I was thinking that if inflation causes prices to rise, then wouldn't this mean that people would soon come to prefer more inflation in order to keep up with inflation?
If it is true, then to what degree is inflation a cure for inflation? Obviously it would be a short-term cure but as I see it, too many people say that inflation is always an evil for me to think that it is sometimes (however short) a good.
fakename:I was thinking that if inflation causes prices to rise, then wouldn't this mean that people would soon come to prefer more inflation in order to keep up with inflation?
You're asking if people would come to prefer prices to rise to keep up with rising prices?
If it is true, then to what degree is inflation a cure for inflation?
It's not true, it makes absolutely no sense, and "none."
Obviously it would be a short-term cure but as I see it, too many people say that inflation is always an evil for me to think that it is sometimes (however short) a good.
It's a short term "good" like getting your next heroin fix is good when you haven't had one in a while.
People would not want higher prices and less purchasing power to keep up with higher prices and less purchasing power. It's just an illusion, and does not work. Only when inflation stops, and prices adjust, thus the market will strive towards an equilibrium not tampered by intervention.
Not sure if this will make sense, but imagine you have wood for a fire, you always use roughly the same amount, and then someone multiplies the amount of wood to be used in that fire by 100 and drops it right into the fire, and now the fire is huge, and you are not ready for a fire so big, and you try to keep the fire up, but you yourself do not have that amount of wood. The wood came out of nowhere, you cannot provide that amount of wood, but why have a 3rd party continue to add wood to this fire that you yourself can not build up? The fire gets larger, and eventually the whole forest burns down and now you have no wood for anything, and it eats up your home, because you had to throw that in the fire to just to keep up with it's rising flames, and in the long run your dead.
I think what you are talking about is, that people need predictability to plan. This also is true in an inflationary environment. Now if people expect steady inflation, a sudden and not anticipated stop to inflation will also cause pain that would not have been there if inflation had stayed the same.
As descibed in this Mises article that talks about inflation in the 20s in Austria:
"Then Mises realized Seipel expected that halting the inflation would bring prosperity right away. Mises didn't want to deceive Seipel. "Stopping the inflation will bring economic improvement in time," Mises told him. "But not immediately.… Its first effect will be to cause a 'stabilization crisis,' that will bring about serious, though short-run, economic hardship." Mises went on to explain why: The people have come to expect ever-rising prices. They have adjusted to the inflation so far as they were able. Halting the flow of banknotes will come as a shock. Those who have anticipated further inflation will find their plans frustrated. Thus, the immediate effect of stopping the inflation will not be to benefit you and your political party. I [dare] say you will have serious difficulties."
A second effect in which one could say people prefer more inflation is that profits of companies appear to be higher as long as inflation accelerates and is not fully anticipated by the market. That's the boom. This effect necessarily is limited at a certain point...
Of course in both cases inflation in the long run is negative, but in the short run people may like it...