Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Economy and the Economics of Everyday Life

By Simon Johnson

To talk about imminently increasing inflation in the United States today is to meet with policy makers’ derision. The prevailing thinking among mainstream macroeconomists is straightforward on this point — while unemployment is rising, inflation must be low or even falling. If anything, according to Ben Bernanke and his cohort, we should fear deflation, i.e., falling wages and prices, a damaging characteristic of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

But remember, macroeconomic orthodoxy has taken a beating in the past two years. Anyone who claimed subprime mortgages and their ilk could not constitute a macroeconomic threat now has a credibility issue; this includes at least some of our most senior policy thinkers.

The Economy and the Economics of Everyday Life - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com

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