Monty Pelerin's World

Economic, Financial and Political Analysis

Tag archives for Inflation

The Investor’s Dilemma

The performance in the stock market year-to-date has been unusually strong, especially so given the weak economic conditions of the country and the world. Financial assets have risen while economic conditions have been stagnant. How long can this divergence continue? Financial Markets There is no way to provide a reasonable answer to that question. Stocks [...]

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Federal Reserve Policy Ensures Inflation

The Federal Reserve is the enabler of Federal government’s profligacy. It plays this role by monetizing the debt, i.e., purchasing Treasury bonds that otherwise could not be sold, or at least not sold for the artificially low interest rates that currently prevail. Since the financial crisis, the Fed’s balance sheet has risen from $800 Billion [...]

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What Inflation?

Economists have frequently used the Big Mac Index to compare prices in different countries as a marker regarding exchange rates. It is nearly the perfect product as it is available nearly everywhere and quality and portion-controlled tightly by McDonalds Corporation. It can also be used domestically as this quote from munKNEE demonstrates: The Big Mac Index [...]

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An Inevitable, Unhappy Ending

Tim Price offers some important observations in this article: Credit expansion, wrote the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, is not a nostrum to make people happy. “The boom it engenders must inevitably lead to a debacle and unhappiness.” That seems a pretty accurate summary of the current situation for the western economies: a debacle, and [...]

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Inflation Is Political Cowardice and Chicanery

It is no secret that politicians prefer inflation over tax increases. Zerohedge explains why: If the authorities raise taxes explicitly and openly, voters know exactly why they have less spending power. They also know how much less spending power they have. But if the authorities instead raise money by simply printing it, they raise the revenue [...]

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