Posted on 11/11/2021 2:00:52 PM PST by nickcarraway
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who served as head of the National Economic Council during the Obama administration, has slammed the Biden White House for being “behind the curve” on the inflation ravaging the economy.
“I think we’re speeding down the road at a really rapid rate,” Summers told CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” Wednesday. “It’s kind of a downhill road. And it’s not going to be so easy to put the brakes on here. And that’s why I’m concerned.”
Summers spoke on the same day that the Labor Department announced that its Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of a basket of goods and services as well as energy and food, had jumped 6.2 percent in October from a year earlier — the biggest 12-month rise since 1990.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Then stop the dang spending!!
Bush spent more than Clinton, Obama spent more than Bush, Trump spent more than Obama, and Biden is already spending more than Trump. How do we get them to stop spending?
Behind the curve or just flat or willingly exacerbating it?
*shakeshead*
There’s a curve?
Ha! When Obama’s Chief Money Printer says you are printing too much money, you might want to take notice.
“Bush spent more than Clinton, Obama spent more than Bush, “Trump spent more than Obama, and Biden is already spending more than Trump. How do we get them to stop spending?”
Each president inherits all the spending programs that continue to grow since inception as there are more people to serve every year. No program goes away, it only gets more expensive. If a new president and congress spent no new money, the deficit would still grow and the spending would still increase due to the ongoing spending for all the old wonderful ideas that were going to save us.
It’s built in and has been for a long time.
I am not a fan of Summers, but he is smart enough to understand that inflationary expectations are emotional and crunching numbers will not help you figure out the true impact once things start getting out of hand,
That is why the traditional approach was for the Fed to quickly raise interest rates at the first hint of inflation—and for government to likewise clamp down on deficit spending.
Neither of those are happening, and Summers understands what that means.
Since the 2 biggest expenditures are SS and Medicare, it wont happen. With an aging population, it is only going to keep getting worse.
But a more relevant problem is we've been keeping interest rates as close to zero as we can for more than a decade. That wasn't going to result in inflation eventually?
“But a more relevant problem is we’ve been keeping interest rates as close to zero as we can for more than a decade.”
That was the only thing that saved us from deflation which is worse than inflation.
What I’m trying to figure out is why the Bond Market doesn’t show any worry over inflation yet. The FED pretends to set interest rates but it’s the Bond Market that leads the way. If it walks rates up, the FED has to follow.
Right now the Bond Market doesn’t think this inflation will last. I don’t know when it will decide differently but nothing much will happen to rates until the Bond Market moves. The FED will kill time “tapering” and watching the Bond Market.
Well...DUH!
That was the only thing that saved us from deflation which is worse than inflation.
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I keep hearing that, but in the past the country has had periods of deflation and the result was a rising standard of living as goods got cheaper.
“Buoyed by the rise of industrial mechanization after the war, the prices of goods dropped starting in 1817 and continued to drop until 1860. Even though prices were dropping, output grew consistently during this time and continued to grow at the same time that prices were dropping until approximately 1860, at the start of the Civil War.”
Good question. IMHO we should make any increase in the national debt limit dependent upon a national vote of the people. Make voters pay more attention to where their tax dollars are being spent and the ramifications of runaway spending and how it affects our daily lives. Knowledge is power.
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