling mistake and chosen an unfavourable context to make his interpolation seem all the more credible.
Be that as it may, another aspect from Josephus is much more interesting, because it provides us with some context we would have otherwise missed: He tells us about other pretenders of the Messiah from that time, inluding the Roman suppression of this movements, and about John the Baptist in some detail. These passages are usually considered original.
I'm curious why people are so quick to dismis evidence of Jesus as contained in the gospels.
From POV, we have between 4 and 6 (depending on your cannon) different people that record first hand records of Jesus. And it turns out that these same people were passionate followers of Jesus. What other response would you expect from someone who actually knew someone who actually died and was brought back to life?
First of all: the accounts are not first hand. They were in fact anonymous. Nobody put their names in these Gospel-style compositions, identifying themselves, until very late when the church decided to name them as we now have.
Second of all: these accounts are not independent. There is the gospel of Mark, and them other authors went on copying most of the previous books, but adding sections that frequently contradict others. So, what we have are not 4 to 6 different accounts, we have a single story that has been copied and edited by several anonymous people.
None of the canonical Gospels were written by people who had firsthand knowledge of Jesus. All of them were written over a generation after the crucifixion, and those were only four out of many such Gospels in pre-Biblical Christian history. And none of them (not even the canon) agree on any but the most basic narrative, which you would expect at the very least for eyewitness, firsthand accounts.
Since you seem to be a Christian working from a perspective of faith, I don't expect to convince you of anything, but you should at least study Biblical history a bit[0] before making as naive an argument as this.
>What other response would you expect from someone who actually knew someone who actually died and was brought back to life?
Many people are passionately convinced of things that aren't true. Passion is not a signifier of truth, rather it signifies a willingness to abandon objectivity. You're presenting the common Christian apologetic that the passion of the original Christians and the longevity of the religion is a sign of the validity of the resurrection, as no one would be expected to suffer for a known falsehood. This argument fails to take into account that every religion has its zealots, and people who suffer and die for their faith. That no more validates Christianity than it does the pagan faiths it replaced.
I am a Christian (though, that term has many inaccurate definitions). I'll look through the Wikipedia article.
You mention that the Gospels don't agree on anything except the basic narrative. We actually only need a small number of facts to agree. The Wikipedia article you linked confirms Jesus was real and he was crucified. His crucifixion fulfilled a lot of prophesy in plenty of scripture.
Jesus' resurrection is pretty hard to prove (there is no body!), but we see ancillary evidence: His followers gave up their lives for what Jesus taught. Luke-Acts was written "shortly after" the resurrection, when eye witnesses were still alive. Thomas ran off to India and started a church "before" early Christians had a chance to "fake" evidence
I agree with you that passion alone is weak- every (most?) religion has zealots. The 4 Gospels and Paul's account are first hand accounts. They heard directly from Jesus who claimed to be God. Jesus might be crazy, but the original Apostles watched Jesus ascend into heaven - and then they died pursuing what Jesus taught. Paul was passionate about persecuting Christians (note the misplaced passion!), but then Jesus visited him directly and redirected Paul's passion and faith.
People have definitely died for lesser causes. People have definitely pursued petty fights - but the decision of Jesus isn't petty - it is quite literally a decision that defines what happens after our short life here on earth.
I appreciate you sharing the Wikipedia article. I'll read through it so I can better understand you and people like you. I wholeheartedly believe that the God of the Universe made you and loves you - and I want to show you that same love.
One theory presented is that Matthew and Luke were largely based on Mark. And that Mark was written by people "not with first hand account" (also, not Mark).
My take:
Mark has plenty of references to Jewish law - it was almost certainly written by someone with a strong Jewish background.
The names of the people in the book of Mark are "normal" names for people during the time of Jesus. A study got what amounts to a census during the time and location of Jesus - they documented the most popular names - and these names aligned with the names contained in each of the Gospels. This means that the person who wrote Mark was probably near Jerusalem during Jesus' time
The Gospels reflect personal differences in the authors... I haven't seen this yet in the Wikipedia article, but i expect to see it: Luke was Roman trained. Matthew, Mark, and John were jewish trained. Luke's account of the times when Jesus died are shifted by 6 hours. This is important. Luke believes that the day starts at midnight (like most Americans). Mark believes the day starts at sunset (like most Jews).
I dove into a bit of a rabit hole. I'm not sure I'm at the end, but I'll pause here and write my findings.
There are some arguments that Mark was the "source" of Matthew and Luke. And that Mark was based on "Q source". Nether of these assumptions are "earth shattering" or even disruptive. I maintain that these 3 gospels were written by 3 different people- and they likely referenced "existing documents"(for instance, any records of Jesus' birth, likely were based on interviews with Mary or Joseph). Perhaps "Q source" was the source - perhaps not. Either way, all 3 gospels had 3 different authors. And all 3 were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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I also saw remarks about "Jesus having his divinity a secret until after his death. And Early Christians making up Jesus' claim to be God". This is totally bogus.
All 4 gospels repeat that Jesus claimed to be God. They have stories where Jewish leaders "tried to kill Jesus - because he claimed to be God". He was eventually tried for claiming to be God. There are also lots and lots of old testament prophesy that Jesus quotes pointing to Him being God. Yes, His disciples were surprised when he died, and again when he was resurrected. (Oh, BTW, the first 2 people who discovered his empty tomb were women, counter cultural at the time) - but His plan to die and be resurrected was a complete secret from even Satan himself.
One of the most interesting findings of biblical philology was the reconstruction of a "fifth" gospel, called "Q" (from the German word for "source": "Quelle") in the early 1800s. The reconstruction works as follows: We can observe that Luke and Matthew have a lot of passages in common with Mark, and if we only look at these passages, the order of the stories is (with very little exceptions) in Luke and Matthew the same as in Mark. Luke and Matthew each have stories that are neither included in one of the other two gospels; these passages we can leave aside for our reconstruction. And Luke and Matthew have quite a lot of passages in common that are not included in Mark. When we look only on those latter passages, we can make two very interesting observations: a) These passages are either just sayings of Jesus or short narratives culminating in such a saying. b) The order of these passages is (also with very little exceptions) the same in Luke and Matthew.
This observation allows us to conclude with high confidence that this passages constitute a "hidden" intependant gospel, that Luke and Matthew used together with Mark (and their individal traditions) as a source.[1] And we have also a very early Christian example of this literary genre of a collection of sayings ("Logiensammlung") in the (non-cannonical) Coptic Gospel of Thomas.[2]
Another remark in this context: That the different gospels (including, but not limited to those that become later cannonical) contradict each other one way or the other was noticed very early. There had been an attempt to construct a single sanitized gosple by Marcion of Sinope around 130-150, which was more or less a condensed version of Luke. It is interesting that such an attempt to propagate a single gosple as the only binding one was strongly opposed by many and resulted in a canonization of a multitude of four gospels and the popularity of many others for centuries. This diversity of "witnesses", characteristic for especially early Christianity stands in strong contrast to the historically rather naive biblical literalism (biblicism) of 19th century to contemporary Evangelicals.
[1] This was only a very brief summary, neglecting a lot of the scholarly discussion around it. For a somewhat more detailed introduction you may have a look at the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
A very clear difference, for example, exists between by the two versions of his genealogy in Matthew 1:2-17 vs. Luke 3, 23-28. The Wikipedia article on the "Passion of Jesus" has a section about the "differences between the canonical Gospels": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_of_Jesus#Differences_b... Also the narratives about his resurrection differ in the details. And there are a lot of minor differences between individual stories. The "famous" Lord's Prayer is only included in Matthew and Luke, not in Mark and John. The version from Luke is shorter, especially in some early manuscripts (later manuscripts seem to have included the "missing" parts from Matthew and harmoniszed the versions).
If you want to study the differences between the gospels you may use a so-called "synopsis", that presents equivalent text passages from the different gospels next to each other. For example this color-coded one, that make it easy to spot differences: https://sites.google.com/view/biblestudyresources/gospels/co...
Another interesting difference in the New Testament concerns the text of the Acts of the Apostles. To quote from Wikipedia: "There are two major textual variants of Acts, the Western text-type and the Alexandrian. The oldest complete Alexandrian manuscripts date from the 4th century and the oldest Western ones from the 6th, with fragments and citations going back to the 3rd. Western texts of Acts are 6.2–8.4% longer than Alexandrian texts, the additions tending to enhance the Jewish rejection of the Messiah and the role of the Holy Spirit, in ways that are stylistically different from the rest of Acts." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_the_Apostles#Manuscrip...
Thanks! The differences in lineage aren't a problem. Don't assume that the lineages ate supposed to be complete. I've studied the lineage in Matthew more than Luke. It appears that the people listed in Matthew are listed for specific purposes:
Include 3 specific women in the list.
List non Jewish heritage -and the specific number of "jewish" relatives necessary to make Jesus a "full blooded jew". This is important as it reflects the Jewish nature of the authorship of Matthew
Having different versions of the Lord's prayer isn't a problem either. Perhaps one author didn't find the entire prayer important enough. Or didn't find it important enough to include at all. This is what you would expect if 4 friends were writing down a single event they all attended.
The same goes for differences in the death and resurrection. In fact some of the differences are explained by the different background of the authors - which you would expectif there are different authors.
Also, two versions of Acts that are different by 8.4%? Really? Does it change the gospel? If not, then does it matter?
> I appreciate you sharing the Wikipedia article. I'll read through it so I can better understand you and people like you.
Read it because you want to understand what the evidence shows about the authorship of the Gospels and their historicity, even in general terms. But please don't be one of those Christians who sees non-believers as a puzzle-box to be solved, and read it because you want to find the one rhetorical trick or gotcha that will convert me. You can't understand anything about me, much less "people like me" based on a Wikipedia article. I am a whole-ass complex person with a unique personal history, circumstances and outlook, not the straw mass of generalities, biases and stereotypes you have labeled "non-believer" in your head.
If you want to be a witness, live as Jesus said, by example. "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Stop trying to score Jesus points on people.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-19, 21 ESV
For millenia, multitudes have sacrificed their life to follow Christ. The cost is quite literally one’s entire life.
One explanation could be that millions (billions?) have been deceived over the course of millenia.
Or another could be that since Jesus walked this earth, multitudes have come to the conclusion that Jesus is who He said He is. God Himself.
Many come to the conclusion via teaching. But the Christian walk is not one that is primarily about doctrine.
It’s about being lead subjectively by God Himself. It’s the fact that the Christian’s experience of following Jesus matches the character of God as revealed in the scriptures.
They have seen Him, experientially. And this is why multitudes, starting with the apostles, have lay down their lives proclaiming the good news - that though we have been separated because of the sin in our heart, God has made a way for us to be reconciled back to Him. And the way back to God - the only way - is to take Jesus at His word. To
turn from our self will and to believe in Him.
Edit: removed a typo and added the reason why we need to be reconciled.
You are right. It is folly to people who don't have the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth. There are some people ready to believe and I'm hoping to be ready for them.
I see you became a Christian a couple of years ago. Welcome! I will pray that you learn and grow in your faith
I read the same two things in the article and scratched my head. I mean, I assume the entire $250 million mentioned didn't have to come from the home, the way its written it could be a modest home. None the less, it makes me very curious what the actual value of the home is estimated at and where he materialized that much in assets supposedly out of nowhere.
I'm surprised anybody would be willing to risk $246 M for a known fraudster. And I highly doubt their home will still be their home when this is all over.
His parents now have a very good incentive to make sure he makes it to court.
Once he makes it to court, that $250 million is paid back. The only thing the parents lose would be the interest payments on the loan from now until the court date.
I don't see them having that kind of money. They've been on the receiving end of the loot, it's essentially being allowed to leverage stolen money in order to finance the bail.
Probably a judge doesn't care where it comes from and the bail bond people see the risk the way you do but it is a bit weird how a person suspected of crime at this level is allowed to await their day in court in freedom while others are immediately jailed because they didn't steal enough...
While it is likely true that they are likely leveraging assets acquired through his fraud to post bail, legally, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. The only way I can think of that they wouldn't be allowed is if the assets themselves were evidence in the crimes. And there's also the murky bit where the house itself wasn't fraudulently purchased, so if SBF is found guilty and he must pay back all the money, if they were able to come up with the money through other means, they could keep the house.
Next, they aren't using a bondsman. I doubt any bondsman has $250 million to dedicate to this for any length of time.
And they are allowed to wait "in freedom" because bail was posted on their behalf. Those are the rules of the system.
It doesn't cone from anywhere, its a promise to pay (with a very streamlined enforcement process), not a transfer of funds.
> and the bail bond people see the risk the way you do but it is
There are no “bail bonds people” here, unless you mean his parents and the other two sureties.
> it is a bit weird how a person suspected of crime at this level is allowed to await their day in court in freedom while others are immediately jailed because they didn't steal enough...
Money bail is a problematic system, sure, but it also doesn't work the way you seem to think it does.
I suppose this is equivalent to writing an option for a very unlikely downside event.
- Pledge $250M in exchange for $4M collateral and $X in interest (?)
- Near certain outcome of SBF showing up into court, unless some 4-D chess plan has already been contrived to have him and parents flee (what career do they flee to? Each of them?)
- Collect risk-free interest
In the case that this trade blows up, you then call Talib Nassem and tell him you have another anecdote of underpricing tail risk and he'll write about it in his next book on the folly of underestimating black swan events.
Do you know this for a fact? I'm having trouble believing a bank would agree to loan the parents $250 million with only a 4 million dollar house as collateral. Even if the parents equity was 100% of the appraised value that's only $4 million. What ability do they have to pay the rest back? They're not paying that back on Stanford faculty salaries. Further the parents themselves might very well be implicated in this whole mess. I'm trying to imagine a loan office who would be willing to green light such a loan given all the above.
Remote schooling is not the same as homeschooling. When the children are young, it is a lot of couch learning. You sit down with the child on the couch and go through a lesson per day of reading. You have "manipulatives" like blocks to show patterns and counting. Books are often scripted so that you can just read the lesson to the child. As the children get older and more independent, the child can read the lesson themselves and answer the questions. The parents role is then to grade the work and make sure their children are doing the work.
Homeschooling is not easy. It can be stressful, but it gives you the freedom to teach your kids in the best or worst way.
The split of pro/against is really close to 50/50. If you think that the smart people are only on one side or that only one side has "good" arguments, then you are living in a bubble. The argument over abortion was going on before Roe v Wade. Roe v Wade only prevented legislation from finding a solution.
Sorry, the one who is living in a bubble is you. I wouldn't be surprised if over 80% of Google employees support abortion rights. There are many ways to show that Google employees (or generally in the tech industry) are much more liberal than the average US citizen.
Depends what you mean really, as much as 60% are against abortion after a fetus can feel pain (debated: 7-28 weeks), with another 20% undecided and only 20% support abortion.
Most people just don’t know how to have an informed discussion.
What overturning Roe really does is allow states to set the threshold. Roe prescribed a method of determining whether an abortion was legal — “viability”.
Now you can have Colorado having after birth abortions (seriously legislated) and Texas banning abortions after heart beat and Alabama banning all abortions.
This is the thing that our "two sides to every argument" political discourse distorts. Many issues don't poll at 50/50, but perception is often that they are 50/50.
Even on the pro-choice side there is a lot of variance on when abortion should be restricted (similar to how Europe restricts abortions the closer to full gestation). Same on the pro-life side, views aren’t binary.
Considering most people don’t understand why Roe v Wade was overturned, I’m not sure opinions on whether it should have been mean much, since belief of what that means is all over the place.
Personal views of pro-life/pro-choice though can be separated from the question of "Does a woman have the fundamental right to terminate a pregnancy?", which seems to have much more support. Would a significant majority choose to do that themselves? Maybe not. But it seems the majority feel women DO have that right, and should be able to make that choice themselves.
It's 70/30 and you know it. Americans support abortion in some form or another at 70%. The MAGA base do not, and they want other things like gay marriage, gay sex, and birth control also declared illegal.
I've never met a person who thinks birth control should be illegal. I am sure they're out there, but this "they're coming for your morning after pill next" is scaremongering. Gay sex is probably the same. Gay marriage I think you're probably right.
> this "they're coming for your morning after pill next" is scaremongering. Gay sex is probably the same.
Justice Thomas's concurring opinion literally calls for reconsidering (ie, overturning) Griswold (contraception), Lawrence (same sex relationships), and Obergefell (same sex marriage).
It's perfectly clear that this is exactly what a not insignificant number of conservatives want to do. How is this scaremongering ?
His opinion talks about considering whether the court overstepped it's bounds on those rulings, not whether those behaviors should or shouldn't be illegal.
That feels like a distinction without a difference. If he and 4 others rule that the court overstepped its bounds, states will determine those behaviors to be illegal.
So if you admit he's willing to overthrow the precedent, and you agree that some states would then make those behaviors illegal, then how can you square that circle in your brain to claim it's scaremongering?
Well if we look at everything we do in this way there's no way to make a decision on principle, we must always consider outcomes only.
I don't think there's a state that would outlaw regular birth control. Maybe 40 years ago, but today, probably not.
And really, why is it that we can vote at the federal government based on the policies we want, but saying that you should do that for certain issues in your state is undemocratic all of a sudden? What's wrong with states, constituted by their citizens, deciding how to govern themselves?
If a state voted to enslave a certain subset of the population, when would you say that shouldn't be allowed? So at some point you probably think the federal government needs to prevent the erosion of us citizens rights in favor of states autonomy. Get it?
If you do not have bodily autonomy due to the enforcement of religious stupidity by the state, you are not considered a full human being by the state.
Acting like women, and men who care about women should just accept this shit because it's "the will of the people" is not logical, and I might add is not going to happen.
The states that banned this medical procedure are gerrymandered and at least in Texas I have witnessed first hand the extreme measures they are taking to prevent people from voting out the unpopular and corrupt leaders who are endorsing these measures no one wants, except the religious minority. So please tell me more about how this democratic process is what's happening. They rigged the game and now women are going to die and suffer because of it, and nothing is going to change. They will still pay for their mistresses abortions in "free" states and the poors get ground into the dirt even further. Same song different day.
Yes, Justice Thomas mentions some of the most major 14th amendment rulings and says they were ruled wrongly. One conspicuously missing ruling was Loving v Virginia. The one that prevented states from banning interracial marriage. Does this sound like someone standing on principle? Or perhaps more like someone who doesn’t care about others’ rights but don’t touch his own?
Several states have already had debates in their state houses about outlawing some forms of birth control (Louisiana and Missouri off the top of my head). This was prior to the decision, now they will be more emboldened.
The Texas governor when asked if he could go further and outlaw birth control simply responded “I don’t know.” You wildly underestimate how extreme these people are and how little they care about what the majority want.
To answer your final paragraph, there is a very long history of _certain_ particular states in a _certain_ region in America with a _certain_ evangelical Christian makeup who has been trampling rights for centuries. These people argued states should decide slavery and Jim Crow laws as well. Being blunt, history has proven over and over you’re on the wrong side of this.
And, for what it’s worth, until gerrymandering is fixed there is a tremendous problem with letting the minority political party in the state govern.
For instance, in Wisconsin over the last 3 elections, Democrats have been +4%, +8%, -3%. One would expect their state house to slightly favor Democrats. Republicans have held a +29%, +27%, and +23% edge.
Almost every red state is like this. This is how you have relatively purple states like North Carolina, Texas, and Florida take absurdly hard right positions that in no way represents their populations.
The Texas GOP just days ago released their platform calling for a state-level electoral college for all state-wide positions so they can maintain control of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, etc. without coming remotely close to winning the popular vote.
Hope that helps explain how it is very much the DEFINITION of undemocratic and what’s wrong with it.
Thomas mentioned all the cases that made those protected rights. The way those cases would be overturned is if a state passed a law to prohibit them. He is sending a very clear message to legislatures that he would be receptive to hearing those cases. This is not hysteria and you are making the same arguments made about Roe. We have the roadmap, and it is very clear.
After privacy rights, Affordable Care Act, Social Security, and Medicare are all next.
> The split of pro/against is really close to 50/50.
I’ve searched and I cannot find data that say half of America wants abortion made completely illegal (as it is in several states right now and will be in more shortly due to trigger laws).
Can you please share where you get your 50/50 split from?
> Roe v Wade only prevented legislation from finding a solution.
Roe only? Roe made safe abortions available to millions — it reshaped society.
If the argument against Roe is that fertilized embryos are killed, then we need to make sure in-vitro fertilization is stopped where abortion is as well.
As one anti-abortion politician said “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman.”
The argument around roe is quite simply that it was an overreach of constitutional authority by the federal government. Now individual states, the people of them, can decide how they want to govern themselves. That's all that's changed.
Yes, it's important for people to realize the split is closer to 50/50 nation wide, some people forget that, but in tech, it's definitely not 50/50 and that's relevant as well.
"As of March 2022, a broad majority of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade (61%) and just over one-third (36%) support it. Opposition is highest among Democrats (74%), including a majority (56%) who strongly oppose overturning Roe. Most independents (61%) also oppose a Roe overturn."
Those numbers are far closer to 50/50 than one would imagine in the bubble, but that's also reference to specifically overturning Roe v. Wade, not whether or not abortion should be legal, which is closer to 50/50.
Have a look at the second chart[1]
It's been 'mostly, roughly, steadily ~50/50 'ish' for about 20 years.
I think most self described progressives would be surprised by those numbers, and even the 64/36, as you brought up.
This is a 'big win' for 35% of the country, and another 15% are maybe ok with it, and a few others ambivalent.
That sentiment I think is at odds with the moral outrage felt by ~55% of the country, and it's hard to ingest.
Which makes this a big more difficult to navigate than I think we might normally assume.
I think Google's response is rational, but it's not as 'Black and White' an issue as our 'tech culture instincts' might have us believe.
The "bubble" tends to claim the numbers are 60-70% (and higher in tech companies). Polling shows the numbers between 60-70%.
No, most self described progressives would not be surprised that the numbers are where they say they are.
Literally all throughout this thread people are using these same numbers. I'm curious how far off your perception of progressives is from reality. What numbers do you think we believe are accurate?
Further, _you_ should reference the first chart you linked. It should clearly indicate to you that many who identify as pro-life do indeed support at least partial abortion rights.
85% believe abortions should be allowed in all or some circumstances. 13% believe illegal in all circumstances. Many states under conservative control will go to illegal in all circumstances, so that's the opinion of 13% controlling the freedoms of the other 85%. Not so close to 50/50, huh?
There are a lot of numbers here. In short, while it has been 50/50-ish for a while, it wasn't in the 90s, and it's not right now. More people, when asked for an opinion, think abortion should be legal than not. And by about a 5-3 or 2-1 margin, more people think and have thought that Roe should be left alone, not overturned.
> How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
Do you really want to go down that path? We provide healthcare to all sorts of people that choose to do things that impact their health (drunk drivers, drug addicts, etc). Hypothetically, what happens if there are long term health effects from the vaccinations? Should the unvaccinated say, "why should we pay for your heart treatments"?
Everyone in office takes an oath to uphold the constitution. The Supreme Court gets the final say, but it is still the responsibility of everyone to do what they know to be correct.
If anything it increases inequality. It hurts the poor the most. The wealthy are more immune because they will have their wealth in things that go up with inflation. When it is caused by the government spending more than it takes in, it is effectively a hidden tax. NONE of these things are new concepts. Even the belief that the inflation won't hurt is new. Many other societies have blindly thought they were immune until they were not.
The article's point is that it doesn't hurt the poor as much, because more poor people can find jobs, pay off their loans more easily, and they do make more money.
Not to mention that the price of everything isn't going up a single number -- poor people can adjust their spending to account for the items that reflect the highest inflation, and focus on the goods that are least effected.
The article isn't suggesting there are no downsides to inflation, it's suggesting that there are substantial upsides that directly address some systemic inequality in global society.
Wages going up is not what the article is talking about, wages becoming available is what the article is talking about, as seen by our extremely robust jobs numbers.
But we are already at low unemployment before COVID and all the spending; we don't need inflation to drive jobs growth. It would be worth debating the tradeoffs if we were sitting at 10%+ unemployment with no path for improvement, but if anything, it is the job market starved for labor, not the other way around.
We may need inflation to drive job growth now, and we've definitely needed inflation to drive better job growth. An office job being created because a paper company can support an additional employee due to inflation is a better situation than continuing to work in a warehouse job. Inflation will eventually recede, but that new job will give opportunity to the worker.
Scale that up by a factor of millions across the country, and you've closed the income gap. That's the power of inflation.
The truly poor do not have jobs, nor much hope of one in future. They are on fixed state incomes at best, which if they are lucky may have a trivial rise some years after the fact.
We don't need to get terribly cerebral to note the basic mechanism of proportion, whereby $10 added to the daily food cost of a person who makes $50/day is vastly more impactful than the same $10 added to the daily food cost of a person who makes $500/day.
The whole point is that $10 added daily food cost results in the food producer being able to hire more employees, which means the person who makes $0/day can make $300/day now.
Also these numbers are super weird. It's probably more like $10 total daily food cost going up to like $10.30, and going from making $30/day (part time minimum wage) to $50 (near full-time minimum wage).
The numbers were symbolic to illustrate proportional effect.
I'm not seeing a great deal of causation in your theory. The same amount of food is being produced, thus the same amount of work is done - so extra employees are not required. If anything, in your closed system theory, the food producer is going to laugh and pocket extra profits.
This is partly true, but lower income individuals also tend to have a higher % of their net worth eaten up by debt (via credit cards, loans, mortgages, medical debt, etc). The burden of this debt decreases with inflation, since wages can grow to match inflation but past debt + fixed rates do not.
Combatting inflation by raising rates can also lead to more inequality -- wealthy investors can get higher return on "risk-free" products like treasuries and savings, which leads to lower investment in the economy, slower growth, and fewer jobs.
True, but I don’t see why that matters? They will still be paying higher rates, with likely lower incomes, and a principle whose real value does not diminish over time (since debts are held in nominal terms). If their debts were issued with fixed rates, then inflation would eventually reduce the Real cost of their interest as well.
When you say the wealthy are immune because their wealth is in things that go up with inflation, what exactly are you thinking about? Not stocks for sure. Maybe those who have money invested in property for hire, but even then whether your income goes up with inflation strongly depends on where you are location.
Interesting to know: in some countries (eg. Belgium) wages are automatically adapted to inflation, so "the poor" aren't hurt at all.
If they increase, it's despite of inflation - not with inflation.
Simplified example: the value of most stock companies depends on their projected gains in the next few years. A projected gain of $X in 5 years will devaluate over time as inflation increases, simply because $X in 5 years time will be worth considerably less than $X today. As inflation rises above a healthy 2-3%, it hurts the actual gains and thus the connected stock. You can counter such things by keeping interests low (as they've been doing for a while now) but that party has to end someday.
> ... in some countries (eg. Belgium) wages are automatically adapted to inflation
Only certain wages. Like public servant wages. Private companies paying normal people regular wages aren't forced to give them a raise. The minimal wage may inflate but if you're paid above minimal wage, there's no guarantee you'll see a raise.
No, not just minimal wage - that's my point. Almost all companies (that are big enough to have a union, or be part of a joint committee) are forced to give raises.
Inflation is actually terrible for stocks because inflation has to be earned via revenue which only applies to quality stocks. It's not the same as a bull market where everything goes up.
This lacks nuance. Who inequality "hurts most" depends on a huge number of factors. As I previously mentioned, there have been numerous historical instances in which inflation contributed to dramatic decreases in inequality. The fact is, though, inflation's relationship to inequality isn't simple, hence my characterization of inflation as a "blunt-force instrument."
I ran into this the first time I tried out the new Lightroom plan. The customer support rep waived the fee for me. I then used LR6 until I upgraded to an M1 Mac Mini where I was forced to upgrade. I don't think these subscription models provide good incentives for software companies. I don't see LRCC has much better than LR6. It has a few more features (that I've never used), more camera support (haven't upgraded), and a recompile to ARM64.
