| > The NYTimes regularly publishes articles such as "179 Reasons You Probably Don’t Need to Panic About Inflation"[0] with highlights such as: And how much of the inflation statistics we're seeing are due to "money printing" (which, by the way, is done by private banks through credit creation, and not the Fed). Was the spike in inflation due to a rise in prices in (used) cars due to demand-pull inflation of too much money? Or supply-push because of shortage of available stock? The price of oil (futures) went negative last year and benchmarks like WTI plummeted, so is it any surprises that as people move more the price has rises YoY: * https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/20/oil-markets-us-crude-futures... Shipping costs are over four times higher than the January 2019 baseline: * https://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook#GDP-growth-projections... Is money printing the cause of bottlenecks at ports and the shortage of shipping containers? Folks were saying that (a) we need government cash as a form of disaster relief (née 'stimulus'), (b) this may/will cause a spike in inflation, and (c) this is fine: * https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/in... Would the US rather have an economy that is "too hot" with inflation or a recovery that falters and people lose their jobs (again)? Some would rather potentially run hot for a little while: > There are risks both ways. If the Fed waits, inflation might become embedded, and bringing it back down again could be painful — though doable. On the other hand, if the Fed raises rates to head off an inflation problem that proves exaggerated, it could damage the economic recovery in ways that are hard to reverse. (Interest rates are still very low, so there would be little room for cuts if the economy weakens.) > So wait-and-see looks like the prudent thing to do. I think current inflation is transitory, but I’m not sure. I am, however, confident that tightening monetary policy based on what we know now would be a big mistake, because the risks of moving too soon and moving too late are highly asymmetric. * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/us-economy-inflat... * https://archive.is/V3KWI |