Inflation
Inflation Is Suddenly on Everyone’s Mind. How Bad Will It Be?
People hate it when prices rise. But this may be the cost we bear for heading off a Covid depression.
In Portland in December 1973, shortly before Oregon adopted a system of dispensing gas by license plate numbers.
Photograph: U.S. National Archives
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Ronald Reagan warned it was as “violent as a mugger.” Milton Friedman dubbed it a “hidden tax.” But for most of 2021, most central bankers and economists called inflation “transitory.”
Their bet was that while prices would probably jump as the economy escaped the coronavirus-enforced recession and lockdown, the pressure would soon ease.