Commentary After a long period of being low and even negative, inflation is now higher than it has been in almost 40 years. Though still well short of the twin peaks of 1975 and 1980, it is the fifth-highest rate recorded since the end of WWII, and it is still rising. But it ain’t your Daddy’s inflation: what’s driving it is very different to what drove the inflation of the 1970s. Unfortunately, the 1970s experience changed economic theory for the worse, and that theory will guide how the Federal Reserve tries to tackle today’s inflation. It won’t end well. To explain why, I need to use a lot of figures (and a lot of words), so brace yourself. Figure 1 shows the entire history of post-World War II inflation in the USA. There were four major peaks before today’s spike, with the first two driven by Wars (the end of …
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