🎲 Boomflation, stagflation, or … recession — what are the odds?

Also: 5 (More) Quick Questions for … 'A Culture of Growth' author and economic historian Joel Mokyr (part two) 📈

In This Issue

The Essay: Boomflation, stagflation, or … recession — what are the odds?

5QQ: 5 (More) Quick Questions for … A Culture of Growth author and economic historian Joel Mokyr (part two)

Micro Reads: high-speed rail, California NIMBYism, super-trees, and more …

Nano Reads

---

Quote of the Issue

“The Progress of human Knowledge will be rapid, and Discoveries made of which we have at present no Conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the Happiness of knowing what will be known 100 Years hence.” - Benjamin Franklin

---

The Essay

🎲 Boomflation, stagflation, or … recession — what are the odds?

An unceremonious end to a long war. An unanticipated inflation surge. An unforeseen oil price shock. An unpopular president. An unexpected Russian invasion of a neighbor.

It sometimes seems as if America is replaying the entire 1970s (or at least an entire 1979) in just the past six months or so. And as those events have rapidly unfolded and evolved, geopolitical and global economic risks have risen. Simultaneously, analysis of the American economic landscape has shifted from talk of boomflation (fast growth with fast rising prices) to 1970s-style stagflation (high unemployment and high prices) to the possibility of recession.

The ‘70s flashback nature of current events — Afghanistan as Vietnam, Joe Biden as Jimmy Carter, Russia as the Soviet Union, inflation as, well, inflation — has encouraged talk about stagflation, especially, even though the economy continues to expand and create gobs of jobs (including a better-than-expected 678,000 in February). So still more boomflation, at least for the moment. But maybe not much longer than a moment or two.