In addition to the linked articles below, there are several reliable sources for understanding the complexities of inflation through the #MMTLens.
• 1. Regular essays/analysis from Stephanie Kelton – The Lens
• 2. Bill Mitchell’s – Modern Monetary Theory • Macroeconomic research, teaching and advocacy.
• 3. Working papers from The Levy Institute at Bard College.
• 4. Mosler Economics
• 5. New Economic Perspectives
A chronological sampling:
Rohan Grey’s June 14, 2022 Twitter thread :
“This is one of those time where you are confusing a metaphorical analogy for the actual thing itself. There is no single number called “inflation” that offsets public spending in the way other kinds of “financing” does. “inflation” is a deliberately selected aggregate of…
“specific prices set by specific firms under a range of considerations/driven by range of factors. The fact government spending can add to demand and demand can be one factor in that process does not make it coherent to ascribe strict narrow causality like w concept of financing…
“and that’s before you get to the incoherence of trying to work out which specific basket of prices actually should correlate to that ‘inflation tax’ and which shouldn’t. It’s all subjective, for example during the same period there was gov’t spending there was also a lot of private…
“credit being generated that was also increasing demand alongside public spending. We could say just as equally validly that the inflation was caused by the failure to enact policies that adequately constrained private credit, not the public spending itself…
“But more broadly we know this is not a serious or coherent framing because we *never use it anywhere else* even when the logic can/should apply just as equally. “Banks financing their lending by a combination of deposits, capital, and inflation” – is a sentence no one says…
“So if youre serious about that equivalence, and serious that inflation is also equivalent to a “tax” (as you say regularly), then we should be prohibiting banks from lending entirely since they do not have the constitutional/legal authority to impose taxes. Can’t have it both ways.”
Gas HITS $5/Gallon Avg, Americans CAN’T AFFORD HOUSING. Can Lawmakers DO ANYTHING?
— Fadhel Kaboub (@FadhelKaboub) The Hill (@HillTVLive) June 13, 2022 (00:12:18)
Are Major Central Banks Doing Enough to Fight Inflation?
— James K. Galbraith Project Syndicate April 14, 2022
He begins “Say what? Seriously? OK, I’ll give it a try, but promise me this is not a joke…The notion that central banks fight inflation is a pernicious myth, spread by their officers, acolytes, and by credulous reporters. Central banks raise interest rates. The blather about inflation is eyewash.”
What’s Causing Accelerating Inflation: Pandemic or Policy Response?
— Yeva NersisyanL, Randall Wray Levy Economics Institute March 2022
Beware the Inflationary Bogeyman • Recent price increases in the U.S., and demands for a forceful response by the Federal Reserve, have brought back memories of the 1970s and all of the economic and political disasters of those years.
— James K. Galbraith Common Dreams, Project Syndicate – November 20, 2021
An Inflated Sense of Inflation (w/ Stephanie Kelton) #Labor Shortages
— Episode 220: Rumble w/ Michael Moore (@MMFlint) Stephanie Kelton (@StephanieKelton) Nov 18, 2021 (01:04:00)
CPI, commodity charts Quite a few price increases, which the media now calls ‘inflation’ even though inflation is a continuous increase in the price level.
— Warren Mosler (@WBMosler) Mosler Economics/Modern Monetary Theory Nov 12, 2021
Steven Hail’s Nov 1, 2021 Twitter thread begins:
“Inflation is not in itself some terrible disease which we have to minimize or eliminate.
It is not like Covid, needing to be stamped out. It is not like involuntary unemployment, underemployment and insecure employment, which are genuinely social evils.” Read more.
An MMT Perspective: Interest Rates and Inflation with Warren Mosler
— Warren Mosler (@WBMosler) Real Progressives June 26, 2021 (01:05:31)
Manhattan Project to prevent Hyper-Inflation
— J.D. Alt New Economic Perspectives March 26, 2020
When DoJ and the FCC slowed inflation
— Brendan Greeley (@bhgreeley) Financial Times Alphaville, March 27, 2019
An MMT response on what causes inflation
— Scott Fullwiler (@stf18), Rohan Grey (@rohangrey) Nathan Tankus (@NathanTankus), Financial Times Alphaville, March 1, 2019
The Great Inflation Mystery • The people who set interest rates don’t know what causes inflation, how to measure it, or how to move it up and down.
— Peter Coy Bloomberg Business Week March 22, 2018
— Stephanie Kelton (@StephanieKelton), Deficit Owls – Nov 21,2016 00:03:16
Unemployment is a Much Bigger Problem Than Inflation – 2010 Fiscal Sustainability Conference
— Bill Mitchell (@bily_blog), Warren Mosler (@WBMosler) 00:04:50 – Feb 9, 2016
Money and Inflation
— Randall Wray, SSRN Sept 1, 2000
The Selection and Timing of Inflation Controls
— J.K. Galbraith, Princeton University, May 1, 1941