What happened is that they run Steve Chapman’s cols even when he writes about economics, which he is totally unfit to do.
Yet the inflation-is-good crap does accurately reflect a shockingly widespread viewpoint currently afoot. One does not “tame” inflation. Inflation is the most destructive force a government can unleash on its citizens short of carpet bombing — or perhaps PBS.
Contra Chapman, the Fed has virtually zero experience taming inflation, certainly none since the Volcker years. And none of the Goldman Sachs whiz kids calling the shots today have the stones of a Paul Volcker.
Aside from that, re-inflating real estate prices will not create the income to pay mortgages on them. And that was the original sin — lending money to people who could not pay it back and pretending otherwise. In fact, inflation only eats away at real income.
As a result, I fully expect wage-and-price controls in 2009.
