Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

We all expected inflation to arrive: now it’s here

We all expected inflation to arrive: now it’s here This morning’s report on April inflation confirmed what we already knew: inflation, both from the demand and the supply side, was coming. Now it’s here. First of all, take the YoY numbers with a grain of salt. Last April saw actual price declines in the teeth of […]

Bellwether Bullard versus Sirenic Summers

Bellwether Bullard versus Sirenic Summers  So this is about the now getting to be passe topic of what will happen to inflation this year, with Larry Summers having gone out of his way to make a lot of noise in criticizing the expansionary fiscal policy partly passed but partly still under consideration in Congress as […]

Seconding Paul Krugman: inflationary pressures will be a transient phenomenon in 2021 (will they cause a recession in 2022?)

Seconding Paul Krugman: inflationary pressures will be a transient phenomenon in 2021 (but will they cause a recession in 2022?)  – by New Deal democrat Paul Krugman argues once’s again this morning that any increase in inflation this year as part of a post-pandemic boom will be transitory: I agree. I want to elaborate on one […]

Links to debate on full employment/inflation

From Steve Randy Waldman’s Interfluidity current post: Scott Sumner responds. Related — elsewhere: Tyler Cowen — Why are the high growth countries so often the high inflation countries? Kevin Erdmann — 1970s vs. 2000s: Gender Effect Edward Lambert — Has the Fed rate done a good job to balance inflation over the years? Edward Lambert […]

CORRECT PREDICTIONS AND THE STATUS OF ECONOMISTS

Vis Brad Delong’s post on CORRECT PREDICTIONS AND THE STATUS OF ECONOMISTS Paul Krugman is certainly right that history has judged, and that the judgment of history is for James Tobin over Milton Friedman so completely that there is not even a smudge left where Friedman’s approach to a monetary theory of nominal income determination […]

Three guesses on where chaining the CPI came from

It’s history lesson time again. An awful lot of talk and writing about the chained CPI has been focused on the results of its implementation on Social Security. Using this formula for figuring the cost of living ends up reducing the money citizens will receive in their SS checks. One of our commenters, Denis Drew […]

The Stockman’s Big Swinging Whip

by reader Matthew McCosker I can credit two sources that have shaped my thinking on both economics, politics (I am quite apolitical these days), and finance. One is the Angry Bear blog, and the second is Warren Mosler.On the bus this morning, I was glued to a post at Warren Mosler’s blog, where he responds […]

Euro Area Inflation: A Very Slow Burn

by Rebecca Wilder Euro Area Inflation: A Very Slow Burn Euro area consumer prices increased at a 2.4% annual pace in May, down 0.2 ppt from the 2.6% pace in April. Core inflation fell to 1.8% in May from 1.9% in April. Headline and core inflation peaked in the fourth quarter of 2011, and disinflation […]

A Different Look at GDP and Inflation

At Illusion of Prosperity, Stagflationary Mark posted this scatter-graph of quarterly GDP YoY growth and CPI data from Q1, 1948 through Q4, 2011.  Each point represents the differences from the medians of each data set for each of the variables, respectively.  This gives you a picture of time spent above and below what might be […]