Real Bills Versus Bernanke’s Risible Algebra

Two of this era’s most notorious Keynesian economy-wreckers—Ben Bernanke of the Fed and Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the IMF—have published a new algebra paper that addresses a question that Milton Friedman definitively answered long ago, when he averred that—

“Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon”

But now having recently experienced that very thing to the great sunrise of central bankers and Keynesian economists everywhere—and, yes, we do repeat ourselves—the dynamic duo insists via 50 pages of equations and econo-math babble that they must address anew the answer to this long settled question.

                         What Caused the U.S. Pandemic–Era Inflation?

Wouldn’t you know it? These esteemed money-printers conclude that the pandemic inflation was an economic phenomenon, not a monetary phenomenon per professor Friedman.

Indeed, there is nary a mention of central banks, interest rates, massive QE or debt in this entire exercise in academic gasbaggery. Implicitly, it is a case of monetary immaculate conception.

As to the economic phenomena which have caused shrinking paychecks, depleted savings accounts, contracting profit margins and surging living costs, Bernanke and Blanchard managed to identify two culprits: To wit, rising wages and rising prices!

Or as the man said, “you don’t say!”

But, alas, they do so say, identifying successive “shocks” from each source.