…since the Republic was founded. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that it accelerated about the time we abandoned the Constitution.
[Update a few minutes later]
Paul Krugman, economic soopergenius.
6 thoughts on “Inflation”
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…since the Republic was founded. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that it accelerated about the time we abandoned the Constitution.
[Update a few minutes later]
Paul Krugman, economic soopergenius.
Comments are closed.
The Carter years are the worst? That’s a surprise. I thought Obama had taken the lead. Also notice that curious plateau near the top. That looks like manipulation to stop the COLA for those two years.
It’d be nice if there were another chart displaying the inflation rate rather than the cumulative inflation–the massive inflation during and after the revolutionary war looks like a tiny blip on this chart.
I was thinking that a logarithmic scale would be better. Then the slope of the line would be a direct read of inflation rate.
The fear mongering over default is rediculous. We would either print more money or not give money to cowboy poets. Out of all the options for not spending or generating money, how do they get to default as the first and only option?
And the FED is now one of the biggest holders of government debt. What happens if we default on their payments?
Wodun,
Its Congress being lazy that created the debt ceiling. In the past (pre-1917) Congress would be required to approve each new treasury note issued as they spent more cash than they had on hand. They got tired of doing so and just replaced it with a maximum ceiling for treasury bills (the debt ceiling). Problem is they didn’t provide a way for the ceiling to move automatically as the Congress authorized the spending which is why they have to rise it at regular intervals to get the money needed to cover the spending they already approved.
Also the Fed is only the second largest holder. The largest is the Social Security Administration, which owns $4.7 trillion. The FED only owns about $1.6 trillion, while various state and local governments run a close third owning about $1.5 trillion.
Actually what it shows are the various stages of leaving the gold standard, from ending gold certificate (1933), to the Bretton Woods agreement (1945) then huge increase starting in 1970 shows clearly when President Nixon abandoned the gold standard completely on August 5, 1970.
So why are you trying to link it to the Constitution? All Article I does is give Congress the right to coin money and regulate it value. It says nothing about it having to be commodity based. Or even requiring them to coin money…