“We have a powerful weapon to fight inflation: price controls. It’s time we consider it.” Under this sensationalist headline, the Guardian, published an explosive op-ed by Isabella Weber. After a week of furious controversy, the headline was revised. “Could strategic price controls help fight inflation?” it now asked.
An interesting analisis of price controls to manage inflation would be incomplete without studying Argentina and its futile efforts, currently underway, to impact inflation thru price controls on over 1,300 food items. An utter failure, both on the inflation front and enforcement. As to the healthcare industry in the States, the lack of transparency between pricing and the insurance coverage , doctors and pharmacies is astounding in a sector which commands almost 19% of GDP.
I feel like I need to expose myself more to the inflation hawks' arguments, because "temporary and sectoral" seems so thuddingly obvious to me. As far as I can tell it's only a minority of pundits and academics worried about persistent inflation, the markets and policy makers seem to be ready to make minor adjustments and move on as supply issues are overcome.
Maybe we should try and avoid confounding the concept of price control economics, which seems to have a pejorative meaning for gammon economists like Krugman, with "subsidies" which is something which Krugman et al love. Mainly because in the former, the consumer pockets the difference (at least in the short-run) whereas in the latter the supplier is the one who is benefits.
Writing off price controls because they didn't work in the 1970's is bad economics and short-sighted. The 1970s was an entirely different time without the same globalist dynamics and with a much stronger labour organization, higher carbon intensity and different political compact.
We are now in a time when the main concern of the elite political class is to keep the masses happy with cheap stuff. If they can't do this then the whole thing is going to fall apart because there isn't much else in it for your average worker. I would expect this to become the focus of the next ten years. Let's hope that China plays along.
Funny how ideas that have systematically failed over time (and price controls have failed since the Roman Emperor Diocletian tried it) always find a "reason" to come back! The "inflation" being experienced at present is not that general as true inflations are supposed to be. This piece tries to put it in perspective: https://marcusnunes.substack.com/p/money-demand-the-oft-forgotten-link
Does anyone know of more geographically granular inflation data? A crude argument, perhaps, but I would imagine certain states/regions/countries with less reliance on fossil fuels would be experiencing proportionally lower levels of inflation, which Biden could then use as further justification for green-energy investment.
An interesting analisis of price controls to manage inflation would be incomplete without studying Argentina and its futile efforts, currently underway, to impact inflation thru price controls on over 1,300 food items. An utter failure, both on the inflation front and enforcement. As to the healthcare industry in the States, the lack of transparency between pricing and the insurance coverage , doctors and pharmacies is astounding in a sector which commands almost 19% of GDP.
I feel like I need to expose myself more to the inflation hawks' arguments, because "temporary and sectoral" seems so thuddingly obvious to me. As far as I can tell it's only a minority of pundits and academics worried about persistent inflation, the markets and policy makers seem to be ready to make minor adjustments and move on as supply issues are overcome.
Maybe we should try and avoid confounding the concept of price control economics, which seems to have a pejorative meaning for gammon economists like Krugman, with "subsidies" which is something which Krugman et al love. Mainly because in the former, the consumer pockets the difference (at least in the short-run) whereas in the latter the supplier is the one who is benefits.
Writing off price controls because they didn't work in the 1970's is bad economics and short-sighted. The 1970s was an entirely different time without the same globalist dynamics and with a much stronger labour organization, higher carbon intensity and different political compact.
We are now in a time when the main concern of the elite political class is to keep the masses happy with cheap stuff. If they can't do this then the whole thing is going to fall apart because there isn't much else in it for your average worker. I would expect this to become the focus of the next ten years. Let's hope that China plays along.
Funny how ideas that have systematically failed over time (and price controls have failed since the Roman Emperor Diocletian tried it) always find a "reason" to come back! The "inflation" being experienced at present is not that general as true inflations are supposed to be. This piece tries to put it in perspective: https://marcusnunes.substack.com/p/money-demand-the-oft-forgotten-link
Does anyone know of more geographically granular inflation data? A crude argument, perhaps, but I would imagine certain states/regions/countries with less reliance on fossil fuels would be experiencing proportionally lower levels of inflation, which Biden could then use as further justification for green-energy investment.