I mean, _transport_ rather than _translate_; and the future hasn't happened yet, so it's speculative and entrepreneurial rather than "scientific"/trying-to-be-accurate. 

> If we can't compare the purchasing power of a dollar today with a dollar from 1950, how does money work at all? 

This strikes me as a **temporal issue, Misesian Regression theorem style...** As in, by holding money I continually (say every day) reassess my decision to do so with knowledge of the market prices out there and goods on offer.  I _never_ have to make a 75-year comparison across economic eras. That should make a difference eh?

denlillaapan

@remindme in 3 hours. 

Gotta go watch the handball game first

There's no way to "translate" a monetary value of the past into a monetary value of the present that makes any sense.

It's funny because isn't translating value from the present into value in the future one of the main reasons we use money? Money is something you use because you believe (hope) that it will have purchasing power in the future. Isn't it supposed to carry value across time?

For instance, if I am deciding whether I want to go on a trip this year or buy bitcoin, I might be thinking about how much bitcoin could be worth five or ten years from now. Aren't I trying to translate a monetary value from now to a monetary value in the future? Or in the case of a business deciding whether to sell equity to raise capital or to use a loan to finance some expansion -- how else can they make the decision except by translating monetary value now into monetary value in the future?

I'm sympathetic with your points about finding it very difficult to compare life now to life in 1840 and know which is better...but I worry that another way to phrase the statement is "It's difficult to compare the purchasing power of a pound sterling now and a pound sterling in 1840." So now I'm going back on myself.

If we can't compare the purchasing power of a dollar today with a dollar from 1950, how does money work at all?

econ

MONEY CLASS OF THE DAY: A Lesson in Inflation Adjusting, Christmas Carol Edition

> There's no way to "translate" a monetary value of the past into a monetary value of the present that makes any sense.

It's funny because isn't translating value from the present into value in the future one of the main reasons we use money? Money is something you use because you believe (hope) that it will have purchasing power in the future. Isn't it supposed to carry value across time?

For instance, if I am deciding whether I want to go on a trip this year or buy bitcoin, I might be thinking about how much bitcoin could be worth five or ten years from now. Aren't I trying to translate a monetary value from now to a monetary value in the future? Or in the case of a business deciding whether to sell equity to raise capital or to use a loan to finance some expansion -- how else can they make the decision except by translating monetary value now into monetary value in the future?

I'm sympathetic with your points about finding it very difficult to compare life now to life in 1840 and know which is better...but I worry that another way to phrase the statement is "It's difficult to compare the purchasing power of a pound sterling now and a pound sterling in 1840." So now I'm going back on myself.

If we can't compare the purchasing power of a dollar today with a dollar from 1950, how does money work at all?