Asymmetrical Information

So basically what I took away from that is that Megan is available.

And you are now -so- over it.

The Science Channel? Women who've been through a breakup are supposed to watch Lifetime or Oxygen while scarfing their Ben & Jerry's. Not the Science Channel. And once in a while, they're supposed to go out with their girlfriends to drink cosmopolitans and swap stories about how all men are pricks.

My sympathies. Best of luck out there!

That's a shame. I am trying to pay for a wedding now and credit card debt/hyperinflation seems a great way to pay for it.

Central bankers are like generals -- they always fight the last war.

Don't know about the platforms, but wedgies are certainly back with a vengance.

Your are right, but the real difference between now and the 1970s is productivity. In the 1970s unit labor costs were running at near double digit levels. Oil was just another price increase that had to be passed through.

But now unit labor costs are well below the inflation rate and with strong productivity firms can absorb the higher energy costs and still enjoy strong profits growth.

Jane--

You're on the market again? No doubt it won't be for long, as the dating market is as efficient as the capital markets.

1). The guy was an idiot.

2). I wish I oculd hook you up with many of my Awesome Single Male Friends.

3). Your being single is the type of "Arbitrage Opportunity" one normally only sees once in a lifetime! It's like CL at $6.50/bbl.

One of the singular joys of reading AI is speculating on the vague hits of Jane's personal life. I suspect that Jane broke up with the fella who commented here just once. I also suspect that shortly after she broke up with him, she visited her grandmother and baked oatmeal cookies.

Who knows?

My memory of the 70's is that Nixon was an economic screw-up, taking us off the gold standard and putting in wage and price controls to battle the resulting leveling. If you want better examples of the Fed screwing up the economy through excessive interest rate tampering, look at 87-88, 98-00 and 05-06. I believe that right now a lot of the "inflation" the Fed is seeing is caused by their high interest rates.

Jane is the most mysterious of bloggers. I know less about her personally than any other bogger I read on a regular basis.

Shes a foodie, MBA, got screwed out of school and ???

On stagflation - its the result of higer oil prices. Its a result of supply led price shocks. Usually, inflation comes from an unexpected increase in demand. This time its coming from an unexpected crimp in supply. We expect inflation to result from growth, resulting in increased price, so we are simply growing too fast and we cool down the economy by raising rates and all is well.

This time, we get the 'stag' part because the growth isn't all that great but prices are going up from that supply disruption. So when we slow an already slow economy that has inflation, we experience it as 'stagflation'.

Now before you all jump on me and say 'god mickslam, you ignorant liberal, the economy is great, look at XYZ statistic' - I know those statistics, too. I don't think many people on this blog are experencing stagflation. The numbers are good and have been good.

I also know that median income growth has been horrible and close to negative for the last 5 years. This means for 50% of the population, stagflation is already here and very, very real. They already have it. I don't, you don't - they do. As our economy has become more stratified, the experience of the individual layers have become less correlated, just as you would expect.

We might see it at our level if the economy drastically slows. I think its going to as we have about 12 months of FED increases that havn't trickled through the economy yet, and I don't think the FED fully understands the current JIT (just in time) economy very well. If they did, they wouldn't wait for conformation in the numbers, like they've stated over and over and over again, and like they did back in 2001. Now when the economy slows to 0, it can just stop, like it did then, and like I think its going to do this January.

And I've been there, bad breakup, eating B&J, and playing Civ. Its been a few years, but I did make Deity level a few times, with many millions of points. Of course for me, it was with a world-wide socialistic government! Buhahahaha! I put it down before I could master Democracy. That was Civ 2 for me, and I haven't had the time to invest for Civ 4 yet. Too busy with wife, kids, businesses, and World of Warcraft.

We, the somewhat recently lovelorn, really *do* need to meet up. You can tell me about stagflation and I can down gin tonics. :)

I thought Reagan helped defeat two of the great evils of the latter half of the 20th century, Communism and inflation.

I believe that right now a lot of the "inflation" the Fed is seeing is caused by their high interest rates

As a fan of UFO sightings, Gaia, intelligent design, and right-wing economic theories, I would love to hear the details of your theory that raising interest rates causes inflation.

Do tell.

Have we actually experienced an external supply shock that leads to stagflation? Just because the price of gas is high and we might be headed for a slowdown doesn't mean that it's stagflation.

I too would be interested to hear how higher interest rates lead to more inflation.

Yeah, I've carried a sizable credit card balance for several years (managed to keep it near 0% interest). I cut out most of my unneccessary and entertainment spending for the last few months and paid it all off. I don't see banks letting me borrow for free too much longer and I'm tired of the game anyway.

Hopefully losers with variable rates will mean I'll be able to buy a house cheaper when I start looking in winter.

**Low** interest rates from the central bank cause, or at least boost, inflation by injecting excess cash into the economy. The main reasons inflation hasn't been worse in the past decade is that the excess has been sucked up into the real estate, stock market, and dot-com bubbles and overseas for **lots** of imports, esp cheap ones.

This collection of comments is pathetic. Based on past comments, I expected a dozen or more suitors to come to the rescue.

Of course, maybe they're brighter than I think and are all busy emailing her instead.

I think she's a little old for me (don't know for a fact). Plus I don't know what her specs are.

Anyway, I have other things to waste my time on. Like leaving unwanted and unecessary comments on blogs.

Raising interest rates will cause certain economic indicators - particularly housing costs - to move up in response. If you are more concerned with the indicators than the actual economy this could lead one into error. During the Carter malaise I had the impression that this was going on, altho admittedly I was less economically savvy at the time.

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