In the short run, the sheer disruption of the sudden lockdown advocated by the health experts is going to send both demand and prices plunging. . .
But then, like a tsunami wave, trillions of dollars of Federal Reserve funding and Treasury payments to individuals and businesses will finally come roaring onto shore. Demand should soar for all sorts of goods and services that the global economy is too disrupted to provide in quantity. The most likely outcome: A new era of rising prices like we have not seen since the 1970s.
My thoughts:
1. Right now, we are laughing at the people hoarding toilet paper. But wait a few years. When toilet paper is $50 a roll, we’ll see who’s laughing.
2. The “stimulus” is injecting new money and money-substitutes (I’ll just say “money” from now on) in the economy amounting to 20% of GDP. Since GDP isn’t going up, that is 20 percent more money chasing the same amount of goods. So prices ought to rise by 20 percent at some point.
3, But it doesn’t stop there. Inflation is a social and psychological phenomenon. At some point, people lose the belief that money and government securities are a store of value, because their value is eroding quickly. When that psychology kicks in, what do you do? You try to get rid of financial assets as fast as you can and buy toilet paper. By which I mean all kinds of stuff.
4. When everybody tries to trade financial assets for stuff, what happens? The price of stuff goes up. In other words, the fear of inflation becomes self-fulfilling, causing more inflation. In monetary jargon, the velocity of money goes up.
5. Supposedly the Fed will know how to stop the inflation virus before it causes much damage. But viruses seem to have a way of eluding the government agencies that are supposed to stop them.
Have a nice day.