In a period of shortages and inflation, I have been thinking a lot about deflation (maybe I have been dreaming about it). As I watch prices increase, it occurred to me that we only every discuss getting inflation back under control, but we never discuss prices falling back to a certain level. Why are we […]
Archives
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Never Mention The D Word
22 Nov 2021
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Letter to WSJ on Modern Monetary Theory
22 Nov 2021
This morning I jotted the following note to James Mackintosh, who authored a weekend article on MMT and my former professor, L. Randall Wray. Mr. Mackintosh Thanks for the article on MMT; as a former student of Randy Wray during the 1990s, I appreciate seeing the consistency of his thought, even though I still see […]
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Transitory: The Fed’s new Dirty Word. A short series on inflation, part 4–Putting it all together.
16 Nov 2021
After months of denying that inflation was a problem (just transitory you see), Joe Biden appears to be finally getting the memo (maybe he’s even reading BATG!?). It was amazing on Sunday seeing some of the Democratic talking head analysts act as if Mr. Biden could just pivot on his message and he could get […]
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In part 1 of this series, we looked at a basic macro model of the forces of how supply and demand interact, which can lead to increased price levels. In part 2, we looked at how changes in the money supply can affect the price level. In this blog post, we’re going to think more […]
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Democrats Prepare to Own the Coming Inflation
25 Oct 2021
Contrary to the motivational speakers, if you want something bad enough, you’ll do bad things to get it, and get bad results. The Democratic Party is preparing to walk over the cliff with their tax and spend bill, and they will have no escape from the inflationary effects to follow. It won’t matter that this […]
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In part 1, I walked us through the basic macro model of aggregate supply and aggregate demand to show that either increased demand or decreased supply, or both, could lead to higher prices. In this post, I want integrate money into the picture, since I agree with Milton Friedman’s famous dictum, “inflation is always and […]
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Are you ready for your 401k to be cut in half?
10 Oct 2021
If you can’t stand the thought of your 401k being cut in half, then perhaps you ought not be in the stock market. It’s unfortunate, but the Federal Reserve has engineered asset prices to leave most investors with the Hobbesian choice of greatly overvalued stock and bond markets, or going with the money market opportunities […]
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US Debt Increase: Without it must we default?
05 Oct 2021
One of the continuing tropes we see around every debt limit extension is: 1) if we don’t extend the debt we force the government into default, and 2) the U.S. has never defaulted on its debt, and finally 3) that would force the U.S. to pay much higher interest rates in the future. So let […]
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Or alternatively, who will rescue us from the American Rescue Plan Act? We are ever so close to the Democrats completing their $1.9T blowout to reinvigorate the economy. Undoubtedly the House will pass it quickly (likely today) and Mr. Biden will sign it. Key features include extending the child tax credit, direct payments to citizens, […]
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This is the day…
20 Jan 2021
Yes, Joe Biden will become the U.S. President in a few hours. For some, this is the end of a nightmare, for others, it’s only the beginning. And yet for others, it’s a different kind of nightmare. But as I started our intro headline, I couldn’t help but remember that jingle that we used to […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach