Robin Hood Economics
What Robin Hood fails to understand is that robbing from the rich and giving to the poor causes inflation.
As a kid I loved the Disney Robin Hood movie. I remember on a trip to visit my grandparents in England they had that movie and I asked to re-watch it twice a day, every day.
Robin Hood and Little John walkin’ through the forest~
Laughin’ back and forth. At what the other’ne has to say~
What that Disney movie looks like after Robin Hood robs from the rich and gives to the poor is people with wheelbarrows of gold coin to buy bread. Prince John on the street corner turning tricks. If you haven’t seen the Disney movie in awhile here’s what he looked like:
Something tells me Prince John would fare poorly as a prostitute. Either that or exceedingly successful.
I’m not sure I understand. Traditionally, excessive-taxation can cause sellers to raise prices or resort to some other method of earning higher margins.
In other words, the essentials that the peasants bought with the money were already being purchased at inflated prices.
Personally, I feel that in this case, an increase in money supply would be non-inflationary. I’m basing this on Rome’s pre-fall economy where massive increases in money-supply (due to trade expansions) did not lead to inflation.
I would also like to point out, that tax refunds and breaks do not inherently cause inflation.
You, as others, have fixated on the lack of “new printed money” to mean that it would be impossible to cause inflation.
However, what this comic actually addresses is re-distribution of wealth. If, as of tomorrow, all the money that the top “1%ers” had was re-distributed into the rest of the people evenly, it would mean that the purchasing power of the common individual has risen by a substantial amount. To combat this, inflation of goods to reduce purchasing power would occur, temporarily. Once the “regular” people had spent all their money again, the rich would then re-attain it (assuming they own the consumer businesses at which the regular people buy things).
At that point, deflation would start to occur, but slowly, as the “normal” people would now have many goods that they don’t need to re-buy for years. So, yes, it would not cause permanent inflation, but it would definitely cause a temporary one.
Inflation is completely possible without printed money. I’m not brave to say otherwise. Which is why I used the phrase “Personally, I feel in this case..blah blah money supply.” I was concerned with money supply/purchasing power. Whether or not this supply was increased by a dashing, heroic archer or printed money wasn’t really relevant to my confusion.
That all being said, I believe my outlook stands. Re-distribution or not, an increase in purchasing power or money supply does not necessitate inflation. Specifically, economies with over-taxed/heavily-burdened poor have historically been exceptions to the general ‘rules’ of inflation.
In fact, many 3rd world countries receive enormous amounts of monetary injections via foreign aid, yet inflation may not spin out of control because the circulation of money strangled.
To me, all these exceptions indicate that economics isn’t so straight-forward. Even now, I am too cowardly to say that robbin’ hoods would definitely cause temporary inflation. There are quite a few factors at play here, but I’m not playing.
Conclusion: Don’t dis Robin Hood yo. I got his back
P.S. Replace 3rd world countries with crack-whores and you’ll have a fun analogy where crack doesn’t always whack people out because of how distorted their system are already.
You’re not the only one to consider this further. Check here: http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/11moq9/robin_hood_economics/ and here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/11n4v5/does_theft_cause_inflation/
Thanks, I was wondering for awhile why people there are so few comments of such glorious comics.
To clarify, I laughed heartily but later became unsure as to whether this was satire within satire. I wasn’t sure whether this was:
– A relatively straight-forward and entertaining critique on re-distribution
– An assertion that critiquing Robin Hood in this manner is absurd
– Both
That’s why I open my initial comment with “I’m not sure I understand”. I mean, your name is 2D, and this comic presents a vastly simplified (2d) outlook on the issue. I wanted clarification on your thoughts, so I provided my line of reasoning as to why it was ambiguous to me.
I love you too much to criticize. Please great one! Provide me the insight that no reddit thread could possibly provide! Yay or nay. I beseech you. Never, would I besiege you.
I love you too.
I’d say it’s closer to the first one.
I find the more complex you make a comic, the further away from “funny” you risk taking it. But because you let out a hearty laugh I know we did good. And that’s all that matters to me. :)