> Does it really?

It does, really.

Conspicuous consumption is a miniscule part of the economy, and for every person whose conspicuous consumption drops, you'll have 5 people who can no longer afford food and shelter.

If you'd like to learn more, I'd encourage you to take an economics class at any local community college. Intro level should teach you about lots of new things including this, much more than you'd learn reading HN comments.

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boppo1 a day ago | parent [-]

I took multiple econ classes in college. Just because it's in the books doesn't mean it's true. Not to mention some of the books we studied were contributed to by people involved in the interventionist monetary regime. LIRP scooped the guts out of the middle class & handed it to the tech industry and I've seen nothing convincing to the contrary. Expecting everyday people to learn about inflation and manage a portfolio to try and make sure their earnings aren't eroded is borderline class-war. And I'm no socialist.

	▲	margalabargala a day ago \| parent [-]
		Did you miss the part in the classes where depressions happened ever decade or two before current policy? Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. History spent a lot of time being deflationary, and most of that time had abysmal economies for anyone who wasn't nobility.