Josh Barro je v The Upshot šel za zgodbo skupine 23 uglednih profesorjev, finančnih menedžerjev in novinarjev, ki so leta 2010 napisali znamenito odprto pismo proti Fedovi politiki kvantitativnega sproščanja, češ da bo to sprožilo dvoštevilčno inflacijo. Štiri leta kasneje, ko do eksplozije inflacije kar ni in ni prišlo, so podpisnike vprašali, če so spremenili mnenje. Kaj menite da so rekli? Preberite spodaj.

In 2010, 23 reasonably prominent economists, fund managers, academics and journalists signed a coalition letter opposed to quantitative easing, the Federal Reserve’s practice of buying long-term debt to push down long-term interest rates. The letter warned that it would “risk currency debasement and inflation” and fail to create jobs; as such, they argued, quantitative easing should be “reconsidered and discontinued.”

Four years later, inflation is still low (lower even than the 2 percent the Federal Reserve is supposed to be aiming for), unemployment has fallen, economic and job growth has been modest but present, and the stock market has soared. Despite the authors’ insistence that quantitative easing faced “broad opposition from other central banks,” the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan have undertaken similar programs.

So the Bloomberg reporters Caleb Melby, Laura Marcinek and Danielle Burger went back to the letter’s signers with a simple question: Have you changed your mind? And pretty uniformly, the signatories said they had: Faced with empirical evidence that went contrary to their expectations, including low inflation and relatively good economic performance, they have revisited their monetary policy views and promised to stop scaremongering about inflation.

Ha-ha, I’m just kidding. People who obsess over inflation don’t change their minds.

Of the 23 signatories, 14 had the good sense not to comment. The other nine told Bloomberg their views were unchanged since 2010. Real world events notwithstanding, they’re just as worried about inflation now as they ever were.

Their explanations are pretty creative. Jim Grant, for example, told Bloomberg we have had inflation — it just hasn’t shown up in consumer prices.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, once John McCain’s top economic adviser, explained that the letter was correct because it didn’t set a date on its inflation prediction. He noted that inflation would surely someday exceed 2 percent.

Vir: Josh Barro, The Upshot