👴🏻 Old Man Shouts At Clouds

Biden’s greatest triumph might be his willingness to pursue full employment over the screams of employers and the wealthy. He’s been rewarded with robust wage growth - but punished by many progressives, who immediately decided flat nominal prices were the greatest priority. https://t.co/g3bv17yiwW

— Will Stancil (@whstancil) April 14, 2024

I remember when the prime rate was 23%.

I remember double digit inflation that went on for years, rising from inflation that had started a decade earlier and run for a decade.

I remember stores literally raising prices as customers stood there because the new shipments came in at higher prices than what was on the shelves.

The monthly mortgage payment on my first house was roughly the same as the house I live in now. The sales price of this house was three times the price of the first house. But the interest rate on the first mortgage was 10%, and that was a bargain rate at the time.

I’m living now on the “fixed income” that’s supposed to be so vulnerable to inflation. I recognize I’m very fortunate, and inflation is a problem. But young people complaining about the first real encounter with inflation in their lives (for me it started when I was in junior high. And Milton Friedman convinced us it was LBJ’s fault. Which Reagan won on, and then Volcker ended it with monetary policy, not cuts in spending on people (defense spending was never inflationary).), just sound like whingers.

Or maybe I’m just getting old. 👴🏻

Is this a good political argument? Hardly. But it feels good to be cranky once in a while.