for late September 2010. If American Enterprise Institute economist Allan Meltzer is right, that’s about the time the Fed’s orgy of dollar-bill printing should start translating into real-live inflation.
Meltzer dares to take issue with New York Times columnist and Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who’s consistently told anyone harboring any suspicions about the Fed’s paper money tsuanmi, paired with the administration’s massive deficit-spending programs, to just move along. Nothing to see here, folks. (Indeed, Krugman keeps hinting that deflation remains a concern.)
I’ll allow folks with a much greater knowledge of economics than me to decide who’s on sounder theoretical footing here. But I will say that Meltzer’s offering a reality check on his premise. If we start seeing the CPI creeping upward by the fall of 2010, “about two years from the time monetary stimulus increases to the beginning of inflation,” then he’ll win the argument.
I’m betting on Meltzer, and if I’m right, as someone who spent his early adult years surviving the Ford and Carter eras, that’s nothing to be happy about.
