Inflation

Archive for Inflation

A Petition That Scott Sumner Could Approve?

I kid, I kid. Presumably because of all of my recent inflation posts, Bill Sarubbi reminds me of this video:

Yet Another Post on Inflation

OK first, let me show what a fair guy I am. (If I were a single lady I’d be the fairest maiden in the land.) Let me admit that the really catchy phrase from Milton Friedman–inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon–only makes sense if he’s using it to mean “rising prices.” Now then, […]

George Orwell on Politics and Language

From his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” some key passages that perhaps have relevance to our recent controversy over the quixotic Austrians attempting to resurrect (what they claim is) the original meaning of the term “inflation” (all bold is mine, and I’m not going to italicize the whole thing so you can see […]

Austrians Are Not Redefining Inflation

There has been some buzz in the blogosphere lately about us wacky Austrians and our idiosyncratic definition of “inflation.” Nick Rowe calls it “a bit daft” (though goodnaturedly, as I imagine Nick would banter with someone robbing him at gunpoint), and Gene Callahan finds it not as useful as the current popular definition says it […]

A Proposed Apology

[UPDATE: Some people got it in the comments, but just to be sure: This “apology” was a joke; I was just mimicking Krugman’s pseudo-apology in this piece. So if you knew right away that Krugman would never accept the below from Schiff or me, then do what you will with his own mea culpa…] At […]

Potpourri, Peter Schiff Edition

==> The blogosphere is full of claims that he got “pwned” by Scott Sumner in this exchange on Kudlow. I don’t see how. Sumner said that if the official (price) inflation numbers were bogus, then that would mean the real economy was shrinking. Such a claim has always astounded me; I can’t believe libertarians find […]

Krugman Joins the Club

Back on June 29, Krugman had a post called “The Always-Wrong Club,” which covered familiar ground for our hero: Aha. Floyd Norris reminds us of the 23-economist letter from 2010, warning of dire consequences — “currency debasement and inflation” — from quantitative easing. The signatories are kind of a who’s who of wrongness, ranging from […]

Common Sense vs. Scott Sumner

I am at Porcfest–lots of video forthcoming–so perhaps I’m missing nuances here, but my understanding is: (1) The Fed announced it would scale back its purchases of Treasuries and other assets (depending on the situation) in such a way, as to make the markets think that the Fed was going to tighten sooner than previously […]