It’s not terribly surprising that today’s fact-check stories didn’t focus on this issue. The discussion didn’t take up much of the debate. (Oddly, Perry wasn’t asked about his earlier claim that Bernanke’s actions are “almost treasonous.”) And monetary policy is a wonky subject, so readers may not find it immediately salient in the way that that Social Security or global warming are.
But going forward, the campaign press—“fact-checkers” and otherwise—should pay close attention to this issue. Wonky or not, monetary policy is important stuff that affects millions of Americans, and it remains at the center of ongoing debates about how to fix the economy. Part of press’s job in covering the presidential campaign will be reporting where the candidates stand in those debates, and why those stands matter—and that task starts with making sure the candidates are playing straight with the facts.
Enough of the Keynesian obfuscation already. Monetary inflation is the artificial expansion of money or credit by the central economic planners; price inflation is the increase in the price of consumer goods or commodities that can result over the mid–long term. It's not all that "wonky" or mystical, no matter how the Keynesian apologists will spin it with their self-serving charts and their ever-changing definitions of terms to suit the ass-covering needs of themselves and federal policymakers. It's quite telling that you failed to provide a link to those "critics" or those "inflation hawks [who] have been wrong at every turn." To deny that there has been massive monetary inflation on Bernanke's watch is to be dishonest or ignorant; to deny that low- and middle-income folks have been hurt by price inflation of food, fuel, and other goods is downright sinister.
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 8 Sep 2011 at 11:27 PM