by ilene - August 4th, 2010 8:03 pm
Courtesy of Tim at The Psy-Fi Blog
Sleep Soundly
Money illusion is just about the most venerable of all of the behavioural biases that afflict people’s financial good sense. It was recognised back in the early part of the twentieth century, was an integral part of financial theories from thereon and spawned a range of measures that are more or usually less useful to us in everyday life.
Then economists decided that money illusion was … illusory. Which led to various predictable, albeit unpleasant, consequences such as believing “you can’t go wrong with property” or that storing cash in your mattress equates to sensible financial planning. Being poor is one thing, but not being able to get a good night’s sleep is entirely another …
Vanishing Trick
Money illusion is the trait that causes people to focus on the amount of money they possess rather than it’s worth to them. A hundred dollars a hundred years ago is obviously worth much more than a hundred dollars now: prices have inflated and the value of the hundred dollars is far less than it used to be. Measuring this exactly isn’t possible: what price would a businessman have paid for instant communication across the world a century ago compared to the peanuts we pay for the internet today?
In deciding to ignore the idea of money illusion economics was, for once, joining the mainstream, where most people happily ignore the fact that the value of the dollar in their pocket isn’t what it once was. This leads neatly to a world where there are more unemployed people than there should be, where central banks run around like puppy dogs chasing their tails trying to avoid the dreaded d-word and lots of people end up much, much poorer than they ought to be. As ever in monetary matters the world is stranger than we can possibly want to imagine.
Fisher’s Indexes
Despite the practical impossibility of real comparisons we know perfectly well that the value of a dollar or a pound, shekel, rouble or euro isn’t what it used to be. In fact, in the case of the euro it almost certainly isn’t what it was when you started reading this. This fact, however, doesn’t stop us from almost exclusively focussing on how much money we have today rather than what it can purchase for us:…
Tags: Cash, Cutting Wages, economists, financial good sense, financial planning, financial theories, Firing Hires, inflation, money illusion, profits, property
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by ilene - November 11th, 2009 6:05 pm
One question: would Obama pulling a Paulson help the economy, or is that another illusion? – Ilene
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
You have probably heard the term money illusion. I want to coin a related new term called unemployment rate illusion because I think it is significant in light of some of the things David Rosenberg said earlier today about the unemployment rate in the U.S.
Wikipedia’s definition of money illusion is good:
In economics, money illusion refers to the tendency of people to think of currency in nominal, rather than real, terms. In other words, the numerical/face value (nominal value) of money is mistaken for its purchasing power (real value). This is a fallacy as modern fiat currencies have no inherent value and their real value is derived from their ability to be exchanged for goods and used for payment of taxes.
The key here is that behavior changes in accordance with the nominal numbers used as economic signposts in an economy. This is one reason why governments are often accused of manipulating their economic statistics in order to present a more regime-friendly face (see here and here).
The parallel of money illusion to unemployment rate illusion is that a higher posted rate of unemployment can have a serious negative impact on consumer confidence and personal consumption (think balance sheet recession). All else being equal, higher unemployment rates mean lower confidence and consumption. So, a lower unemployment rate is a better unemployment rate as far as incumbent politicians are concerned.
Now, you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist and think that the government is deliberately suppressing the unemployment rate to understand what I am about to say. You just have to understand economic cycles in the context of the note from David Rosenberg today.
What I am talking about is the second paragraph of a quote I highlighted (bolding added):
But in a nutshell, to be calling for a 12.0-13.0% unemployment rate is meaningless except that it is very likely going to be a headline grabber. The most inclusive definition of them all,
…
Tags: Democrats, money illusion, Obama Administration, Republicans, unemployment, unemployment rate illusion
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.