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美联储又犯错误了吗？

Jun 25, 2021 John B. Taylor

发自斯坦福—50年前的1971年6月22日，美国联邦储备委员会主席亚瑟·伯恩斯（Arthur Burns）给时任总统理查德·尼克松写了一份必将长留骂名的备忘录。当时通胀一路走高，而伯恩斯想让白宫知道物价飙升不是由于货币政策或他领导下的美联储所出台的任何举措导致的，而是“经济结构[已经]发生了深刻的变化”，并因此建议实施一个“强力工资和物价政策”，其中一段原文如下：

“我已经向您概述了实施这类政策的一条可能路径——强力且具有针对性的指令性压制，随后成立一个工资和物价审查小组（建议从属于白宫经济政策委员会）；如果未能达到预计的效果（目前这种可能性比一两年前要高），那么接下来——或许不迟于明年一月——就要将工资和物价冻结六个月时间。”

或许是出于伯恩斯作为知名学者的声誉（连米尔顿·弗里德曼都曾经是他的学生）以及作为政策制定者的长期经验，该备忘录说服了尼克松继续实施工资和物价冻结，并以一项工资和物价控制政策和面向整个经济的指导措施作为后续。这类控制和指导在冻结政策实施后的一段时间内似乎是起作用的，甚至在政治上短暂赢得过民众的支持。通胀率缓步下降，在冻结之后又出台了更多要求企业在更改工资和产品价格前必须获得一个委员会许可的强制性控制措施。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 8 Comments on this article

Norman Kennedy Jul 1, 2021

It is likely that the economic pendulum will soon slow and reverse direction. What unfolds is likely to be a combination of higher interest rates, insolvencies, bad government policies and unemployment moderated by a seemingly diverse world economy. Oh and much less funding for climate initiatives. Remember very low interest rates have permitted many dubious "projects" to be funded that will never break even causing a permanent loss of wealth.
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Sergio BULIAN Jun 30, 2021

I agree with you
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Theodore Schrader Jun 26, 2021

What comes to mind, of course, is the infamous "Letter to Bernanke" signed by Mr. Taylor a decade ago and published in the WSJ warning that Fed actions then would produce a dollar crash and runaway inflation. That was completely wrong obviously. Mr Taylor has yet to acknowledge that gross error. I won't say the same message is wrong today. You would think, however. that at some point there would be a recognition that an economic theory that failed him so publicly and spectacularly in the past would demand some revision.
- william starr Jun 29, 2021
  
  Much like our esteemed Nobel Prize recipient, Dr. Krugman. The Fed is a tool of the elite class, and as such will do everything possible to keep the bottom 80% working for the top 20%. F'in destroy the Fed and bring back commodity-backed money. The whole political economy is about assuring the elite and their clerks are living an upper middle-class lifestyle at the expense of the working-middle class.
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chris heinz Jun 26, 2021

Our lean-and-mean, just-in-time manufacturing systems are dictated by capitalism. If you don't follow these practices & your competitor does, they will be able to deliver goods at a lower price. But, the slightest shortage anywhere, and the supply lines seize up. Congress should pass a bill requiring all companies with a supply chain to maintain a 20-50% component surplus, depending on how critical the industry is. Yes, it will increase corporate costs, but corporate profits are at an all time high, and if all companies are required to do this, no one gains a competitive advantage.
Oh, BTW, please stop resurrecting the monetarism zombie. The amount of money in circulation does not cause inflation. Demand exceeding supply causes price increases, and with the ever-so-lean supply chains restarting jerkily after the pandemic slowdown, there are temporary shortages leading to increased prices. Give it 2-3 months for the supply chains to all get ramped back up, and we will get back to pre-pandemic 0% interest rates. Please stop with the zombie inflation hysteria.
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Fred Carstensen Jun 25, 2021

Let's remember from what ideological position Taylor comes. There is nothing unexpected or new here.

First, isn't clear we are seeing any significant inflation: the relevant comparison is not the deflated prices during COVID-19 shutdowns but "normal" prices in 2019. On that basis, much of the proclaimed "inflation" disappears.

Second, we have already seen how specific prices that spiked have already collapsed--e.g., lumber. The bottlenecks and disruptions of the COVID economy make it very difficult to separate out long-term trends and short-term shocks. Looking at the specific components of price dynamics argues this is overwhelmingly short-term shocks rather than long-term trends.

Third, the global context is vastly different; America is much more integrated into the global economy which means inflation, when it occurs, works within a different dynamic engaging much of the global economy. This mitigates how inflation works.

Fourth, let's remember the long-term decline of American competitiveness, a combination of a near abandonment of antitrust enforcement (the measures of monopoly power have gone up substantially in two-thirds of 900 sectors) and our failure to invest in ourselves. Oun infrastructure is rotting (once 1st, now 13th and declining) and our education system increasingly uncompetitive (once 1st in college graduation rate, now 20th and falling almost annually; massive reduction in public sector investment in basic research).

President biden would like to see America be great again; he wants us to again invest in ourselves.
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Henry Rech Jun 25, 2021

The economic shenanigans of Nixon and Burns in the early 1970s aside, the 1970s stagflation was also seen as a failure of Keynesian economics. Much was made of this by Lucas et al.

In reality, the stagflation of the 1970s was the result of two huge shocks.

The first, which is of course widely recognized, was that of the oil price shock. This was responsible for the inflation part of the stagflation.

The other, which generally seems to go unremarked, was the loss of income shock suffered by the non oil producing countries, most of the West at the time. There was a massive shift of income from the West to oil producing countries. This was the cause of the stagnation part of the stagflation.

It is unlikely that any economic policy could easily mitigate the inflationary and output retrenchment ensuring from the oil price rises of the time. Adjustment was bound to be problematic, slow and painful.
- chris heinz Jun 25, 2021
  
  I totally agree. Very well put, thanks.
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美联储又犯错误了吗？

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