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"To effectively solve inflation we need to attack all 4." Why do you think that? You've listed four conceivable reasons for inflation. One could probably lis

"To effectively solve inflation we need to attack all 4." Why do you think that? You've listed four conceivable reasons for inflation. One could probably list another 20 after a bit more thought. That doesn't mean that these are all plausible. It seems entirely possible that just one of them accounts for just about all of the inflation. You haven't made any argument against this. Of the four you list, (3) and (4) seem implausible. Why would corporations suddenly have become more greedy? Have fundamental constraints on the housing sector (you mean zoning restrictions, maybe?) suddenly increased?

bryanlarsen 5y ago
> Of the four you list, (3) and (4) seem implausible. Why would corporations suddenly have become more greedy? Have fundamental constraints on the housing sector (you mean zoning restrictions, maybe?) suddenly increased? Those are the 4 I've heard politicians and pundits mention. I could name 20 more, but experts aren't naming them. 3&4 are long standing problems, sure. 3 is the anti-big tech anti-trust crowd. Big Tech makes a substantial portion of the profits in America, and that is fairly recent. Re: 4. Housing costs are a big portion of the inflation index, so tackling that issue will substantially reduce inflation even if it's not a recent problem. It's also the issue that's best addressed by local politicians, in a way that the other 3 can't be.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
> You haven't made any argument against this. If the problem is supply chain constraints, inflation will be quite varied among the sectors. And this is true, with used cars leading the way at 41%. If the problem is the money supply, inflation will be fairly even across the sectors. And while the sectoral components are quite different, they are becoming more similar over time.
- radford-neal 5y ago
  Those seem like good arguments for both (1) and (2) being factors. Not definitive, though. One expects there to be some variation in price changes from sector to sector at any time, so only a greater than typical variation would be indicative of particular supply disruptions (or put another way, there are always supply chain disruptions, though maybe not of the current magnitude). Also, increased money supply doesn't immediately get distributed throughout the economy. One expects price increases to first show up in the things that tend to be bought by the people who first got the money. And I'm not sure who got the bulk of the recently-created money...

bryanlarsen 5y ago

> Of the four you list, (3) and (4) seem implausible. Why would corporations suddenly have become more greedy? Have fundamental constraints on the housing sector (you mean zoning restrictions, maybe?) suddenly increased? Those are the 4 I've heard politicians and pundits mention. I could name 20 more, but experts aren't naming them. 3&4 are long standing problems, sure. 3 is the anti-big tech anti-trust crowd. Big Tech makes a substantial portion of the profits in America, and that is fairly recent. Re: 4. Housing costs are a big portion of the inflation index, so tackling that issue will substantially reduce inflation even if it's not a recent problem. It's also the issue that's best addressed by local politicians, in a way that the other 3 can't be.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

> You haven't made any argument against this. If the problem is supply chain constraints, inflation will be quite varied among the sectors. And this is true, with used cars leading the way at 41%. If the problem is the money supply, inflation will be fairly even across the sectors. And while the sectoral components are quite different, they are becoming more similar over time.

radford-neal 5y ago
Those seem like good arguments for both (1) and (2) being factors. Not definitive, though. One expects there to be some variation in price changes from sector to sector at any time, so only a greater than typical variation would be indicative of particular supply disruptions (or put another way, there are always supply chain disruptions, though maybe not of the current magnitude). Also, increased money supply doesn't immediately get distributed throughout the economy. One expects price increases to first show up in the things that tend to be bought by the people who first got the money. And I'm not sure who got the bulk of the recently-created money...