A macroeconomist walks into a bar fight

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the macroeconomic bar fight. Today, fists are being thrown over the causes of high inflation. But off to the corner stands John Cochrane, an economist with a core explanation for rising prices: government borrowing and spending.

Check out some of our earlier episodes on inflation:
- Why some economists last year were concerned about low interest rates and high government borrowing and spending
- Why the term 'transitory' inflation was banned by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta as consumers spent and spent in 2021
- How the war in Ukraine raises prices around the world, including food prices, and a look at grain exports stuck in the country
- Whether corporate greed is to blame for inflation

Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:12.0	Price inflation numbers are out today.
0:13.9	The Consumer Price Index, the CPI, grew at 8.6% over the last year.
0:19.5	This is a high rate that has disappointed a lot of people who were hoping that the high
0:23.6	inflation in the US had peaked.
0:25.9	Over the last year, we have heard a lot of explanations for why the high inflation
0:30.7	is happening.
0:31.7	I'm sure Whelan, but now we can both just rattle off a few off the top of our heads.
0:36.0	Why don't you go first?
0:37.2	Oh, oh boy, pop quiz.
0:38.7	I'm ready.
0:39.7	OK, pandemic supply chain disruptions.
0:42.1	Low interest rates.
0:43.6	War in Ukraine.
0:44.6	Workers being sick.
0:45.6	Yes.
0:46.6	Anything else?
0:47.6	What else in China?
0:48.6	Corporate greed.
0:49.6	Thank you for being game to do my pop quiz, Whelan.
0:52.9	I appreciate it.
0:54.4	But one economist thinks that all of these reasons are just a distraction.
	...

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