Friday, June 05, 2009

Inflation not from Deficit

Larry Kudlow on inflation:

Rising inflation and interest rates are always a monetary problem. When Dick Cheney said a few years ago that deficits don’t matter, he was basically right. There is no clear relationship between budget deficits, inflation, and interest rates. In fact, for most of the’80s and ’90s, and much of the 2000s (excepting the 2003–05 bubble), interest rates and inflation fell while deficits averaged over $200 billion a year and got as high as 6 percent of GDP at some points. This is because Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan restrained money-supply growth in a non-inflationary manner.

....

With clear signs of economic recovery on the horizon, some are now calling for an end to the unnecessary stimulus package and a de-TARPing across-the-board. Along with a big rise in the money supply, there’s been a rebound in commodities, a stabilization in housing, falling unemployment claims, a booming stock market, narrowing credit spreads, and rising ISM manufacturing reports. All this is telling us that additional stimulus is unnecessary.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Kind of an old post, time to update with something recent