[quote=EconProf][quote=FlyerInHi]What about deficit spending and money printing. Will they not cause hyperinflation as some have predicted?[/quote]
So far, no, to the surprise of all of us.[/quote]
Not quite “all of us”. There have been predictions of hyperinflation for decades. Ron Paul, in pushing for a return to the gold standard, said this:
I believe such a standard to be not only desirable and feasible, but absolutely necessary if we aim to avoid the very real possibility of hyperinflation in the near future, and economic collapse.
He said that more than 34 years ago. And has repeated it often since then. So far, he’s been wrong every time.
There are many economists that were pushing for an even larger stimulus without fear of higher than target inflation. Inflation doesn’t happen until demand exceeds supply. We haven’t seen that, and it hasn’t been anywhere on the horizon for the last 7 years. While Keynes wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about recent monetary policy, he did accurately predict that it wouldn’t lead to hyperinflation, absent excess demand.
Undoubtedly there will be inflation sometime in the future. But not any time soon. And there are a whole lot of economists that have been saying that for the last 7 years.
