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Yet More Inflation Mummery This Morning

Published on 16 Comments on Yet More Inflation Mummery This Morning

The Washington Post reports today that "Recovery’s stumbles leave Americans confronting unfamiliar inflation risk." But if you make it down to the 12th paragraph, you learn this:

To date, the increase in inflation remains modest. Comparing current prices to those one year ago also overstates what’s actually in the economy. During the pandemic’s first months, many prices — including for hotel rooms, airplane tickets and men’s suits — collapsed. So year-over-year comparisons exaggerate the degree of change. Such distortions will become less significant over the remainder of this year.

So inflation is modest, and even at that it's exaggerated, but we're going to run a story about inflation fears anyway. wtf, people?

16 thoughts on “Yet More Inflation Mummery This Morning”

  1. cephalopod

    We're going to keep running articles on inflation until one day there really is inflation, and then won't you look stupid! It could happen anytime in the next 50 years!

    Seriously, though, inflation articles are how the news media reach out to conservatives. It's probably the least toxic sop to the right wingers that they an come up with.

    1. bethby30

      I think it it more than that. The WaPo CEO is Fred Ryan who was a long time top aide to Ronald Reagan, both during and after his presidency. The Post has gone big on debt/inflation fear-mongering recently, running at least 5 articles hyping that threat. One was an article by Larry Summers whose assertions are strongly disputed by top economists. The rest of the articles boiled down to “Larry Summers and some others say .........”. No mention was made of the 100+ top economists who signed a statement in support of Biden’s spending plans, of the counter argument to Summers’s claim that debt would drive up inflation, etc.
      I strongly believe that what we are seeing in a strong, deep-seated bias coming from the top.

      1. bbleh

        Yes, and not only from the top of the publication businesses themselves, but from the top economic and political strata of society generally, who tend to socialize with each other and -- importantly -- with (some) business reporters. And THEY worry about inflation because they are wealthy, and because inflation erodes the real value of static assets (and many investments as well), which is the basis of their wealth and influence.

        In brief, rich people worry about inflation, and business reporters hang out with rich people -- or want to -- so they write about inflation.

  2. Jerry O'Brien

    It would be a fair assessment to say that inflation expectations are rising as designed, modestly. A rebounding economy is going to let the inflation rate take up the slack that the Federal Reserve has been giving it. With all the easing, inflation still poking along at under 2% was characteristic of a dull economy.

  3. tdbach

    This is yet another example of why calling the mainstream media "liberal" is a joke. MSM is a for-profit enterprise. It's mission is to make money. Period. It operates under a code of ethics that prevents it from just making shit up like Fox or OAN, but it certainly isn't above a little deceptive headlining to play on people's fears to draw their attention. Shock, scandal, threat, outrage - that's what they compete with each other on. Nary an ideology in sight.

  4. J. Frank Parnell

    Hard to sell newspapers (or internet clicks) with a story that says everthing is fine, no sign of trouble yet.

      1. cld

        Rules a mercantile empire in a cute and agreeable fashion.

        Pussycoin would just be Hedonismbot, responsible for nothing as the world collapses under the weight of his arbitrary and extraordinary exactions.

        So, you're right, Doggie coin is much better.

        1. bbleh

          What is this may-may-speak? Or is it some super-egotistical French thing -- muh-muh-speak? And what does this have to do with an apparently valuable coin associated with the medieval rulers of Venice? I am very confused ...

  6. Mitchell Young

    Dude, nobody cares about men's suits or airplane tickets or hotel rooms (notice they pick three things with high demand elasticity and/or directly crushed by travel restrictions). We care about food, energy, transport, and commodities (lumber!). And those are going up at a good clip.

    Stop your denialism.

  7. cld

    Speaking of inflation,

    Nuclear Reactions Have Started Again In The Chernobyl Reactor,

    https://www.unilad.co.uk/news/nuclear-reactions-have-started-again-in-the-chernobyl-reactor/

    Scientists monitoring the Chernobyl nuclear power plant say that nuclear fission reactions are occurring again in the reactor hall’s remains, some 35 years after the core exploded.

    Sensors monitoring the masses of uranium fuel buried in the basement rooms of the reactor have detected rising levels of neutrons, signalling that the fission process used to create nuclear energy is occurring in one of the inaccessible rooms within the plant.

    Although the levels are rising slowly, scientists are working to figure out the cause of the activity, and what action needs to be taken to prevent the risk of further radiation leaking out from the plant.
    . . . .
    While there’s no risk of a continent-wide nuclear fallout like the one seen in 1986, Hyatt says that an exponential increase in fission could cause ‘an uncontrolled release of nuclear energy,’ with experts concerned that an explosion could cause a partial collapse of the old sarcophagus, filling the NSC with ‘radioactive dust.’
    . . .

  8. pjcamp1905

    How else will you make people afraid of inflation?

    Conventional wisdom backed by nonsupporting evidence. Film at 11.

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