What I failed to see was the great inflation in house prices from 2004 to 2006.
Yet central banks failed to foresee either the 1930s depression or the great inflation of the 1970s.
It only put the house bubble on hold and prepared (by way of ridiculously low interest rates) the great inflation of 2003 to 2005.
The Fed was largely oblivious of its handiwork because price indexes weren't shooting up as they did during the Great Inflation of the 1970s.
Not only is that real estate a great inflation hedge, it gives the company total control over both the upkeep of stores and occupancy costs.
The economic malaise of the late 1970s, including the Great Inflation and record peace- time unemployment rates led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
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The great inflation of the 1970s (price level up 150%, gold 20 times, oil 14) is attributable to the rise of fiat money and not much else.
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That bubble would burst, of course, but during the great inflation Silicon Valley stopped funding technology companies, got greedy, reached beyond its core competency and began funding business models.
Really impressive things, such as evidence of the Great Inflation, the big growth that came 10 to the -35th of a second after the Big Bang and made our universe possible.
With the unemployment rate still above 9%, and federal debt at record levels, this latest error by the monetary authorities is likely to be the most costly since the Great Inflation of the 1970s.
By contrast, during the 41-years since going off gold, the U.S. has suffered the Great Inflation of the 1970s, two of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, and now a dozen financial crises.
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In fact, the two biggest economic disasters of the 20th century--the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Inflation of the 1970s--were both the result of catastrophic government mistakes, not a sudden failure of free-market capitalism.
The Great Inflation of the 1970s was caused by repeated bouts of excessive money printing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks in the mistaken belief that government could eradicate the normal ups and downs of economic activity.
Every economic disaster during the last 100 years has its origins in bad government economic policies, from the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which triggered the Great Depression, to the Federal Reserve's excessive printing of money, which brought us the Great Inflation of the 1970s and the recent housing bubble.
The great upthrust of the immigrant working class into the middle class after World War II, via the GI Bill, was stopped stone cold by the events of the autumn of 1973, when the October war in the Middle East led to the quadrupling of oil prices virtually overnight and the great inflation set in.
You can also see the impact of the Volcker policies at the end of the 1970s, breaking the back of inflation and ushering in the Great Moderation of low inflation, low interest rates and low unemployment.
It sounds great, except inflation is going to be more than that.
Investors aware of history can see disturbing similarities with the Great Asset Price inflation of the mid-1930s which culminated in the Roosevelt recession of 1937-8.
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The second is that everything else that the government owes in the future is now a great deal more inflation protected than it used to be.
Profits have already recovered from the Great Recession, and inflation constraints ought to hold back profits now.
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It should also prove to be a great hedge against commodity inflation.
Inflation is the great hidden tax, especially when it hits essentials like food.
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The bank said all MPC members agreed that there was a great deal of uncertainty where inflation and growth were concerned.
No great excesses, like wage inflation or commodity spikes likely.
Mr Weidmann said the period in the 1980s and 1990s during which central banks around the world had been made independent had heralded a period of "great moderation" during which inflation fell.
As a result, China's great export powerhouse will keep global inflation low and intensify the current deflationary pressures.
And finally, knowing how retail prices are changing, in detail, would be of great use in trying to predict inflation.
Inflation became the next great fear to drive investors to gold.
The conventional wisdom is that Fed monetary policy has been extremely easy, there is a great potential for an acceleration in inflation already baked in the cake, and a return to quantitative easing would be a drastic step.
They acquired great resonance in the 1970s, when inflation and excessive government borrowing and spending had become the norm.
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