THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF INFLATION – By Jon Schwarz (The Intercept) / Feb 18, 2023
War, pestilence, climate change, and the rich.
WHAT CAUSED THE big surge in inflation over the past few years? The mass mind of U.S. elites is currently in the process of deciding on the “answer.” The scare quotes are necessary because U.S. elites largely exist in an elaborate hermetically sealed fantasy world — swapping self-flattering tales with one another in New York Times columns and at their dreary dinner parties and at their only slightly less-dreary orgies until they settle on various stories about the world. These stories often have the disadvantage of being 180 degrees the opposite of reality. But they always have the advantage of telling powerful people that they are super nice and deserve more money.
Meanwhile, a recent paper by Thomas Ferguson and Servaas Storm from the Institute for New Economic Thinking looks at the inflation question without any parties, orgies, etc. It has the advantage of focusing on the real world. However, it has the key disadvantage — at least in terms of breaking into the fortified minds of the people who run America — of telling them that they aren’t nice and deserve less money.
One unsettling conclusion of Ferguson and Storm is that some recent inflation can be attributed to climate change. This is extremely bad news. First of all, that’s a problem that’s not just not going away, but also will only intensify. Secondly, it’s easy to imagine a future in which right-wing parties across the world point to severe bouts of inflation as a reason to put them in power, where they will prevent any action on global warming, thereby worsening inflation, on and on in a vicious circle.
CONTINUE > https://theintercept.com/2023/02/18/inflation-climate-change/
