The Problem Isn’t Warsh Vs Bessent, It’s PhD Confusion About Inflation
Kevin Warsh can hardly complain about what Scott Bessent is doing, other than if he rightly disdains the weak, inflationary dollar that Bessent is pursuing.
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Essays
Writing by John Tamny and Parkview contributors, from the latest commentary to the collected archive.
63 essays · Newest first
Clear filtersTrump administration should avoid price controls
In the coming weeks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to issue a new rule superseding a Biden-era interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act that mandated banks provide data access to…
Warsh Must Explain That The Fed Simply Can’t Fight Inflation
The Fed couldn’t fight what economists incorrectly deem inflation even if it wanted to… Continue reading on Forbes.
Fed As Inflation Fighter Is Rooted In Phillips Curve Mysticism
What the Federal Reserve does has nothing to do with inflation. The central bank is not the source of the hyperinflation that Mises disciples (this is a shame simply because Mises himself was…
If a Weak, “Trump Dollar” Is Inflationary, Then Biden’s Was Not
Why wasn’t Joe Biden afforded the same, market-based dollar analysis by the Journal’s editorial page when he was President? Continue reading on Forbes.
Falling Prices Enable the Savings That Drive Progress
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can’t realistically spend all the wealth they’ve created. That’s why both epitomize progress. It’s not just that they’ve transformed how we live, it’s that their inability to…
Economists Whiffed Tariffs Precisely Because They Whiffed Inflation
They’re both wrong. Who is? Trump supporters who’ve long defended mindless tariffs, along with economists wisely against mindless tariffs, but who now claim they didn’t really mean what they said…
Apple’s iPhone Eviscerates Federal Reserve’s Phillips Curve
So much that we see as expensive in the present will be incredibly cheap in the future. There are so many examples of this, so many past examples that so many readers know well (remember…
Falling Inflation Predicts Rising Government Spending and Debt
Total federal debt was $620 billion in 1976. Why 1976? In a recent column, Holman Jenkins referenced Jimmy Carter’s contention in a 1976 debate that “The best way to control inflation is to cut down…
Federal Reserves ‘Interest On Reserves’ Doesn’t Limit Inflation
The difference between what economists believe and what’s true is Pacific Ocean vast. Think the popular view that the Federal Reserve, by paying banks to park reserves at the central bank, is…
Ben Bernanke & Janet Yellen’s Inflation Mystification Ails Fed
Fed officials don’t grasp what inflation is. If they understood what it is, they wouldn’t be so worried about the Fed’s so-called independence. For background, contemplate a recent New York Times…
If Fed Cuts Fuel Inflation, Then Powell Has Nothing To Fear
Credit is produced. Repeat the previous truth over and over again. And then internalize the obvious, that we borrow money for what it can exchanged for. That we borrow dollars to get things ridicules…
Opposite Peter Orszag and His Opposites, Government Spending Doesn’t Cause Inflation
Do you prefer to lend to those who will pay you back? No need to answer. As repeated with great regularity in my upcoming book, The Deficit Delusion, money is ruthless. It must be since the genius of…
Donald Trump Vs. Joe Biden: Who Was Better On Inflation?
Inflation is not rising prices. Deflation is not falling prices. The more production expands across a rising number of hands and machines, the lower the price. And vice versa. The Apple iPhone is an…
There’s No Such Thing As ‘Adjusting’ Gold Price To ‘Inflation’
Gold and the foot are constants. You don’t adjust value and height against them, rather you adjust the value of everything else and length of everything else in terms of gold and the foot. Consider…
Tariffs Are Awful, Gov’t Spending Is Worse. Neither Is Inflation
The Fed is tasked with fighting inflation that neither it nor Congress understands. See the accepted view among politicians, economists and pundits that if the Fed centrally plans low, but…
If You Price Control Financial Services, You Limit Financial Services
With one foot out the door, the Biden administration’s CFPB announced a new rule to cap overdraft fees that banks charge when spotting borrowers’ money. Fortunately, the Trump administration’s…
If Inflation Is Truly Higher Prices, Then the Fed Cannot Fight It
The economic consensus of the moment is that higher prices are the same as inflation, and the Fed is the only governmental entity situated to bring down higher prices. It’s a dangerous consensus.…
California Is a Reminder That Corrupted Prices Never Sound Good ‘In Theory’
As the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip reported last month, the Los Angeles fires had caused an estimated $50 billion worth of losses, but that only $20 billion worth of those losses were insured.…
Neither Govt Spending Nor Fed Printing Brought Higher Prices
Back in March of 2020, former Federal Reserve Board member Kevin Warsh penned an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal (“Let the Fed Administer an Antiviral Shot”) calling for the Federal Reserve…
Market Prices Are A Very Unreliable Way To Detect Inflation
If you look at the market prices of consumer goods you’ll much more often than not be blinded to inflation’s truth. To which more than a few readers will reply that prices are precisely the way to…
Price-Controlled Credit Cards Would Be Brutal for Retailers
Every so often it’s worth reminding readers what a miracle shopping is. Would-be buyers walk into businesses staffed by employees and owners who haven’t a faint clue about them, only to emerge from…
The Inflation ‘Know-Somethings’ Doth Protest Too Much
“If one-half of the commodities in the market rise in exchange value, the very terms imply a fall of the other half; and reciprocally, the fall implies a rise.” – John Stuart Mill, Principles of…
Inflation Is a Shrinkage of the Monetary Unit, Nothing Else
Inflation is all over the news and commentary today, particularly after a presidential election that was allegedly all about it. The problem remains that few who utter the word grasp its singular…