2月10日,美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)宣布今年1月的消费者价格指数(CPI)同比上涨7.5%,为1982年2月以来最高,远高于华尔街专家预测的约6%。跟以往一样,新闻标题上只有一种解释:经济学家、市场策略师和专家一如既往地认为,“供应链”中断阻碍了陆、海、空运输,从半导体到建筑用品的各种产品严重短缺是价格暴涨的主要原因。
尽管CPI数据逐月攀升,美联储(Federal Reserve)的主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔还是坚称目前只是遭遇了“瓶颈问题”。当然,鲍威尔长期坚持的通胀飙升仅为“暂时现象”的立场已经有所调整。他承诺通过加速美联储缩减购债规模,保证未来几个月迅速提升联邦基准利率等有力行动来阻止物价上涨。但对鲍威尔来说,美联储只是在采取紧急行动,等待问题的根源解决,也就是堵塞的供应链恢复平稳运行。1月9日,鲍威尔在美国国会发表证言时表示:“尽管新冠疫情仍然在持续,但经济已经迅速加强,然而长期失衡和瓶颈增加,导致了通货膨胀加剧。”换句话说,美国正在遭受一次性的短期冲击,这也是全球工厂产出放缓或关闭造成的大灾难与重新开放后巨额支出之间冲突的结果。
如果问题的关键不是瓶颈呢?
史蒂夫·汉克并不买账。汉克是约翰斯·霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins University)的应用经济学教授,他的意见值得重视,因为他的预测几乎完全逆向,而且准确性很高。早在2021年7月,汉克就假定美国价格升幅为6%或9%,彼时鲍威尔和多数经济学家,包括保罗·克鲁格曼和美国国会预算办公室(Congressional Budget Office)的成员都没有发现危险。“怪罪供应链是错的。”汉克告诉《财富》杂志。“问题确实存在,但只能解释供应短缺的特定商品价格上涨。对整体通胀来说,重要的不是美国所有商品和服务篮子内的不同价格如何变动,而是篮子的水平。由于篮子水平在飙升,所以问题关键不在瓶颈。当前趋势只能用一种力量来解释,就是货币供应量的爆炸性增长,达到二战以来最高。”
你可能已经猜到,汉克是铁杆的“货币主义者”,笃信诺贝尔奖获得者米尔顿·弗里德曼的信条,即“通货膨胀永远而且不管在哪都是货币现象。”从500年前开始,货币主义学派出现过多位杰出学者,尤其是18世纪的大卫·休谟和约翰·洛克,以及19世纪约翰斯·霍普金斯大学的传奇人物西蒙·纽康,他是汉克的偶像,同时还是伟大的天文学家和数学家。上个世纪上半叶的代表人物是欧文·费雪,之后是他的弟子弗里德曼,20世纪70年代,作者曾经在芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)读MBA时见过,他也经常被记者采访。尽管现在货币主义仍然具有重要影响,其中代表人物包括已经退休的美联储官员罗伯特·赫策尔、景顺投资管理有限公司(Invesco)已经退休的首席经济学家约翰·格林伍德等人,但货币主义早已过时。一年前鲍威尔在美国国会听证会上就曾经驳斥货币主义思想,称货币供应量增长“确实没有重要影响”。
但关于经济最棘手的问题方面,汉克一直判断准确,而鲍威尔、华尔街预测家和多数经济学家都错得离谱。事实上,如果把关键经济数据放入老的货币主义预测通胀公式,算出的CPI数字就跟实际非常相近。因此,现在很适合判断通胀的真正原因到底是货币供应过度增长,还是全球商业暂时堵塞。如果汉克说的没错,那么不管封锁何时缓解,美国价格至少还要大幅增长两年。
货币主义公式能够解决通胀问题,但美联储却搞砸了
汉克坚持认为,衡量货币供应量变化向来是预测未来通胀的最佳指标。但过去十年以及宽松货币政策中,货币主义似乎作用越来越小。批评人士称,大衰退(Great Recession)后,美联储开始实施零利率和量化宽松政策时,货币主义理论本应预测到价格大幅上涨,然而通胀一直处于抑制状态。对汉克来说,错误地判断货币主义不对,再加上认为增加货币供应量没有什么负面影响,直接导致几十年来最严重通胀的政策出台。顺便说一句,通胀可能会持续很长时间。
汉克表示,只要可以准确判断货币供应量,货币主义方法就一定有效。证据是,该理论准确预测了当前美联储、华尔街和多数经济学家没有料到的价格上涨。“货币主义基于的所谓‘货币数量论’其实不是理论。这是真相,也是特征。”汉克说。“这与美国1960年以来的通货膨胀完全吻合。”
数量理论包括一个基本公式:价格水平变化,即通货膨胀率必然等于货币总体供应量及“速度”增长之和再减去GDP增长。速度的定义是“经济中货币供应量周转率”,即客户和企业买卖产品和服务的速度。简言之,美国货币供应量膨胀速度远超过产出速度时,通胀会重创经济。这一现象也能够解释家庭预算大幅飙升的原因,如今,我们在杂货店收银台和加油站都可以看到这种情况。
汉克解释通胀“浴缸”论
汉克喜欢把迫在眉睫的通胀比作浴缸水位。进入浴缸的水代表着增加货币供应的新美元。新资金来自一个大水龙头,背后则是两大来源。第一个来源是美联储。央行向银行出售美国国债,然后“印刷”之前不存在的数万亿美元回购债券。第二个是银行本身,通过发放新贷款创造资金。客户和企业接收抵押贷款或小企业信贷,将收益存入储蓄账户、支票账户和货币市场基金。银行和基金将流动性引导至更多贷款,增加货币供应。
未来的高通胀逐渐积攒,浴缸里的水上升时,一定会排出。理想情况下,流入的水量会直接排出,不会留下多余的水。如何发生?浴缸有两个排水管。第一个是所谓的“G”排水管,代表经济增长。商品和服务增长吸收或抵消了货币供应量增长。第二个是“资金需求”或“D”排水管。如果消费者和企业往金融投资组合中增加资金而不是用于消费,就会把钱从浴缸中抽走。如果流入资金量与流出资金量相等,通胀率就是零。
如果流入的资金多于G和D排水管流出的资金,会出现什么情况?这种情况下,浴缸中的“水”,也就是钱的水位会上升。多余的钱最终溢出,通过浴缸的溢流阀流入通货膨胀——我们称之为“I”阀或通胀阀。
汉克说,在大金融危机(Great Financial Crisis)之后,美联储打开了水龙头,但与此同时,银行资金流从正转为负。“因此,货币总体供应量增长不大。”汉克指出。“浴缸里水没满,因为流入水量很低。”流入速度非常缓慢,大致等于G和D排水管流出的水量。因此,浴缸里的水到不了“I”阀。总而言之,水龙头流量非常缓慢,所以通胀率远低于美联储2%的目标。
汉克认为,从黄金大亨到凯恩斯主义者,所有人对大衰退的理解都不准确,因为他们不明白货币龙头根没有涌出大水。黄金爱好者惊慌不已,看到美联储资产负债表爆炸式增长后以为会出现庞大的通胀。但他们没有注意到商业银行大幅削减贷款。“他们没有看到货币水龙头流量其实很小。”汉克说。另一方面,凯恩斯主义者表示,货币数量理论根本没有用,因为美联储资产负债表大幅扩张,然而美国并未出现什么通胀。
浴缸满了
汉克指出,自2020年2月以来,美联储和银行货币供应量增长达到惊人的40%,或每年超过18%。“经济增长和资金需求只消耗了40%中的10个百分点。”汉克说。现在,浴缸里还有30%的多余资金要从I阀中流出,变成未来的通胀。汉克表示,无论美联储现在开始做什么,都要面临过剩的麻烦,过剩已经开始到达I阀水位,而且会持续好几年。“可以忘记团队的短暂性。”汉克说。他预测,从今年剩下的时间一直到2024年,通胀率至少是6%。
汉克总结道:“供应链问题与当前整体通胀无关,尽管供应链确实会导致某些商品相对其他商品有些变化。最终关键是货币供应。看看中国、日本和瑞士,跟美国一样面临供应链问题。但那些国家的通胀率非常低,因为货币浴缸里几乎没有多余货币不断堆积。”
米尔顿·弗里德曼2006年去世前曾经在胡佛研究所(Hoover Institution)任职,期间作者曾经多次与他交谈。我给他办公室留言,这位小个子智者会给我打回来——而且最后是我付费。有一次,接线员拖长声音说:“你愿意接受米尔顿的费用吗?”弗里德曼有一次打趣道:“接线员叫我米尔顿,真好笑。”如果现在弗里德曼还活着,他很可能会警告称,在新冠疫情中,美联储肆意挥霍将导致灾难性的通胀。汉克接棒偶像发了声。不过汉克在货币主义原则里加入了丰富多彩的元素,他用想象中的浴缸、水流、排水管和水龙头讲述了真实的通胀故事。(财富中文网)
译者:夏林
2月10日,美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)宣布今年1月的消费者价格指数(CPI)同比上涨7.5%,为1982年2月以来最高,远高于华尔街专家预测的约6%。跟以往一样,新闻标题上只有一种解释:经济学家、市场策略师和专家一如既往地认为,“供应链”中断阻碍了陆、海、空运输,从半导体到建筑用品的各种产品严重短缺是价格暴涨的主要原因。
尽管CPI数据逐月攀升,美联储(Federal Reserve)的主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔还是坚称目前只是遭遇了“瓶颈问题”。当然,鲍威尔长期坚持的通胀飙升仅为“暂时现象”的立场已经有所调整。他承诺通过加速美联储缩减购债规模,保证未来几个月迅速提升联邦基准利率等有力行动来阻止物价上涨。但对鲍威尔来说,美联储只是在采取紧急行动,等待问题的根源解决,也就是堵塞的供应链恢复平稳运行。1月9日,鲍威尔在美国国会发表证言时表示:“尽管新冠疫情仍然在持续,但经济已经迅速加强,然而长期失衡和瓶颈增加,导致了通货膨胀加剧。”换句话说,美国正在遭受一次性的短期冲击,这也是全球工厂产出放缓或关闭造成的大灾难与重新开放后巨额支出之间冲突的结果。
如果问题的关键不是瓶颈呢?
史蒂夫·汉克并不买账。汉克是约翰斯·霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins University)的应用经济学教授,他的意见值得重视,因为他的预测几乎完全逆向,而且准确性很高。早在2021年7月,汉克就假定美国价格升幅为6%或9%,彼时鲍威尔和多数经济学家,包括保罗·克鲁格曼和美国国会预算办公室(Congressional Budget Office)的成员都没有发现危险。“怪罪供应链是错的。”汉克告诉《财富》杂志。“问题确实存在,但只能解释供应短缺的特定商品价格上涨。对整体通胀来说,重要的不是美国所有商品和服务篮子内的不同价格如何变动,而是篮子的水平。由于篮子水平在飙升,所以问题关键不在瓶颈。当前趋势只能用一种力量来解释,就是货币供应量的爆炸性增长,达到二战以来最高。”
你可能已经猜到,汉克是铁杆的“货币主义者”,笃信诺贝尔奖获得者米尔顿·弗里德曼的信条,即“通货膨胀永远而且不管在哪都是货币现象。”从500年前开始,货币主义学派出现过多位杰出学者,尤其是18世纪的大卫·休谟和约翰·洛克,以及19世纪约翰斯·霍普金斯大学的传奇人物西蒙·纽康,他是汉克的偶像,同时还是伟大的天文学家和数学家。上个世纪上半叶的代表人物是欧文·费雪,之后是他的弟子弗里德曼,20世纪70年代,作者曾经在芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)读MBA时见过,他也经常被记者采访。尽管现在货币主义仍然具有重要影响,其中代表人物包括已经退休的美联储官员罗伯特·赫策尔、景顺投资管理有限公司(Invesco)已经退休的首席经济学家约翰·格林伍德等人,但货币主义早已过时。一年前鲍威尔在美国国会听证会上就曾经驳斥货币主义思想,称货币供应量增长“确实没有重要影响”。
但关于经济最棘手的问题方面,汉克一直判断准确,而鲍威尔、华尔街预测家和多数经济学家都错得离谱。事实上,如果把关键经济数据放入老的货币主义预测通胀公式,算出的CPI数字就跟实际非常相近。因此,现在很适合判断通胀的真正原因到底是货币供应过度增长,还是全球商业暂时堵塞。如果汉克说的没错,那么不管封锁何时缓解,美国价格至少还要大幅增长两年。
货币主义公式能够解决通胀问题,但美联储却搞砸了
汉克坚持认为,衡量货币供应量变化向来是预测未来通胀的最佳指标。但过去十年以及宽松货币政策中,货币主义似乎作用越来越小。批评人士称,大衰退(Great Recession)后,美联储开始实施零利率和量化宽松政策时,货币主义理论本应预测到价格大幅上涨,然而通胀一直处于抑制状态。对汉克来说,错误地判断货币主义不对,再加上认为增加货币供应量没有什么负面影响,直接导致几十年来最严重通胀的政策出台。顺便说一句,通胀可能会持续很长时间。
汉克表示,只要可以准确判断货币供应量,货币主义方法就一定有效。证据是,该理论准确预测了当前美联储、华尔街和多数经济学家没有料到的价格上涨。“货币主义基于的所谓‘货币数量论’其实不是理论。这是真相,也是特征。”汉克说。“这与美国1960年以来的通货膨胀完全吻合。”
数量理论包括一个基本公式:价格水平变化,即通货膨胀率必然等于货币总体供应量及“速度”增长之和再减去GDP增长。速度的定义是“经济中货币供应量周转率”,即客户和企业买卖产品和服务的速度。简言之,美国货币供应量膨胀速度远超过产出速度时,通胀会重创经济。这一现象也能够解释家庭预算大幅飙升的原因,如今,我们在杂货店收银台和加油站都可以看到这种情况。
汉克解释通胀“浴缸”论
汉克喜欢把迫在眉睫的通胀比作浴缸水位。进入浴缸的水代表着增加货币供应的新美元。新资金来自一个大水龙头,背后则是两大来源。第一个来源是美联储。央行向银行出售美国国债,然后“印刷”之前不存在的数万亿美元回购债券。第二个是银行本身,通过发放新贷款创造资金。客户和企业接收抵押贷款或小企业信贷,将收益存入储蓄账户、支票账户和货币市场基金。银行和基金将流动性引导至更多贷款,增加货币供应。
未来的高通胀逐渐积攒,浴缸里的水上升时,一定会排出。理想情况下,流入的水量会直接排出,不会留下多余的水。如何发生?浴缸有两个排水管。第一个是所谓的“G”排水管,代表经济增长。商品和服务增长吸收或抵消了货币供应量增长。第二个是“资金需求”或“D”排水管。如果消费者和企业往金融投资组合中增加资金而不是用于消费,就会把钱从浴缸中抽走。如果流入资金量与流出资金量相等,通胀率就是零。
如果流入的资金多于G和D排水管流出的资金,会出现什么情况?这种情况下,浴缸中的“水”,也就是钱的水位会上升。多余的钱最终溢出,通过浴缸的溢流阀流入通货膨胀——我们称之为“I”阀或通胀阀。
汉克说,在大金融危机(Great Financial Crisis)之后,美联储打开了水龙头,但与此同时,银行资金流从正转为负。“因此,货币总体供应量增长不大。”汉克指出。“浴缸里水没满,因为流入水量很低。”流入速度非常缓慢,大致等于G和D排水管流出的水量。因此,浴缸里的水到不了“I”阀。总而言之,水龙头流量非常缓慢,所以通胀率远低于美联储2%的目标。
汉克认为,从黄金大亨到凯恩斯主义者,所有人对大衰退的理解都不准确,因为他们不明白货币龙头根没有涌出大水。黄金爱好者惊慌不已,看到美联储资产负债表爆炸式增长后以为会出现庞大的通胀。但他们没有注意到商业银行大幅削减贷款。“他们没有看到货币水龙头流量其实很小。”汉克说。另一方面,凯恩斯主义者表示,货币数量理论根本没有用,因为美联储资产负债表大幅扩张,然而美国并未出现什么通胀。
浴缸满了
汉克指出,自2020年2月以来,美联储和银行货币供应量增长达到惊人的40%,或每年超过18%。“经济增长和资金需求只消耗了40%中的10个百分点。”汉克说。现在,浴缸里还有30%的多余资金要从I阀中流出,变成未来的通胀。汉克表示,无论美联储现在开始做什么,都要面临过剩的麻烦,过剩已经开始到达I阀水位,而且会持续好几年。“可以忘记团队的短暂性。”汉克说。他预测,从今年剩下的时间一直到2024年,通胀率至少是6%。
汉克总结道:“供应链问题与当前整体通胀无关,尽管供应链确实会导致某些商品相对其他商品有些变化。最终关键是货币供应。看看中国、日本和瑞士,跟美国一样面临供应链问题。但那些国家的通胀率非常低,因为货币浴缸里几乎没有多余货币不断堆积。”
米尔顿·弗里德曼2006年去世前曾经在胡佛研究所(Hoover Institution)任职,期间作者曾经多次与他交谈。我给他办公室留言,这位小个子智者会给我打回来——而且最后是我付费。有一次,接线员拖长声音说:“你愿意接受米尔顿的费用吗?”弗里德曼有一次打趣道:“接线员叫我米尔顿,真好笑。”如果现在弗里德曼还活着,他很可能会警告称,在新冠疫情中,美联储肆意挥霍将导致灾难性的通胀。汉克接棒偶像发了声。不过汉克在货币主义原则里加入了丰富多彩的元素,他用想象中的浴缸、水流、排水管和水龙头讲述了真实的通胀故事。(财富中文网)
译者:夏林
On Feb. 10, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the year-over-year consumer price index jumped by 7.5% in January, the highest reading since February of 1982, and well above the roughly 6% that Wall Street experts had forecast. Once again, a single explanation dominated the headlines: As usual, economists, market strategists, and pundits argued that “supply chain” disruptions slowing shipments by land, sea, and air, and causing severe shortages of everything from semiconductors to building supplies, are the principal cause for rampaging prices.
Despite month after month of big CPI numbers, Fed chairman Jerome Powell remains in the “it’s all about bottlenecks” camp. To be sure, Powell has pivoted from his long-held position that the inflation surge is “transitory,” and promises strong action to stop the upward march in prices. He’s hastened the end of the Fed’s gigantic bond-buying campaign, and pledges to rapidly raise the Fed funds rate in the months ahead. But for Powell, the Fed’s just taking emergency action until the root cause of the problem, those clogged supply chains, resume running smoothly. In testimony to Congress on Jan. 9, Powell stated: “The economy has rapidly gained strength despite the ongoing pandemic, giving rise to persistent supply and demand imbalances and bottlenecks, and hence to elevated inflation.” In other words, the U.S. is suffering a one-time, temporary shock––a legacy of the collision between the cataclysm that slowed or shuttered output at the world’s factories, and the heavy spending now raging in the Great Reopening.
What if the problem isn’t bottlenecks?
Steve Hanke isn’t buying it. It’s worth listening to Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, because his forecasts have been strongly contrarian, and right on. As early as July of 2021, Hanke posited that the U.S. would be facing price increases of 6% or maybe as high 9% by now, at a time when Powell, and most economists, including Paul Krugman and the staff at the Congressional Budget Office, saw little danger. “The idea that supply chains are to blame is wrong,” Hanke told Fortune. “That problem is real, but it only explains the rising prices for specific goods that are in short supply. What matters for overall inflation isn’t how different prices move around inside the basket of all U.S. goods and services, but the level of the total basket. Since that level is soaring, it can’t be about bottlenecks. The current trend can only be explained by one force, an explosion in the money supply exceeding anything we’ve seen since World War II.”
You’ve probably guessed that Hanke is a hard-core “monetarist,” an adherent of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman’s credo that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” The monetarist school boasts a distinguished roster of champions dating back 500 years, notably David Hume and John Locke in the 18th century, and Johns Hopkins legend Simon Newcomb in the 1800s, a hero of Hanke’s who tripled as a great astronomer and mathematician. Irving Fisher led the charge in the first half of the the past century, followed by his disciple Friedman, whom this writer met as a MBA student at the University of Chicago in the 1970s and frequently interviewed as a journalist. Though it still features prominent voices today, among them Robert Hetzel, a retired Fed official, John Greenwood, retired chief economist at Invesco, monetarism has long been out of vogue. Powell dismissed it during congressional testimony a year ago, stating that growth in the money supply “really doesn’t have important implications.”
But on the economy’s most vexing problem, Hanke’s been right, and Powell, Wall Street forecasters, and most economists spectacularly wrong. Indeed, if you plug the key economic numbers into the old-line monetarist formula predicting inflation, you get just about what the CPI is now showing. So now’s a good time to assess if it’s really excessive money supply growth, not the temporary traffic jam in world commerce, that’s fueling inflation. If Hanke’s correct, the U.S. is facing at least two more years of gigantic price increases regardless of when the blockages ease.
The monetarist formula nailed inflation, while the Fed blew it
Hanke insists that gauging shifts in the money supply has always been the best barometer for future inflation. But monetarism appeared to lose its relevance in the last decade-plus of easy money. Critics claimed that the theory should have predicted big price increases when the Fed embarked on its zero interest rate and quantitative easing campaigns following the Great Recession, yet inflation remained subdued. For Hanke, the mistaken view that monetarism was wrong, and that jacking the money supply carries little downside, led directly to the policies that spawned the worst bout in decades––an outbreak, by the way, that could last a long time.
The monetarist approach always works, says Hanke, as long as you measure the money supply properly. And the proof is that it accurately predicted the current spike that the Fed, Wall Street, and most economists missed. “What’s called the ‘quantity theory of money’ that monetarism’s based on isn’t really a theory. It’s the truth, an identity,” says Hanke. “It’s a perfect match with the inflation America’s witnessed since 1960.”
The quantity theory consists of a basic formula: Changes in the price level––the rate of inflation––must equal the sum of increases in the overall money supply and its “velocity,” less growth in GDP. Velocity is defined by the rate at which “the money supply is turning over in the economy,” the pace at which customers and businesses buy and sell products and services. Put simply, when the money supply is swelling much faster than U.S. output, inflation pounds the economy. That phenomenon accounts for the family-budget–crushing jumps we’re now seeing at grocery store checkouts and gas stations.
Hanke’s “bathtub” view of inflation
Hanke likes to compare looming inflation to the level of water in a bathtub. The water pouring into the tub represents the new dollars swelling the money supply. That new money is coming from one a big faucet fed by two sources. The first is the Fed. The central bank sells Treasuries to banks, then buys the bonds back by “printing” fresh trillions that didn’t exist before. The second is the banks themselves. They create money by issuing new loans. Customers and businesses take those mortgages or small-business credits and deposit the proceeds in savings and checking accounts, and money-market funds. The banks and funds channel that liquidity into still more loans, adding to the money supply.
High future inflation is building, and bound to leak out, when water rises in the tub. Ideally, the volume that flows in drains right out, leaving no excess water. How does that happen? The tub has two drains. The first we’ll call the “G” drain, for economic growth. The growth of goods and services absorbs or offsets increases in the money supply. The second drain is the “demand for money” or “D” outlet. When consumers and businesses add money to their financial portfolios instead of spending it, that trend drains money out of the tub. If the amount of money going in simply equals what is being drained out, inflation will be zero.
What happens if more money is coming in than leaves via the G and D drains? in that case, the level of “water” or money in the tub rises. This excess money eventually spills over and leaks into inflation, through the tub’s overflow valve–– we’ll call it the “I” or inflation valve.
Hanke says that following the Great Financial Crisis, the Fed opened up the faucet, but at the same time, the banks switched their flow from positive to negative. “As a result, the overall money supply growth was modest,” says Hanke. “The bathtub didn’t fill up because the amount of water flowing in was low.” The inflow was so slow that it roughly equaled the amount running out through the G and D drains. So there was little buildup to reach the “I” overflow valve. All told, the faucet’s flow was so slow that inflation stayed well below the Fed’s target of 2%.
Hanke says that everyone from the gold bugs to the Keynesians got the Great Recession wrong because they failed to understand that monetary spigot wasn’t gushing at all. The gold bugs panicked, predicting huge inflation because they could see the Fed’s balance sheet exploding. But they weren’t paying attention to the big lending cutbacks at the commercial banks. “They didn’t see that very little was coming out of the monetary faucet,” says Hanke. On the other hand, the Keynesians said that quantity theory of money didn’t work because the Fed’s balance sheet expanded enormously, but the U.S. didn’t experience much inflation.
The tub fills up
Since February of 2020, says Hanke, the Fed and the banks have grown the money supply by an astounding 40%, or over 18% a year. “Economic growth and demand for money drained off only 10 points of that 40%,” says Hanke. Right now, that leaves 30% in excess money in the tub that still needs to leak from the I-valve in the form of future inflation. No matter what the Fed does from here, says Hanke, we’re stuck with this excess, which is starting to hit the I-valve and will be with us for several years. “You can forget team transitory,” says Hanke. He predicts we’ll be living with at least 6% inflation for the rest of this year and into 2024.
Concludes Hanke: “Supply-chain problems have nothing to do with today’s overall inflation, though they do cause changes in some goods versus others. It’s all about the money supply. Just look at China, Japan, and Switzerland. They face supplychain problems just was we do. But their inflation rates are very low, because there’s little excess money building up in their monetary bathtubs.”
This writer spoke to Milton Friedman many times during the great man’s years at the Hoover Institution before his passing in 2006. I’d call his office and leave a message, and the bantam sage would call back––collect. One time, the operator intoned, “Would you accept the charges from Milton?” and Friedman once quipped back, “I was amused at the operator’s calling me Milton.” It’s likely that if Friedman were alive today, he would have warned that the Fed’s profligacy in the pandemic would cause catastrophic inflation. Hanke filled the role for his idol. But it took Hanke to add his own colorful element to the monetarist canon, the imaginary bathtub whose flows, drains, and faucets tell the true story of inflation.