This is the opposite of soaking the rich. The well-off generally have a very large proportion of their wealth invested in productive economic activities, with returns well above inflation.
Savings and investment are largely synonymous so I stand by my initial statement. How can one expect to buy a house if they're precluded from putting savings "in-the-mattress"? I'm not suggesting they'd be better or worse off using leverage... I'm saying it is solely for them to determine since they're the ones who are most familiar with their own circumstances.
If someone enjoys wiping their rear with $100 bills that's up to them.
As I can tell, the best definition for "in-the-mattress savings" is capital that is deemed a bad investment by any/every one except the person who managed to create the savings itself.
Your argument leads to a slippery slope... what would stop me from taking your assets because they don't fit my definition of "investment"?
The basic fact is that money is a financial instrument created and managed by a government for their own purposes. They create it and therefore obviously they control the supply of it. It's value is therefore based on the degree to which people trust that government to manage it effectively, as with a bond or equity or any other financial instrument.
If short term bills are serving a "useful economic function" and "in-the-mattress savings" does not... then there must be some asset that serves "the most useful economic function". No? Are you suggesting to know the true intrinsic value of all assets?
So, to assert that "Devaluing in-the-mattress savings is a good thing" one needs to assume that this objective way to measure value exists. Otherwise how can we [de]value things if we can't objectively valuate them?
Unfortunately, since the value theory of labor fails in so many ways where the subjective theory of value does not, it's hard to see your rational as anything but an appeal to authority.
Continuing a mindless appeal to authority just leads to tyranny. And therein lies the slippery slope.
It’s not clear the direction of the causal link and it’s almost surely a bit of both. Having more money affords the luxury of making (and time to research or money to outsource) better decisions. Making better decisions leads to having more money.
If the predominant economic paradigm were one that favored in-mattress-saving (such as persistent deflation might be), would the “rich” still be as inclined to invest in today’s productive-given-inflation assets or would they pivot to being heavy in-mattress savers? The ones that didn’t adjust would presumably become relatively less rich over time.
