0.1% inflation for March

I’m totally objective. I don’t measure success based on just being better than average. (Remember that average includes a lot of losers). I measure it against what are capable of. We had the capability to avoid the inflation that we have been dealing with, but chose not to.

 

Perhaps you should read the book first so you’ll see the book is repeating what I just said. Jeez! And you’re calling me ignorant SMH

 

And we don't fully know yet what pain the rate hikes will cause. The side effects are never immediate. Just because we've seemingly held up OK during the hikes doesn't mean they won't have negative consequences down the line. They likely will, as history has proven. I still see a very tight housing market where only a select few are propping up a bubble. Like a stock that goes way up in after hours trading due to a handful of investors, but falls back to earth the next day. There are very few people who are willing to move right now unless they're forced to.

 

I have read the book, twice. Obviously you have not. If you had read it, you would know that both parties were complicit in the crisis going back to the Community Reinvestment Act, specifically Clinton’s HUD Secretary, none other than the esteemed Andrew Cuomo, later of COVID fame, utilizing CRA to encourage writing of more subprime loans. Personally, I think that if Glass-Steagall hadn’t been repealed, by both parties, much of the damage from CRA could have been mitigated as there would have been less funding available to write bad loans, as the greed factor would not have been able to take root. Additionally, it has specific criticism of Barney Frank (with help from cohorts of both parties) for ignoring warning signs and continue to let Fannie and Freddy drag us into ruin.

Regardless your position that “our economy crashed during the Bush years because of republican policies” is utter nonsense.

So now we have not only established that you have not read the book (or have selective memory), and do not understand the causes of the housing crash, we also know that you have made a fool of yourself by projecting your own ignorance onto me.

 

So the author is an economist that has conducted substantial research based in established economic theory and data? Or is he a lawyer that tells you what you want to hear?

Also, you sure that you want to be talking about your predictions, given how many times you have predicted a major recession since then?

 

Total BS. World supply conditions meant there was no avoiding some inflation. If you were at all objective you would at least admit that. And yes, the stimulus was part of it too. As was pent-up demand from people who didn't receive stimulus but had a lot of excess savings from not spending much money for more than a year. There were a lot of factors. Only a fool would say it was totally avoidable.

 

I can’t see the book.

I think you are oversimplifying things. As we’ve discussed I think we overdid the stimulus but it was kind of hard to know exactly how much was needed. Also, if it was underdone then the economic downturn and long term unemployment would have hit much harder. So it isn’t obvious where the exact correct balance should have been.

 

It’s named “Hidden in Plain Sight” by Peter Wallistan. It’s well worth $15 and a few hours to read. You will quickly realize how much bullshit we were all fed by media.

 

You live in Fantasyland. The first stimulus was going into uncharted waters. The second and third as well as all of the excess spending in a supply constrained economy did it. Supply constrains alone little impact or the inflation would have ignited in 2020

 

You have no idea what you are talking about. There wasn't inflation in 2020 because no one was spending money in 2020. GDP contracted by nearly 3% for the year. You're not going to have inflation in that situation. Supply constraints were a very big part of the inflation that started in 2021. The stimulus was a factor too.

If you really want to understand it, and not just spout off your biased opinions, read this.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30613/w30613.pdf

 

Your points are nonsense.

 

If you think todays prices are impacted by one time payments in 2020/2021 that’s replaced loss GDP income your ability to reason is questionable.

 

If I were Biden I’d want the Fed to start pulling rates down in Jan/Feb leading into the election.

 

There's a good chance year-over-year inflation will decline to around 3% with next month's report. At 3% inflation there is no need to further increase rates. That is not high inflation.

 

Gee, we couldn’t see this post coming from a million miles away.

 

I’m sorry we are landing soft. I know you were hoping for a depression.

 

I read the trailer in Amazon. Seems like it is championing a theory that the crisis was rooted in housing policies that tried to help the poor, most specifically black Americans in the 1990s, and continues the narrative into the 2000’s with Fannie and Freddie. I recall this being advanced by conservatives sometimes after the financial crisis.

While these in some ways contributed, my take is they are an exaggerated narrative to counter the more popular lack of regulation narratives that liberals tend to prefer.

Bottom line you can come up with a dozen differing factors that contributed, some primary and some secondary.

As to Dodd Frank being a cause of post recession slow growth, I find that to be mostly nonsense. The primary cause of slow growth was consumer deleveraging, and also more conservative lending policies. This is pretty standard stuff recovering from post financial crisis recessions. It was many times worse during the Great Depression.

We can go into it in more depth if you wish, but I find most people prefer specific narratives that support their partisan leanings and ideological agenda.

Also, the author has a history of being anti regulation of financial institutions. He was against Glass Steagal, and against Dodd Frank. He actually criticized the Trump administration of not deregulating enough. Trump did pass some deregulation reversing some Dodd Frank reserve requirements on mid size banks. This legislation directly lead to the recent Silicon Valley Bank collapse.

 

We're in the 3rd inning.