[dools]

I think it's reasonable for companies to want to have infinite profits and $0 in costs to produce. That's what they're supposed to do.

My point is that when the OP says "inflation is the result of monetary/fiscal policy" (EDIT: paraphrased, not quoted, improved accuracy of paraphrase) it's inaccurate: people did not spontaneously choose to consume more food and fuel because they had increased spending power, but those prices went up and so did profits

So some companies are able to increase prices disproportionately because of their unique position as price setters and lack of competition. They absorb any increase in spending power and/or fiscal stimulus. Increase in interest rates absorbs whatever is left over.

As those price increases filter through the economy, price levels increase further and so on.

If there was more diversity in the food and energy sectors, then prices would not have increased as much as they did, and the increased fiscal stimulus would have dissipated throughout the economy, making its way into the pockets of more small businesses.

Now: should the government not stimulate the economy? Well, I doubt it, then people would have been really in the shit.

Should the govdernment better target their stimulus? Absolutely, I know in Australia it was very inequitably distributed.

Should the government implement policies to prevent those sectors with the least competition from hiking prices to absorb fiscal stimulus meant to avoid recession, thus keeping a cap on price level increases? I think so.

And I think the linked article does a good job of demonstrating the way in which "profit-price" interactions are a better way to think about inflation rather than "wage-price" interactions, and thus why it's unreasonable to expect labour to shoulder the burden of suppressing inflation, rather than capital.

[dageshi]

I don't think op did say "inflation is the result of government spending" he said it was the result of excessive monetary stimulus. In other words the action of the federal reserve.

[dools]

OP did say:

> (sometimes fiscal policy, sometimes both)

Although it's also clear that monetary policy alone cannot stimulate the economy, otherwise there would have been a correlation between ZIRP and economic growth, and there wasn't.

Fiscal policy does stimulate the economy, and if properly targeted this can be done without inflation risk.

OPs main claim here is that the article is "fake news" because government monetary and/or fiscal policy is the main driver of inflation. While it may be the case that governments did stimulate the economy, the bulk of price level increases are not increased caused by demand (ie. people deciding to buy more stuff) but a combination of increase in inputs (supply problems) and monpolistic price setting by poorly regulated companies.

I concede that one might say that, in the absence of any government stimulus, there would also have been no price level increase, but I would also contend that in the absence of such a stimulus there would have been a depression and that a price level increase could have been avoided through better targeted stimulus and better regulation of companies.