[ExI] Inflation and the 2024 election

[John Clark]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2026 at 1:55 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:


> *>…And there’s a big risk that the succession of inflation shocks will do
> what the post-Covid shock didn’t: get entrenched in expectations, so that
> we will need a recession to get inflation back down… John*
>

*Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that not me, I am not an
economist and I have not won a Nobel Prize. *

> * > Inflation is the devaluation of currency, and it is a one-way road. *
>
*Yeah certainly, but that one way road is not necessarily leading to a bad
place. During the early 1600s in England you could live the life of a
country gentleman on just 50 pounds a year, and by the end of his life
Shakespeare was considered to be an extremely rich man but he never made
more than 200 pounds a year, and yet today the average Englishman has a
MUCH higher quality of life than the average Englishman of 1600.  *

*> If we argue that inflation was already back down in 2024, prices were
> staying up. *
>
*Let's hope that situation doesn't change, we don't want another 1929 *

*> > Once inflation has occurred, prices do not come back down, even if
inflation goes to zero.  Inflation seldom goes negative, and if it does,
that has its own dire consequences.*


*The absolute price of things is not dangerous, a rapid rate of change in
prices can be. The prices for things fell rapidly in 1929 but unfortunately
people's income fell even faster. It's not surprising that an intense but
brief spike of inflation occurred when we came out of the huge economic
disruption caused by the Covid pandemic, the surprise was that it was so
brief; perhaps Biden could've made it even briefer, perhaps not, there is
no universal agreement about that among reputable economists, but they all
agree that Donald J Trump is responsible for the current rise and
inflation.*

*Of course you do not agree with that, and it is your solemn duty to ALWAYS
defend Donald NO MATTER WHAT. So don't stop now, I think it would be very
amusing to hear you try to make the case that Donald's destruction of the
free market with ridiculously enormous tariffs and his idiotic war with
Iran has not increased inflation.  So let's hear your defense of that
asinine pompous biped. I am all ears!*

*John K Clark*
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