Hi, I'm Jordan McGillis, economics editor of City Journal.

Welcome to 10 blocks.

Joining me on the show today is Ryan Bourd. Ryan occupies the Cato Institute's

Scharf Chair for the public understanding of economics. And he has a book out this spring that

fulfills that very purpose, titled The War on Prices. Ryan, thanks for joining me.

It's great to be with you, George.

Now, Ryan, your job as your title clearly conveys is to advance the public's understanding

of economics.

The premise of your new edited volume is that there's a major misunderstanding about

the role of prices and what they represent.

Tell us about that misunderstanding and how you seek to correct it.

Well, after this inflation hit, I recognize that there's a lot of the misconceptions and

confusions around inflation, which is a change in the general price level, that we thought

were buried in the 1970s, we were in fact returning to public debate.

So, you know, the confusion between relative price

changes between goods and services and changes in the overall price level, which inflation manifests

itself would. The belief that temporary supply shocks can cause an ongoing or sustained inflation

rather than just temporarily lifting at the price level. And indeed, the idea that workers' wage

demands contribute to inflation

too. And so as a result of that, I think there's a large section of the population who thinks

inflation is a result of malevolent actors or one-off shocks, rather than primarily being a story

about monetary policy. So I really originally started this book thinking that I wanted to address

...