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 […]
Archives
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Letter to WSJ on Modern Monetary Theory
22 Nov 2021
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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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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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WARNING: Slightly wonkish today. But worth it! One of the important insights of Public Choice economics (which analyzes the public sector through the same premise of action by self-interest which governs the private sector), is that you have to understand the political economy of actually implementing any proposed policy. The policy that is amazing in […]
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When did inflation become real to you?
13 Jul 2021
Unfortunately I think I’ll be writing a good bit more about inflation as we roll into the fall; it seems as if there are daily articles in most news sources about higher prices. It’s clear to me that eventually we’ll have much higher prices, but that could still be years away. Next year, three years, […]
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The Cleanest Dirty Shirt Is Still A Dirty Shirt
31 Dec 2020
Dr. Haymond referred to the dollar as, “The cleanest dirty shirt,” in a comment on my last post (note the shameless plug). I think he is correct, and I have heard him use similar terminology before to refer to a variety of policies and institutions in our imperfect world. We may not have the best […]
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When The Doves Fly
08 Dec 2020
The Senate confirmed Christopher Waller to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last week, leaving only one slot left open which is unlikely to be filled by Judy Shelton.* Any spot on the Board is significant; however, it is unlikely that Waller will push for any changes to the Fed’s policies. The Federal Reserve Board […]
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Fed’s Monetary Guns Keep Coming Up Empty
16 Mar 2020
S&P futures are limit (5%) down this morning, meaning no trade can occur pre-market opening that is not above the 5% down, and one ETF that tracks the S&P 500 is down 9%, indicating the bear market is still alive and well. This despite the Federal Reserve bringing out the big guns on Sunday by […]
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Coronavirus and Financial Markets
02 Mar 2020
As I write this morning, markets (Dow Futures) are trending downward to open today by about 300 points, after going into correction (>10% down) territory in last week’s wild action. Mr. Trump is (once again) asking for the Fed to ride to the rescue. “This is something I think they should’ve done even beyond this […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach