[kklisura]

As an absolute layman to this field, the Friedman’s "inflation is ‘always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon’" has appeal to me in that it offers a (simple?) solution: "government austerity" as noted in the article. Whenever I read other views on inflation and even this article, they fail on providing any solution for either fixing or taming the inflation.

[pjc50]

Simple, easy to understand, and ineffective solutions are always popular.

The classic policy lever works just fine for the past 30 years or so in the west: whenever inflation goes up, put up interest rates. That raises the cost of credit, puts people out of work and closes marginal businesses, thereby reducing demand.

If you look at https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/infl... it's been kept perfectly in the 0-4% range by this process.

[throw0101a]

> As an absolute layman to this field, the Friedman’s "inflation is ‘always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon’" has appeal to me in that it offers a (simple?) solution: "government austerity" as noted in the article.

Government austerity is bad policy and has been for just about all of its history:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Da...

(Of course this doesn't mean spending should be done without thought.)