Posts Tagged ‘inflation’

Inflation: A Cure For The Great Recession?

It’s getting to the point that you almost feel sorry for economists. Kenneth Rogoff has an opinion piece in the Financial Times in which he seems to be groping for the next magic bullet to fire at economies. Indeed, the question of whether the largest advanced economy regions are going to experience a double-dip recession is […]

An Inflation Experiment

One of the excuses that economists advance for being so frequently wrong about most things is that theirs is a science which precludes testing hypothesis. In other words there isn’t any way to set up an economy and see if your theories are valid in the real world. Well, we may have an opportunity to […]

Trashing Currencies

Liam Halligan and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard have two provocative columns this weekend that actually tie together quite nicely. The overall theme is governments debasement of their various currencies as they desperately try to reflate their economies. The lesson might well be buy gold and any other hard asset you can lay your hands on. Halligan takes […]

Two Different Views Of Economic Imperatives

Alan Blinder has an op-ed piece in the New York Times warning of the dangers of reversing course in economic policy in the near term. Meanwhile Liam Halligan writing in the Telegraph asks where’s deflation.  Blinder recounts the familiar story of the policy errors that the Fed and administration made in 1936 and 1937 that […]

Consumer Price Report And Some Thoughts On Inflation From Volcker

In case you missed it, producer prices were up 0.8% in January after falling 1.9% in December. Core producer prices – minus energy and food prices – was up 0.4%. In other words, the deflation devil is not in the room yet. Economic reaction at the Wall Stret Journal Real Time Economics blog included these […]

Ken Rogoff Wants Inflation Target Set At 6%

A noted economist has suggested that the Fed needs to set an inflation target far higher than the one announced yesterday. Kenneth Rogoff, formerly the chief economist of the IMF, said that the rate needs to be 5% to 6%. The good professor was one of the few who called the crisis ahead of time and now […]

A Case For Less Activism On The Recession

Peter Schiff was one of the guys who saw through the smoke and mirrors of the economy early on this decade and had the courage of his convictions to go public with his thoughts and to position himself economically to take advantage of the downturn. He tends to raise the hackles of a lot of […]