Mediji so že nekaj mesecev polni zapisov o tem, da naj bi širom sveta zadnjega pol leta doživljali stagflacijo. Pri tem seveda povsem mešajo pojme. Stagflacija pomeni gospodarsko stagnacijo ali recesijo ob hkrati trajno visoki inflaciji. Oboje sicer naravno ne gre skupaj. Za recesije so značilne depresivna poslovna klima, upadanje gospodarske aktivnosti, rast brezposelnosti in upadanje ali stagnacija cen. Inflacija pa je običajno posledica povišane gospodarske rasti oziroma povečanega povpraševanja, tudi ko gre za ponudbene šoke. Edino obdobje v zadnjih dvesto letih, ko smo na Zahodu imeli nenaravno kombinacijo gospodarske stagnacije in inflacije, so bila 1970. leta. Pa še tista kriza se je kuhala celo desetletje, sprožilec je bil prvi naftni šok, spodbujevalec pa napačen odziv ekonomske politike.

Sedanja “kriza” ni kriza, pač pa imamo opravka z visoko gospodarsko rasjo po post-covidnem odpiranju gospodarstva, ko so potrošniki nenadoma zaželeli potrošiti več privarčevanih dohodkov v času zaprtja, podjetja pa ne morejo dostaviti vseh izdelkov zaradi ozkih grl v dobavnih verigah, nastalih zaradi nenadnega povečanja povpraševanja. To velja tudi za cene energentov, kjer je treba dodati še odločitve denimo Kitajske, da bo proizvajala manj umazane energije iz premoga in rusko izsiljevanje  glede odprtja Severnega toka 2. Od tod inflacija, vendar zaradi visoke gospodarske rasti in zaostajanja ponudbe za povpraševanjem. Kje so dejavniki, ki naj bi raven sedanje povišane inflacije vzdržali na daljši rok? In če v zgodbo posežejo centralne banke in brutalno zvišajo obrestne mere iz sedanjih ničelnih ravni, se bosta sesuli tako gospodarska rast kot inflacija. Torej nič s stagflacijo.

Spodaj je še nekaj odlomkov iz dobrega zapisa Brada DeLonga, ekonomskega zgodovinarja iz Berkeleya, ki sedanjo situacijo primerja s sledovi gum na asfaltu po hitrem štartu gospodarstev po post-covidnem odprtju. Podobno kot Paul Krugman sedanjo epizodo povišane inflacije primerja z epizodo po korejski vojni, kjer je inflacija začasno poskočila, vendar se že naslednje leto umirila.

In ja, DeLong v svojem komentarju subtilno kritizira sicer prijatelja Larryja Summersa, ki je pred nekaj leti od mrtvih obudil strah pred sekularno stagnacijo in deflacijo v zahodnih državah, zadnjega pol leta pa se gre križarsko vojno proti ameriškemu stimulus programu, inflaciji in stagflaciji. Vendar, kjer se pojavi Summers, lahko vedno zavohate denar oziroma finančne interese finančne industrije. Summers je tisti finančni minister v Clintonovi vladi, ki je dereguliral ameriški bančni sistem, da je lahko začel prevzemati povečana tveganja iz investicijskega dela (glejte knjigo “13 Bankers”), kar je dobro desetletje kasneje privedlo do njihovega finančnega kolapsa. In Summers je tisti ekonomist, ki je v desetletju po končanem mandatu na račun svetovanja in članstev v nadzornih odborih bank zaslužil dobrih 18 milijonov dolarjev. Finančna industrija je edina, ki zares izgublja s sedanjo povišano inflacijo, zato – kot pišem v kolumni v Dnevniku – je za razumevanje sedanje inflacijske panike treba slediti denarju.

There are people there are smart people, there are intelligent people of whom I think an enormous amount, who think we might well be entering a period of stagnation. And I do not understand why they think this. After all, it took us nearly a decade—from 1966 to 1975—to get into the stagflation of the 1970s. And it then took a lot of bad luck, a lot of adverse shocks happening in rapid succession, a semi-perfect storm of bad things happening to keep us in stagflation from 1975 to 1983. A configuration in which unemployment is rising and factories are being idled and yet people are still expecting and counting on there being more money in the economy next year and so raising their prices and bargaining for higher wages—that is very unusual, hard to sustain. When it happened, we then failed to get out of it until 1984. But it had by that time been two decades building.

In other cases, we do not see anything like this. The episodes we see are more like the brief inflation during the Korean War, when there was a spike of inflation, a discrete rise in the price level, but then things went back to normal.
Once stagflation is entrenched, solving it pretty much requires having a régime change central bank—as Paul Volcker did in 1980, declaring that he did not care how high unemployment and interest rates went, he was going to make stopping inflation job #1. It succeeded. It took four years. It put lots and lots of people out of work. It generated the Rust Belt in America. It bankrupted Mexico.

We really do not want to do that again until we absolutely have to.

But, so far, there are absolutely no signs—I at least see no signs—of this at all. What I see is the world economy trying to rejoin the highway at speed, trying to get back to full employment. In the process we need to shift an awful lot of people out of one set of occupations into another set as we adjust to the conditions of our semi-post-COVID economy. Whenever you rejoin the highway at speed, you leave a bunch of rubber on the road. To complain about that reveals that you simply do not understand what “rejoin the highway at speed” means and entails.

And rubber on the road—not stagflation—is what we are seeing today. That is how I characterize the price rises in response to shortages and bottlenecks and supply chain disruptions. This is all a healthy part of the economic adjustment, and a necessary consequence of a rapid return to full employment—which is something we very much want to do.

I see no signs that this process will leave us with a configuration of high expected inflation and high unemployment, come 2, 3, or 5 years down the road. I do not understand why people, especially people whose usual intellectual position these days is one of great worry about “secular stagnation” and an economy with persistent deflationary pressures in which the natural interest rate keeps falling below the zero lower bound are worried about stagflation. It just does not fit.

Vir: Brad DeLong