Inflation

Archive for Inflation

Taking On Krugman’s Latest Theory About Gold Prices

For those who follow these things, you know that in the past few weeks the “mystery” of soaring gold prices has apparently been solved by Paul Krugman. Far from signaling that some investors are worried about the fate of the USD, Krugman thinks soaring gold prices are the natural reaction to low real interest rates. […]

Waiting for Godot Deflation

It’s that time of the month, when the BLS gives us the official price statistics. Relying on both the PPI and the CPI releases, here’s the breakdown. From August 2010 to August 2011, we had the following increases in these categories: Consumer Goods +3.8% Finished Goods +6.5% Intermediate Goods +10.3% Crude Goods +18.4% It’s weird. […]

Did I Ever Predict Hyperinflation?

[Ironic UPDATE below.] One of the standard criticisms of guys like Peter Schiff (and lesser mortals such as me) is that we’ve been falsely calling for hyperinflation for a few years now. For example, Krugman repeatedly rips Schiff on this score, and links people to a Google search of “Peter Schiff hyperinflation 2009.” (Incidentally, I […]

More Heretical Thoughts on Inflation

I know, I know, the “bond market” is telling us that there will be low price inflation as far as the eye can see, so I’m just supposed to ignore everything else that is screaming, “Danger danger, Will Robinson!” Now we Austrian types have argued that maybe the yields on US government debt are low […]

Is This the Inflationary Big One?

I elaborate on the trends in excess reserves and money stock that Wenzel first noted. If for no other reason, you should click the link to see the graphic they put with the article.

More Evidence That Scott Sumner Is Insane

For a while I have confidently asserted that economist Scott Sumner is insane. (Believe it or not, Scott himself understands why I say this as a compliment. I’m not saying he’s flattered, mind you, just that he gets my weird sense of humor.) Today I will not talk about his views that our current recession […]

And Now, the End Is Near…

Sing it, Frank. Robert Wenzel’s EPJ Alert tipped me off to the fact that excess reserves are finally dropping, while required reserves are rising. Wenzel actually looks at the Fed’s data release, whereas I had been lazy and only checked the FRED graphs (which apparently are a month behind). Anyway, for a long time people […]

I’m Still Not Seeing the Deflationary Threat

Today the BLS put out its official Consumer Price Index numbers. From July 2010 to July 2011, unadjusted CPI rose 3.6%. Yesterday the Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers came out. Here is the breakdown of 12-month changes by category: Finished goods +7.2% Intermediate goods +11.6% Crude goods +22.6% If I didn’t know any better, I’d […]