원문 보기
so intuitively you know that inflation has been top of mind for so many people too much of 2022. uh and uh sometimes people think about it this way that way the other way and what I've been wanting to say more recently is hey have fun pick your own inflation Adventure the fact is some people see it caused by this some people see it caused by that uh let's talk about some of those for just a few minutes uh some people see it as an effect of rising Energy prices and they then sometimes will conflate that with Rising Energy prices Amplified by the dislocations associated with the Ukraine war tragic that it is but in fact uh uh overall Energy prices are down quite a bit from their Peak uh in April oil down approximately a third natural gas not so and particularly not so in parts of Western Europe tied most particularly to the wrong presumption that Germany would make that the pipeline natural gas pipeline from Russia would provide them trusted capability which is obviously proven false is it's obvious in Every Which Way but Loose that Putin can't be trusted for anything but that's if Energy prices are down off their Peak from earlier in the year then energy can't be driving inflation now hugely Energy prices are now below where they actually were when the Ukraine War started uh at least oil related in particular then you've got the fears of supply chain disruptions but supply chain disruptions have been steadily unwinding and things like shipping rates are down uh commodity prices are down globally some exceptions yes but globally some of the great traditional inflation hedge concepts are down like the price of gold uh gold of courses below where it was several years ago so it can't be reflected in that and then you get this um concerned with perfectly logical concern that because of all the things that happened with Ovid and the stimulus supposed fiscal and or more particularly monetary uh money creation by the central banks to try to overcome the lockdown fears associated with uh coveted which at the time I tell you the lockdowns were largely wrong-headed relative to almost everything and attempt to create money to offset a lockdown is about as ridiculous you can get I don't know how you're going to get money creation to offset lockdowns but uh be that as it may we didn't need to do all that but the central banks did that so it is what it is and so fear is that's driving inflation but today if we look at Broad monetary measures domestically and globally they're actually now at very reasonable levels and so that can't be driving future inflation when we look at so-called tips a treasury uh inflation-protected Securities they're not showing sustained inflation ahead long-term bond prices aren't nearly consistent with the inflation levels that we see around the world again implying inflation as being somewhat transitory pick your timing period I don't want to pick your timing period I don't really know I don't think these things can be predicted that precisely I also don't believe and I've never believed that indexes of inflation are very accurate uh so I think it's cute funny a little bit sad that on a period like uh in early September when the August inflation numbers came in three tenths of a percent higher than people expected that uh that was deemed to have great significance because the consumer price index numbers aren't that accurate regardless to begin with this is this is like trying to to to get some level of precision out of an instrument that basically is is pretty much a blunt instrument that is inflation up this year markedly yes can you measure it in these very fine gradations by these indexes which were constructed by the government years ago with very bizarre updates no you can't and so reacting to these things is really sentiment reacting to sentiment and what I would say is and I will make this point I'll hang myself on this one inflation is transitory it's just a question of what transitory means money creation very moderate now with supply chain problems largely behind us with overall commodity prices I think broadly peaked there's lots of evidence that a downturn in the inflation rate should be ahead and what I want you to think about is what that implies for the future as that reality finally Dawns on people on a broad scale which is that which they've been fretting about all year long not all year long but most of the year maybe they should feel good about when it goes away ]
Comments 0