Tag Archives: inflation

No politician wants to be associated with inflation.  The trouble is that no politician wants to be associated with budget reductions either.  So while a government might cut benefits and services aimed at people who do not vote (like young people) or people who do not support them (like disabled …

An uninformed observer might assume that the rate of inflation is calculated by simply measuring how much prices have risen.  This, perhaps, is why so many of us have lost trust in figures that say prices have only risen by 3 percent even as our rents, utility bills and food …

Economists attempt to explain away the failure of their forecasts with the metaphor of the black swan – something so rare and unexpected that nobody can be held responsible for failing to notice it.  The Great Financial Accident of 2008, the DotCom bubble and the stock market crash of 1987, …

In addition to his famous ‘hierarchy of needs,’ psychologist Abraham Maslow had a hammer: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” In central banking, that hammer is the rate of interest on overnight lending …