(Insanity) is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshipped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man.
With the shrinking of the US economy, and it's shrinking very rapidly, you not only have more money, but you also have fewer goods. That's a classic double-whammy on inflation.
Any money the government spends must be taxed, borrowed or conjured out of thin air by the Federal Reserve, and that will reduce sound private investment. Obama has no real wealth to inject into the economy. He can only move around existing money while inflation robs us of purchasing power. Meanwhile, private investors who might have produced a better engine, battery, computer, cancer treatment or other wealth-creating and life-enhancing innovations hold back for fear that big government will undermine productive efforts.
Let's turn inflation over to the post office. That'll slow it down.
In a free enterprise system, with an honest and stable money, there is dominantly a close link between effort and productivity, on the one hand, and economic reward on the other. Inflation severs this link. Reward comes to depend less and less on effort and production, and more and more on successful gambling and luck.
Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.
Inflation, being a fraudulent invasion of property, could not take place on the free market.
The risk is that as we come out of this recession, we'll have so much debt to finance, we'll either have to have inflation or very high interest rates to continue to borrow the money, or both. That's a risk.
I'm just opposed to a pure inflation-only mandate in which the only thing a central bank cares about is inflation and not employment.
The natural tendency of the state is inflation.
Invest in inflation. It is the only thing going up.
Inflation is taxation without legislation.
The time will come, and probably during 2009, that the only way the U. S. will be able to fund its deficits is to create money by printing it. The Treasury will have to sell bonds, and, in the absence of foreign buyers, the Fed will have to print the money to buy them. The consequence will be runaway inflation, increasing interest rates, recession, and inevitable tax increases on all Americans.
Of course, looking tough on inflation is part of any central banker's job description: if investors believe that inflation is going to get out of control, you end up with higher interest rates and capital flight, and a vicious circle quickly ensues.
When the Fed decides that inflation is too high, they have the tools, and they've shown historically that they have the will, to bring it down. And, it might be painful.
Quantitative easing prints money & causes inflation.
When growth is slower than expected, stocks go down. When inflation is higher than expected, bonds go down. When inflation's lower than expected, bonds go up.
A commodity doesn't have the same characteristics as a security, characteristics that allow for analysis. Other than a recent sale or appreciation due to inflation, analyzing the current or future worth of a commodity is nearly impossible.
People who are complaining about the Fed are people who've been predicting runaway inflation for five and six years, and it hasn't happened.
The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.