Inflation???

So let me see.

Now that we have set aside an eye-popping amount of money for the banks, given tax cuts which always benefit the more well-off, ensured that there is plenty of money for businesses to lease equipment, and given billions to the auto sector, inflation is a problem.

How convenient.

You need to search high and low to find more than a handful of (ideologically driven) economists who are not concerned about deflation. Yes, given the level of stimulus applied around the globe since the start of this crisis, and the unprecedented levels of public debt, particularly in the U.S., inflation is not only possible but likely up the road. And we will surely need some of the ample monetary policy room we currently enjoy to control it.

But now?

Japan's experience in the 1990s, and everyone's during the 1930s is that a premature switch in focus to inflation is likely to choke off recovery and prolong what will already be an acutely painful recession. It is difficult to understand this concern now as anything but a reflexive ideological response to unprecedented and admittedly frightening efforts to respond to this crisis