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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Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index hit 5.4% year-over-year in September, which is over double what the Federal Reserve said is its goal (2%). There are increasing numbers of Fed critics joining your friendly neighborhood Bereans, most humorously by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers: SYDNEY–Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has sounded alarm […]
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This Berean thinks so–so let me defend why. I was quite surprised when I heard the Biden Administration say that they had many Nobel economists* endorse the “Build Back Better” plan, but I was especially surprised that the Biden administration claimed these economists said the plan would ease inflationary pressures. I figured there had to […]