Inflation
Repeated price crashes in a variety of industries led to a situation of underinvestment in productive capacity that created the conditions for the inflation we see today.
If we are trying to describe the nature of the real constraints that the economy has been facing over the past 6-12 months, we need a richer economic vocabulary than one that reduces every inflationary constraint to a domestic labor constraint.
This is meant to be a quick "micropost" and may be light on linking & original charts I was recently quoted saying that oil prices surging past $150 was "not implausible" in 2022. The reasons for my concern remains, but through delivering greater demand certainty and
The recently-announced SPR release is the first step in a broader program to address oil price volatility in today's geopolitical environment.
Many economists and commentators disfavor reasoning about inflation from individual price increases, yet still use "core inflation" metrics, which embed reasoning about inflation from individual price increases.
More problems with "Real Wages"
Journalists can pretty much pre-write their headlines given the spike in oil prices. Year-over-year headline inflation readings are set to make new highs, potentially breaching 8% based on the food and energy impulse from what we might call the "Putin shock" to key commodities. At the same time,
Energy security has taken on new importance in wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We can use existing tools to confront these challenges without sacrificing our climate goals.
Now is the time for the Biden administration to think hard about how to encourage greater efficiency for the already elevated set of healthcare costs that the government and the private sector finance in this country.
