Washington Post Covers for the Fed's Inflation (Again)

Click here to read the original Cautious Optimism Facebook post with comments

The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs and Other Egghead Stuff discovers yet more press baloney about inflation.

From yesterday's Washington Post attempt to misidentify the source of inflation and lead readers away from the Federal Reserve itself:

"On July 19, 2021, President Joe Biden played down the risk of persistent inflation, telling reporters that price hikes "are expected to be temporary." This month, Biden called reining in prices his "top domestic priority."

"What changed?"

"A combination of factors - including surges in the coronavirus, supply chain problems, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a dramatic shift in consumer spending patterns - all made things more expensive."

Nowhere in the lengthy article is there any mention of the Federal Reserve inflating the money supply by more than 44% in the two years after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, and continuing to inflate even after offsetting factors like falling velocity had levelled off by the third quarter of 2020. 

Compare the 44% expansion of M2 in two years to 40% during the *entire decade* of the 1990's.

No, according to the Post inflation was just caused by a strange confluence of spontaneous factors in the mother of all coincidences and couldn't possibly be the consequence of printing money at the fastest rate since World War II, outpacing even the 1970's stagflation era.

Read WaPo article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/05/31/inflation-economy-timeline/

ps. If you can't get past the WP paywall Yahoo! has recycled the Fed apologetics at:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/u-policymakers-misjudged-inflation-threat-184526878.html