14 May 2021

I Still Hate Neil Irwin - part the seventeenth

Once again, we find Mr. Irwin cadging from some of my earlier musings. I don't see the Times until it shows up on the front step, which in this case was an hour or so ago.
Well, Friday the thirteenth falls on a Thursday this month, and the Right Wingnuts in the crowd are bloviating on 'Inflation is Here!!! We must punish the lower classes!!'. No, it isn't; at least in the excess moolah version, which is the only version that the Right Wingnuts admit to.
Today, Mr. Irwin writes
But let's imagine that, in response to the problem, the Fed raised interest rates or that Congress increased taxes to claw back stimulus payments.

Those actions alone wouldn't create more microchips or let rental car companies undo decisions from a year ago. Higher interest rates or taxes might even make things worse, if the actions led suppliers to hold back on investing in new capacity for fear demand would fall in the future.
The problem? Production shortages.

The central fact of the American economy in mid-2021 is that demand for all sorts of goods and services has surged. But supplies are coming back slowly, with the economy acting like a creaky machine that was turned off for a year and has some rusty parts. The result, as underlined in new government data this week, is shortages and price inflation across many parts of the economy. That is putting the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve in a jam that is only partly of their own making.
The bleating of the Phat Cats should be ignored. Along with Greene and other total nutballs.

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