We Need to Talk About Inflation: 14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years

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PDF / EPUB File Name: We_Need_to_Talk_About_Inflation_-_Stephen_D_King.pdf, We_Need_to_Talk_About_Inflation_-_Stephen_D_King.epub A FINANCIAL TIMES "BOOK TO READ IN 2023" "Everything you wanted to know about inflation but were afraid to ask."-Mervyn King "King's lessons command our attention."-Lawrence H. But they’re raising prices even as they rake in record profits. How can this be? They have so much market power they can raise prices with impunity. My kind of inflation book. There is lots of great storytelling, which lightens the subject matter, and makes it accessible to non-experts.”—Moira O’Neill, Financial Times, “Best Summer Books of 2023: Money”

Policymakers are not easily able to distinguish inflationary squalls from periods of inflationary persistence

In the final chapter, he looks at possible solutions including institutional constraints while offering the following 14 lessons: Normally I would enjoy any book on monetary policy, but I found this book to be very poorly structured, jumping around in time, pushing an Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton analogy too far (when it would have been far simpler to just talk directly about the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy - the points would have been more easily grasped). But now people the world over are confronting a poisonous new economic reality and, with it, the prospect of vast and increasing wealth inequality. How have we arrived in this situation? And what, if anything, can we do about it? Celebrated economist Stephen D. King-one of the few to warn ahead of time about the latest inflationary upheaval-identifies key lessons from the history of inflation that policy makers chose not to heed.

In this I always look with admiration at Procter & Gamble. For a decade or more, it has looked unfavourably at any commercial proposal that doesn't embrace nearshore and offshore centres of excellence. It's a standard requirement for a global business that reaps the benefits of connecting great teams no matter where they are based.Not just a useful and well-written account of inflation for the layman, but a contribution to a debate that is still very much live. A brilliantly clear and concise new history.”—Juliet Samuel, Times (UK)

King also is clearly correct that both supply‐​side and demand‐​side factors have driven the surge in the price level since 2021. Yet, one downside of his not outlining his own “model” of the economy is the failure to define his own preferred monetary rule and so make ajudgment on what actions central banks should have taken and when. He admits that in periods like what we’ve lived through, “policymakers are not easily able to distinguish inflationary squalls from periods of inflationary persistence.” That is true, but it is difficult to square with his justified criticism of the complacency of the economic establishment in letting the inflation genie out of the bottle of late. A damning critique. . . . King writes lucidly, avoiding the jargon that makes economics impenetrable to the lay reader.”—Edward Chancellor, Times Literary SupplementA book cannot do everything, though, and this one was written as the inflationary picture was continually evolving. Overall, it is the best book on the market for using this moment to deliver lessons in history and advice to policymakers. It somehow remains both broad and deep, explaining the perils of ever thinking that inflation is whipped right through to analyzing what went wrong with former UK prime minister Liz Truss’s infamous mini‐​budget. A myth-busting explanation of inflation, the desperate gullibility of central bankers and finance ministers—and our abject failure to learn from history