> Turkey's situation was discussed in the article, I highly recommend reading it.
Oh yep sorry I should have noted that as well - I just thought NPR's (slightly) deep(er) dive was also interesting & worth a read as a bit more of a case study where someone was VERY CONVINCED that low interest rates were the way out of inflation, and, uh, so far the evidence is not compelling that they were correct.
Low interest environments exist because liquidity is growing in the financial system. As that liquidity escapes into the consumer system, which it always does, it causes inflation.
Then how would you explain ultra low interest rate for 10+ years without associated inflation spike? It was only until double/triple whammy of supply chain disruption/ government handing out cash/ opptunistic price gouging that inflation really took hold
It is interesting that you include "stock market" in your list. Can you pick a period where the stock market went up (or down) for an extended period that was not "asset inflation (or deflation)"? To be clear, yes, financing rates will always impact financial assets (stocks, bonds, traded commodities) in the short term, but not over a ten year period. You need real earnings growth in the underlying stocks to see sustained stock market growth.
Crypto is gambling to me, so let's ignore that for my post.
Housing is mostly about debt financing (the same is true for commercial real estate). It is always true that financing rates have a large impact on valuations. People mostly buy homes on the monthly payment (cars too). If rates rise, they monthly payments rise. Most people will elect to buy a cheaper home, or wait for prices to fall.
low interest rates are not always the result of loose monetary policy; given that the low rates didn't result in inflation, they likely reflected lower real growth expectations or other demand side factors.
Supply chain disruption and opportunistic price gouging are actually SIGNS of inflation, not causes of it. In a socialist country I grew up in the opportunistic price gouging was illegal, so supply chain was ALWAYS disrupted…
So, in your list the only true cause of inflation remains.
Our government starting giving away money long before Covid lockdowns.
What is inflation? It’s prices going up. Or quality of service going down while priced the same. What is “supply chain disruption”, now? It is: you should pay more for the same delivery service, or if you refuse - your delivery will be delayed. “It’s not inflation, it’s just supply chain disruption” - was a political slogan then. No need to repeat it now: inflation is officially here already.
Right because once the public has real economic power the rich do not so they juice their prices, and meddle in other ways to deflate the buying power; aka inflate prices.
$200k in the 80s would be $600k buying power now. But it’s barely middle class.
Our society is entirely a wealth preservation scheme for people who cannot prove they did the work, they just have political documents of power.
I don't agree. The majority of the OECD practises contemporary monetary policy, using central bank interest rates to control inflation. All of those countries have inflation well below Turkey. Then we have Turkey, rejecting this policy, and experiencing extremely high inflation.
Economics doesn't allow us to conduct controlled experiments. We have to work with the messy data that we have. When the vast majority of some of the smartest economists in the world who currently live and who have lived, all agree on principle of supply and demand, I find it compelling. When money is removed from circulation, demand drops. This almost always results in a reduction in prices. Rejecting the law of supply and demand is really out there as a fringe argument.
So we can have an informed opinion based on which to vote, and discuss with others to get them to vote more informedly (and in line with what we want).
