A Quote by Michael Hudson
When they say inflation is bad, deflation is good, what they mean is, more money for us 1% is good; we're all for asset price inflation, we're all for housing prices going up, and we're all for our stock and bonds prices going up. We're just against you workers getting more income.
Related Quotes
There is no such thing as agflation. Rising commodity prices, or increases in any prices, do not cause inflation. Inflation is what causes prices to rise. Of course, in market economies, prices for individual goods and services rise and fall based on changes in supply and demand, but it is only through inflation that prices rise in aggregate.
No politician can praise unemployment or inflation, and there is no way of combining high employment with stable prices that does not involve some control of income and prices. Otherwise the struggle for more consumption and more income to sustain it-a struggle that modern corporations, modern unions and modern democracy all facilitate and encourage-will drive up prices. Only heavy unemployment will then temper this upward thrust. Not many wish to confront the truth that the modern economy gives a choice only between inflation, unemployment, or controls.
The idea that when people see prices falling they will stop buying those cheaper goods or cheaper food does not make much sense. And aiming for 2 percent inflation every year means that after a decade prices are more than 25 percent higher and the price level doubles every generation. That is not price stability, yet they call it price stability. I just do not understand central banks wanting a little inflation.
Models used to describe and predict inflation commonly distinguish between changes in food and energy prices - which enter into total inflation - and movements in the prices of other goods and services - that is, core inflation.
What people today call inflation is not inflation, i.e., the increase in the quantity of money and money substitutes, but the general rise in commodity prices and wage rates which is the inevitable consequence of inflation.
If global oil prices or commodity prices are high, then it is bound to create inflation. So, we should not be too worried if the inflation is created by global commodity prices. When they come down, inflation will automatically come down.
The good thing about the dividend-paying stocks is, first of all you have stocks, which are real assets if we have some inflation. I think we're going to have 2%, 3% maybe 4%. That's a sweet spot for stocks. Corporations do well with that. It gives them pricing power. Their assets move up with prices. I'm not fearful of that inflation.
The increase in inequality in income is a longtime trend, but the pressure on middle- and low-income workers is going up rapidly. Especially if they live in an area where there are high housing and gas prices, like California.
There are two definitions of deflation. Most people think of it simply as prices going down. But debt deflation is what happens when people have to spend more and more of their income to carry the debts that they've run up - to pay their mortgage debt, to pay the credit card debt, to pay student loans.
Because food and energy prices are volatile, it is often helpful to look at inflation excluding those two categories - known as core inflation - which is typically a better indicator of future overall inflation than recent readings of headline inflation.
We all know that housing prices are going up, but what most people don't realize is that this has become a family problem. Housing prices are rising twice as fast for families with kids.
In the long run, the gold price has to go up in relation to paper money. There is no other way. To what price, that depends on the scale of the inflation - and we know that inflation will continue.
You could not buy a house in those days without just assuming that the house was not only a place to live, but it was a good investment, because it was going to keep up with inflation or get ahead of inflation, and it was just - that was America.
Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?
There is no doubt that the Fed's large-scale asset purchases have caused major increases in a number of asset prices in the economy. This is especially true of mortgage backed securities and corporate bonds, and quite possibly of equities as well. For those people and institutions holding those things, the run up in prices has been a wealth bonanza.
And so our goal on health care is, if we can get, instead of health care costs going up 6 percent a year, it's going up at the level of inflation, maybe just slightly above inflation, we've made huge progress. And by the way, that is the single most important thing we could do in terms of reducing our deficit. That's why we did it.
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