And as we saw, despite claims from worry warts like Ron Paul, and from gold advertisers playing pump 'n dump, there was no inflation in the US to speak of. Throughout The Great Recession government bond prices remained high - which allowed the US to continue borrowing & spending without being reigned in by financial markets.
pishpash|8 years ago
jasode|8 years ago
- the record-breaking auction prices of art pieces (Picasso, etc) at Christie's & Sothebys
- the vast pools of money chasing late-stage tech startups driving up late-round valuations,
- the increase in student loans for college students driving up tuition prices outpacing "official" inflation metric
There's also "shrinkflation"[1] which is a form of inflation but does not count in CPI calculations. Also, many homeowners complained that their house insurance went up 20+ percent even though they don't live in a hurricane or flood zone.
The pundits saying there's no inflation seem to only look at the flawed CPI statistic. If the Fed's quantitative easing creates $4 trillion in new money, that has to show up somewhere in the economy. (Unless _everybody_ coordinates to hide all $4 trillion in a mattress to negate its effect.) If citizens are seeing a reduction in purchasing power in real terms, you have inflation happening.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation
AlexCoventry|8 years ago