Inflation Is Your Friend

I posted a transcript from Dan Ackroyd's parody of Jimmy Carter called "Inflation is your friend."

But reality is now a parody. A Bloomberg article points this out: 

Pretty soon, Harvard colleague Greg Mankiw was advocating higher inflation as a cure for slow growth -- and a preferable option to additional fiscal stimulus. In 2010, Olivier Blanchard, chief economist at theInternational Monetary Fund, put his imprimatur on the idea. In a paper examining the lessons from the financial crisis, Blanchard and his co-authors suggested that the benefits of a 4 percent inflation target, to minimize the risk of deflation in response to shocks, might outweigh the costs. 

Let's ignore for a moment that the government is cooking the books and inflation is higher than that right now. What effect will higher inflation have? 

First it will harm retailers as they struggle to replace inventory at a higher price. It will also artificially increase profits, but these profits are not real. But the taxes the higher profits cause are real. 

Next, interest rates would have to rise. Right now this would have a very negative effect on the economy. Most people do not buy a house, they buy a payment on a house. If interest rates rise, then payments go up and the price that a buyer can afford to pay goes down. The recent rise in in mortgage rates has already caused applications for loans to plummet. I read where one of the bigger mortgage companies layed off 10% of their staff. 

Finally the budget deficit will rise as the cost of borrowing money rises. This would force the Fed to buy even more bonds. While foreign government holders of US bonds are in a tough spot, my guess is that the dollar would fall as "hot" money went elsewhere. 

Investment would be impacted. Imagine that prices double in 10 years. So an investor buys stock in National Widget for $100,000 and 10 years later sells it for $200,000. No profit has actually occurred, yet a tax of $20,000 must be paid. Investment is already suspect, this will only get worse. 

I remember seeing the Ackroyd parody on TV and laughing, I am not laughing now.