Inflation levels are closer to the peaks of the Jimmy Carter era than the White House or media would have Americans believe, according to a report coauthored by Clinton administration Treasury secretary and Obama administration economic adviser Lawrence Summers.
At first glimpse, the inflation rate, which sits at roughly 8.3 percent, seems a far ways off from the March 1980 peak of 14.8 percent. Yet Summers and his colleagues argue that U.S. economic conditions are much bleaker than many policymakers assume and that inflation levels during these periods are actually similar.
“When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.” Rev. 6:5
Government data on inflation rates in years past are themselves inflated, Summers and his colleagues find. The 1951 inflation rating was 9.4 percent, for example, according to the consumer price index (CPI)—the index the federal government uses to measure the inflation rate. Summers and his colleagues found after calculating the rate using a formula that measures rising prices more accurately that the 1951 CPI was actually 3.3 percent.
The report paints a grim picture of the economic challenges facing President Joe Biden, who has been reluctant to call inflation an economic crisis and unwilling to curb domestic spending to help lower consumer costs. The only solution—if the inflationary environment is as dire as Summers and his coauthors allege—may be for the Federal Reserve to induce a recession by dramatically hiking interest rates and further harm consumers who have been spending an increased share of their income on household goods for nearly a year.
Summers’s paper never uses the word “recession” but makes repeated references to actions taken by former Fed chairman and Carter appointee Paul Volcker, who along with the fiscal policies of former president Ronald Reagan gets credit for helping the United States escape the stagflation malaise that defined the 1970s. Summers’s paper goes as far as to say “to return to 2 percent core CPI inflation [the Fed’s target rate] today will thus require nearly the same amount of disinflation as achieved under Chairman Volcker.”
While most economists believe Volcker’s policies were a success in the long term, the policies resulted in two harsh recessions in 1980 and 1981. Those policies included nearly doubling interest rates from 11.2 percent in 1979 to 20 percent in 1981.
The interest rate today is set at around 1 percent, for comparison.
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