Comments by "" (@foxmoongaze) on "The national debt is something to be celebrated" video.

My parents put savings into premium bonds in the 1960s, which at the time could have bought a car instead. Today these bonds might buy a cheap pedal bike. There is zero sense in saving your pounds when they are constantly devalued by far more than the interest earned. I agree that government should spend wisely, but history shows they are unable to do so when there is no, or little, restraint on the supply of money to them. Inflating the money supply devalues savings and raises prices.
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@Tensquaremetreworkshop Hmmm, I think the point is not that the car might have a limited life, but that premium bonds and savings are not a good use of earnings, and very unlikely to become so. In fact, I think it stupid in the economy of the last 50-60 years to save GBP (or any currency). This would change if the interest rates were higher than the real inflation rate, but I don't ever see this happening (the cock eyed CPI is not an accurate measure of inflation, RPI is usually closer).
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@theolddog5129 Maybe, but why would anyone save currency anywhere when those savings always lose purchasing power? In fact, all fiat currencies trend towards zero value - which is why everything becomes more expensive over time in spite of advances in technology and efficiencies of scale.
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@Tensquaremetreworkshop They won a cutlery set and £10 once for the whole 60 years they have held them - not much fun and not much of a return. My father says he bought them at a time when people believed the pound had real value, and by the time he realised otherwise they weren't worth cashing in. It's better to invest in a company that makes something real that is needed. How do you measure your inflation? Actual inflation is the increase in the money supply hence the term "inflation", and rising prices are nearly always a consequence of inflation (excepting short term supply issues for particular goods).
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@Tensquaremetreworkshop The CPI does not reflect inflation, it just measures the price of a selected group of items which has been tinkered with over the decades to make it look better. I have heard that if we used the same measure as that used in the 1980s the CPI would be about 8-9%.
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@Tensquaremetreworkshop Interesting, I guess the only true way to measure the effect of inflation on yourself is the way you do. I do think the trend (probably started over 100 years ago) regarding currency devaluation is unsustainable, and is the culprit for the financial mess we are seeing. Measuring the GBP against other falling currencies only gives a measure of which is falling fastest, not the value of a currency which can only be measured against purchase prices over time. The difficult thing is finding something to accurately measure currency value against to ignore most of the the effects of advances in technology and efficiencies of scale - I guess that's why gold is often used.
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