Join our new subscriber chat. An alternative to Twitter, a way of snubbing Musk.
A private space for us to converse and connect
Today We are announcing a brand new addition to our Substack publication: The Other Hand subscriber chat.
We won’t be abandoning Twitter. But it’s clearly time to think about alternatives. (We haven’t yet figured out Mastodon!)
This is a conversation space in the Substack app that we set up exclusively for our subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. We will post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come our way, and you can jump into the discussion.
To join our chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app (messages are sent via the app, not email). Turn on push notifications so you don’t miss a chance to join conversation as it happens.
How to get started
Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Chat is only on iOS for now, but chat is coming to the Android app soon.
Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.
That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.
I’ve already started my first chat thread so come on over and say hello!
Spot on. All good with me thanks 👍
Really enjoyed the discussion lads. I agree the central bank approach to combating energy and food cost inflation is completely nonsensical. And it’s going to deliver a lot of pain for everyone.
Is the problem really the narrow mandate of central banks? They are already making up their economics as they go along. Surely we don’t want them making up their own objectives too!
Is the issue with how the inflation target is set? And how little thought went into it? Are the politicians guilty of setting an arbitrary limit on the most commonly used inflation index and assuming that’s all grand? Who came up with that idea?
CPI is supposed to capture the overall inflation in the economy whereas with a bit more thought we would probably be indifferent to inflation or deflation in certain components of that index. That’s noise that should be stripped out in my opinion to create some sort of sticky inflation index more suitable to be tracking.
If we want central bankers to ignore energy costs for example, why given them an inflation index to target that includes energy costs?
If we look back at the previous decade of zero interest rates, we saw globalisation and automation erode the cost base of many goods and services. That’s a good thing, no? So why did we need record low interest rates to cause inflationary pressures in other costs (like accommodation costs) just to offset those deflationary pressures and in aggregate hit this arbitrary target? I would imagine the ordinary Joe in his 20’s would have been quite happy living with the deflation in runners and flight costs without suffering the offsetting inflation in accommodation costs.