| Sylvarantinc said: that article is a disgrace, and clearly written to support his own political views. "But it’s hard to escape the sense that the current inflation fear-mongering is partly political, coming largely from economists who had no problem with deficits caused by tax cuts but suddenly became fiscal scolds when the government started spending money to rescue the economy. And their goal seems to be to bully the Obama administration into abandoning those rescue efforts." Ron Paul, Peter Schiff and all other libertarians have always opposed any form of unconstitunial goverment spending so this argument is bullshit. it does however apply to most republicans. It also completely ignores the fact that dollar has lost enormous amount of worh in the last ten years. And giving Belgium as an example of a country that has been able to deal wel with debt more than 100 percent of G.D.P is pretty ridicoulus. trust me I live there and the way things are going now are so bad even the honorary gouverner of the national bank has addmited in an interview that young people in this country only have two options move out or work really hard on trying to pass reforms |
Its funny how so many of you talk about Krugman distorting numbers but then cite no numbers of your own. That is what we call an "ad hominem" attack.
Inflation and value relative to other currencies are not the same things. How about we discuss the right numbers. The most recent numbers plainly show that the dollar is deflating and will most likely do so on average for the rest of the year.
Historic inflation:
http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historicalinflation.aspx
| 2009 | 0.03% | 0.24% | -0.38% | -0.74% | |||||||||
| 2008 | 4.28% | 4.03% | 3.98% | 3.94% | 4.18% | 5.02% | 5.60% | 5.37% | 4.94% | 3.66% | 1.07% | 0.09% | 3.85% |
| 2007 | 2.08% | 2.42% | 2.78% | 2.57% | 2.69% | 2.69% | 2.36% | 1.97% | 2.76% | 3.54% | 4.31% | 4.08% | 2.85% |
| 2006 | 3.99% | 3.60% | 3.36% | 3.55% | 4.17% | 4.32% | 4.15% | 3.82% | 2.06% | 1.31% | 1.97% | 2.54% | 3.24% |
| 2005 | 2.97% | 3.01% | 3.15% | 3.51% | 2.80% | 2.53% | 3.17% | 3.64% | 4.69% | 4.35% | 3.46% | 3.42% | 3.39% |
| 2004 | 1.93% | 1.69% | 1.74% | 2.29% | 3.05% | 3.27% | 2.99% | 2.65% | 2.54% | 3.19% | 3.52% | 3.26% | 2.68% |
| 2003 | 2.60% | 2.98% | 3.02% | 2.22% | 2.06% | 2.11% | 2.11% | 2.16% | 2.32% | 2.04% | 1.77% | 1.88% | 2.27% |
| 2002 | 1.14% | 1.14% | 1.48% | 1.64% | 1.18% | 1.07% | 1.46% | 1.80% | 1.51% | 2.03% | 2.20% | 2.38% | 1.59% |
| 2001 | 3.73% | 3.53% | 2.92% | 3.27% | 3.62% | 3.25% | 2.72% | 2.72% | 2.65% | 2.13% | 1.90% | 1.55% | 2.83% |
| 2000 | 2.74% | 3.22% | 3.76% | 3.07% | 3.19% | 3.73% | 3.66% | 3.41% | 3.45% | 3.45% | 3.45% | 3.39% | 3.38% |
| 1999 | 1.67% | 1.61% | 1.73% | 2.28% | 2.09% | 1.96% | 2.14% | 2.26% | 2.63% | 2.56% | 2.62% | 2.68% | 2.19% |
| 1998 | 1.57% | 1.44% | 1.37% | 1.44% | 1.69% | 1.68% | 1.68% | 1.62% | 1.49% | 1.49% | 1.55% | 1.61% | 1.55% |
Projected inflation:
U.S. Inflation Rate Forecast
http://forecasts.org/inflation.htm
Year Over Year Change in Consumer Price Index Percent
| Month | Date | Forecast Value |
50% Correct +/- |
80% Correct +/- |
| 0 | Apr 2009 | -0.62 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| 1 | May 2009 | -0.9 | 0.4 | 0.9 |
| 2 | Jun 2009 | -1.7 | 0.5 | 1.0 |
| 3 | Jul 2009 | -2.2 | 0.5 | 1.2 |
| 4 | Aug 2009 | -2.4 | 0.6 | 1.3 |
| 5 | Sep 2009 | -2.1 | 0.6 | 1.4 |
| 6 | Oct 2009 | -1.4 | 0.7 | 1.5 |
| 7 | Nov 2009 | -0.6 | 0.7 | 1.5 |
| 8 | Dec 2009 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 1.6 |
And the phenomenon you are talking about could just as easily be attributed to our unhealthy trade balance with China and China's unwillingness to let their currency fluctuate regularly on the international market (a blatantly protectionist policy) that severely hurts our currency.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
