380 reviews2,525 followers
Inflation 101…
Preamble: –For over a decade, co-author political economist Mark Blyth has hovered just outside my go-to political economists (i.e. Varoufakis/Michael Hudson), as the latter prioritize: i) Geopolitical Economy: -ex. Varoufakis’ The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy -ex. Hudson’s Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance ii) Class struggle: –Blyth has relied on a “Post-Keynesian” lens, which ranges between (a) technocratic liberal reformists who water…
380 reviews2,525 followers
Inflation 101…
Preamble: –For over a decade, co-author political economist Mark Blyth has hovered just outside my go-to political economists (i.e. Varoufakis/Michael Hudson), as the latter prioritize: i) Geopolitical Economy: -ex. Varoufakis’ The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy -ex. Hudson’s Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance ii) Class struggle: –Blyth has relied on a “Post-Keynesian” lens, which ranges between (a) technocratic liberal reformists who watered-down Keynes (who himself had the baggage of British empire technocracy), to (b) the influence of Kalecki (Marxist). –Thus, on a topic like “austerity” (steeped in class conflict!), I bypassed Blyth’s 2013 Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea in favour of a Marxist lens in The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism. –Still, I’ve always enjoyed Blyth’s skills in communicating critical economics beyond academic siloes (esp. his lectures); so, I was not surprised by his success diagnosing “Global Trumpism” (Angrynomics). And now, this book unpacking inflation raises the bar…
Highlights:
–I love writing these nonfiction reviews (esp. for economics books), as it’s the best exercise I know for untangling, (re)organizing, (re)prioritizing and summarizing too many pages of unformatted text.
1) Definitions: –I’ll be brief here (as anyone can search up surface info), so we can focus on all the censored political implications in the next section. –“Inflation” is: i) rise in prices: i.e. % of change; so, we have to also consider the baseline. Our baseline might start with very low prices (ex. from recession’s deflation), but you can still have high inflation if the change is large. And the reverse of this. ii) of the general price level: i.e. a large coverage of prices to represent the overall economy; what belongs in this basket of prices gets deeper into politics (ex. house prices). …This general price level is measured using “price indexes”; in the US, the main ones are Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) and Consumer Price Index (CPI). The “headline inflation” represents the full basket, whereas “core inflation” removes food/fuel prices (considered volatile). …Besides from “nominal” (price’s number) change, we also need to consider the political relationships between prices and how they affect different classes (“nominal” vs. “real” change; ex. are wages keeping up with prices of goods? Class differences? Ex. the working/poor spend a higher proportion on food/fuel since they cannot afford luxury goods/services). –3 types of inflation: a) good: a moderate 2% inflation is considered healthy as it’s a sign of economic growth (which, under capitalism, is required; if there’s no expectation of profits, capitalism crashes). b) bad: shocks (temporary) that disrupt general prices. c) ugly: prices become de-anchored into a vicious cycle, i.e. “hyperinflation”; this is actually rare, see later.
2) Causes and Tools (and their Politics): –Next, let’s list the 4 main “causes” of inflation, the “tools” to address each, and the underlying politics. The authors stress that these are often at play together and interacting, so the difficult task is prioritizing their significance…
–Cause #1 – Balance of International Payments: –Yes, I’ve re-arranged the order of inflation “causes” to better reflect their actual level of global significance, whereas the book’s order is based on (debunking) Western mainstream notoriety for a Western audience with Western concerns (leaving this “cause” buried in Global South case studies). –Thus, I’m starting on the geopolitical economy level (“external”). There’s simply a profound difference between: a) US dollar: –Acts not just as the US’s domestic currency, but also the international reserve currency (for details, see the Varoufakis/Hudson books I linked earlier). –The US economy is also massive and relatively self-sufficient on essentials (food/fuel), not to mention the US’s global dominance (militarism/finance/technology patent monopolies) to bully for better terms. The US’s foreign debt (mostly Treasury bonds it issues) is also in its own currency (thus, control: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy)! b) Weak domestic currencies of countries dependent on trade/foreign investments/foreign debt: –“Balance of payments” (a country’s money inflow vs. outflow, esp. from trade: export earnings vs. import payments) is a major concern here, to prevent an “exchange-rate crisis”: i) when domestic currency devalues (more volatile as the state is weak, dependent on trade/foreign investments/foreign debt in foreign currency esp. US dollar; thus, many geopolitical economy factors…) ii) imports become more expensive, raising domestic prices iii) so, the country prints more currency to buy the same amount of imports (note: this is different from the monetarist’s blame of government spending, see later); this short-term fix only further devalues the currency iv) currency speculators (world-class parasites) ditch the currency, further devaluing it v) for the special contexts of “hyperinflation”, see later. …This is the insanity of global capitalism, where “free market”/“free trade” means turning everything (in weaker countries) into commodities for buying/selling (the logic of colonization’s pillage), even another country’s currency! …where the global rich can make such consequential, anti-democratic actions (market = one-dollar-one-vote). …Meanwhile, rich countries have protections for themselves; do-as-we-say, not-as-we-do: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism; for trade dependency as colonization: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions –Mainstream Western economics obscures this big picture “external” context, instead fear-mongering about inflation within rich Western (imperialist) countries while ignoring the inflation/exchange-rate pressures on Global South countries (trapped by trade imperialism/currency speculators). It’s the same disgusting logic as scapegoating immigrants when you rely on their cheap labour, while you pillage/sanction/bomb their countries of origin (Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis). World-class parasites. –Tools for Cause #1: –Given the authors (relative) lack of geopolitical economy, they do not detail any tools to address exchange-rate crises. This is unfortunate, because Blyth’s Post-Keynesian lens actually does provide tools for this, although they are hypothetical; Keynes’ ideas (representing the decaying British empire with massive WWII debts) were rejected by the US’s (Britain’s creditor) post-WWII Bretton Woods plans. …So, let’s turn to Varoufakis’ Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present: i) (neutral) international currency/ledger: i.e. not also the empire’s domestic currency (US dollar); Keynes proposed the “bancor”. ii) “Trade Imbalance Levy”: charge both sides (trade surplus and deficit) of gross trade imbalances, to discourage extreme trade dependency. iii) “Surge Funding Levy”: charge financial speculation to prevent money imbalances. iv) common fund: both charges go to a common fund for direct transfer (rather than IMF loans) to countries needing to build capacity to escape colonial trade/financial dependency. –Post-Keynesianism might offer compelling technical tools, but the next question is how to build political power to wield such tools.
–Cause #2: Corporate profits: –This is the book’s actual punch line for “causes” of inflation (esp. in rich Western countries). It may not be the initial trigger (see next cause), but it creates a substantial inflation effect as corporations with market power (esp. monopolies/cartels/oligopolies) opportunistically abuse the public’s inflation “expectations” (expect inflation in response to the initial trigger) as a smokescreen to raise prices further; thus: price gouging/“sellers’ inflation”/“greedflation”. –Much of the book deconstructs the mainstream “cause” (see later) to explain why corporate “greedflation” is avoided (i.e. exposes class power); this is symbolized by mainstream economics’ backlash against rogue economists like Isabella M. Weber focusing on corporate profits and the tools to address it. Referencing Elizabeth Popp Berman:
[...] economics is a language of power in a way that the other social sciences are not. Whoever gets to define what is “efficient” or what is a “cost” sets the field of play for everyone else.
–Tools for Cause #2: –No wonder mainstream economics (capitalism’s religion) avoids this: i) price controls: the most direct counter. Key historical examples of this tool’s effectiveness are during war-time, esp. WWII (ex. US’s Office of Price Administration), post-war and during the 1970s (see later). Unlike interest rates (see later), price controls can be targeted to specific industries. …Governments already intervene in prices for key sectors (esp. fuel), so this is about the political will to limit capitalist profits. A voluntary (and thus much less effective) version is price control agreements, which are agreed upon ahead of time with the private sector (some may prefer for long-term stability/good PR). ii) anti-trust policies: this is more long-term, to regulate the market power of corporations. Recent example was Federal Trade Commission’s Lina Khan during the Biden admin. iii) excess profits (windfall) tax: this is redistribution rather than direct inflation control.
–Cause #3: Supply-side shocks: –This is often the initial trigger, where transitory (temporary) shocks disrupt supply, raising prices until supply can recover. The recovery may be postposed, it is argued, if inflation expectations become “de-anchored” (i.e. continue to expect further inflation). –Liberal economist Paul Krugman prioritizes this cause: i) late-1940s to early-1950s: transition from war economy to civilian mass consumerism; Korean War. ii) 1970s: Vietnam War, oil shocks, grain shocks, etc. In this example, the inflation expectations were supposedly “de-anchored”. iii) 2020s: COVID-19 and war in Ukraine. –Unlike shocks, there are other long-term processes that can place pressures on supply. Charles Goodhart focuses on an aging demographic. Another is deglobalization from geopolitical tensions (where globalization’s influx of cheap labour has been deflationary). A further long-term shock is of course the climate/ecological crises; thus, the authors speculate that the new normal may be inflation. –Tools for Cause #3: i) patience: given that the “cause” here is temporary, the main tool is to not over-react (see later) and wait for supply to recover on its own. ii) buffer stocks (also grouped under “price controls”): otherwise, the only other specific tool I read was the improvement of shock resilience, in particular governments setting aside supply for volatile/essential commodities so they can quickly recover supply during shocks. Ex. US with gasoline; China for many (from cooking oil to medical supplies). However, it takes capacity to maintain buffer stocks.
…see comments below for rest of the review…
1-how-the-world-works critique-propaganda econ-corporations
707 reviews26 followers
Are you seeking a book that will take you deep into the world of deflation, inflation, and shrinkflation but not contain dense jargon and abstract concepts that leave you in a state of consternation? Do you feel like corporations in the US (and elsewhere, though not as much) have been raising prices beyond what’s necessary to cover their avg labor, and production costs, and increasing their profit margin in a significant manner? Would you simply like to have inflation explained and have a few ah hah moments?! THEN THIS IS YOUR BOOK.
Mark and Nicolò’s book is what happens when someone finally decides to explain the most dreaded word in economics without either condescending or confusing you. It’s sharp, insightful, and laced with just a wee bit of an edge to keep things interesting without veering into crank territory.
Chock full of real world examples and many wonderful charts, the book takes us from the chaos of Zimbabwe to the long, slow burn of Argentina, from Volcker’s Hammer to Trump’s tariff war. The historical case studies are vivid and telling, offering crucial perspective on what inflation really looks like in practice. The book doesn’t offer silver bullets, in fact a significant take away for me was the answer to "Why inflation now and how to fix?" is... It Depends.
But, fear not, this book has given me the tools to recognize patterns, ask better questions, and likely avoid being blindsided by the next economic shift. Of course I’ll need to have this book handy on my bookshelf to reference and likely reread as it’s heady stuff.
Don’t be put off though, it’s accessible without being simplistic, and even irreverent without being dismissive. Basically it’s loaded with the kind of clarity that makes you angry you ever listened to a central banker - why on Earth were you listening to them in the first place?! What’s that, someone showed you some charts, said the word Fibonacci a few times, and told you economics is a science!? Wow, you need this book.
So, if you want a book that helps you wade through the soup of the FED and ECB double speak and better comprehend why the economy is behaving the way it has and is, this is also the book for you. The authors even make a cogent and very compelling argument for what to anticipate regarding inflation in the future... that said, don’t read it anticipating that you will gain the magical ability to prognosticate accurately regarding future trends, after all it’s the dismal science. Plus don’t read it before bed unless you like waking up from a nightmare of being chased by zombie bankers and greedy plutocrats, especially since Grabthar’s, or rather Volcker’s hammer will not save you.
economics non-fiction politics
346 reviews8 followers
Thomas Carlyle called economics "the dismal science," and a study of the "economic fatalists" of the 19th century (Ricardo, Malthus) would lead us to a similar conclusion. Sadly, after reading Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, I was left feeling that economics is still the dismal science. Blythe and Fraccaroli analyze inflation from multiple perspectives, examining the various popular and academic explanations for its causes and cures, identifying what is supported by the evidence and pointing out where each of the theories comes up short. If you are wont to blame a particular politician ... Biden, let’s say ... for inflation, they show you how absolutely wrong you are. Inflation is just too complex for simplistic explanations. And the "cure" that worked (or seemed to) in an earlier decade, probably won’t work today. Chapters explore why we need to rethink inflation, the things the public is generally not told, why we do the things we do to try to fix inflation, how and why we assign blame the way we do, hyperinflation (should we be afraid?), why we didn’t see the current inflation coming, and what the future is likely to bring. Hint: probably more inflation. Dismal thought, isn’t it? Perhaps the least dismal chapter of the book concerns hyperinflation ... when inflation hits the stratosphere and wheelbarrows of money won’t buy you a cup of coffee. The authors present four case studies: Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Germany, dissecting what went wrong in each case that led to astronomical inflation and concluding that we are not likely to experience hyperinflation in our future. Whew! And they go to analyze our own recent inflation to answer the question, "Why didn’t we see this coming?" This is an impressive work of scholarship that mines economic history and research, the leading economists’ contributions to the topic, and current political commentary to provide a narrative the general public can immerse itself in and emerge with a much more nuanced understanding of what we’ve just been through, that little thing that cost Biden the election, inflation!
278 reviews8 followers
This is a superbly written introduction to inflation, approached from the perspective of political economy rather than technical econometrics. Blyth made his name as a sharp critic of austerity, while Fraccaroli is also deeply knowledgeable in the Keynesian tradition. Together they make a strong pairing, showing how different explanations of inflation matter for different social groups.
At the core of the book are several main “stories” of inflation:
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Price gouging – sometimes referred to as seller’s inflation or greedflation, in which firms take advantage of crises to raise prices and widen profit margins.
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Supply shocks – external disruptions such as Covid-19, which froze supply chains, or the war in Ukraine, which created energy and food shocks.
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Expectations – central banks attempt to shape inflation by managing what the public expects. The authors show how this mechanism is overstated, since very few people actually pay attention to central bank communications, but it can still function as a self-fulfilling prophecy in certain conditions.
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Money printing – Milton Friedman’s claim that inflation is “always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” The authors carefully dissect this view, showing its limits when confronted with real-world evidence.
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Wage–price spirals – the fear that rising wages drive firms to raise prices, leading to a feedback loop. The authors note how rarely this actually happens outside very specific historical contexts.
Each narrative is set out clearly, with its strengths and weaknesses, evidence that supports it, and evidence that undermines it. The book does not pretend to be neutral: the angle is distinctly left-of-centre, giving serious space to less mainstream accounts such as greedflation, which argue that inflation is sometimes about power and profits rather than inevitable market forces.
Overall, it is a refreshing, accessible, and thought-provoking guide to one of the most debated issues in economics today.
63 reviews7 followers
A good book that details how the conventional wisdom on what causes inflation - "too much money chasing too few goods" - is incomplete. Yet this axiom is so dominant in the field of economics that whenever inflation rears its ugly head, we use a very specific policy tool (raising interest rates) to attack it. Yet since the field of economics fails to capture the inflationary picture in its entirety, interest rate manipulation is entirely an insufficient tool to tackle it.
Perhaps the two of the most interesting insights that I took away from the book is that (a) inflation is a form of class war. There are winners and losers when it comes to inflation, and where you land entirely depends on where you sit on the income distribution and whether you are a capitalist - mainly a big capitalist with monopoly or oligopolistic power - or a worker and (b) we may entering an era of inflation for the foreseeable future. The past forty years has been an era of relatively low inflation, and this has nothing to do with the policies of central banks like the Federal Reserve. Globalization and the emergence of China put downward pressure on general prices. Why? Because more than 500 million Chinese workers entered the global labor market, and their incorporation allowed Western capitalist countries to maintain their levels of consumption while their wages stagnated. This era is likely over, and the likelihood of having another country have a similar impact to China in the short-term is extremely unlikely.
More of a reason why we need socialism. Just saying!
114 reviews33 followers
This is a fun and engaging read, walking the reader through Econ 101 in an accessible and often entertaining way. It also does a good job presenting rich academic debates and summarizing past inflationary episodes.
My concern is that there is a fair bit of motte-and-bailey reasoning at work. On the “motte,” many mainstream macroeconomists would agree with several of the book’s narrower claims: that the recent and 70s inflation surge was partly driven by supply shocks; that inflation has important distributional and political-economy consequences; and that targeted, sectoral price policies can sometimes play a limited role. On the “bailey,” however, the authors frame these points as highly heterodox, portray the debates as fundamental disagreements with the mainstream, and leave ambiguous just how central these considerations should be for inflation policy.
The problem is that, in the mainstream view, these factors are generally seen as second-order in the big picture—and pushing them to the foreground risks being more misleading than illuminating. That gap between the defensible, narrow claims and the undercurrent of radical revisionism is what ultimately left me unconvinced.
345 reviews178 followers
Najskôr mi bolo sympatické, že sa kniha prezentuje ako čítanie pre bežný ľud, ktorý by mal pochopiť infláciu, aby sa nedal oklamať. Aj to začalo sľubne, dobrý úvod, potom jednoduché vysvetlenie čo a ako. Hoci však osobne nejaké ekonomické základy mám ešte zo SŠ, som viac zmätená ako predtým. Dokonca mám pocit, že miestami ani autori nevedeli, ako to teda je. Veľakrát odprezentovali nástroj a vzápätí ho znegovali. A celkovo to malo taký vibe, že všetko je inak ako nás klamali.