{"id":1376,"date":"2021-05-02T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T14:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depthtrade.com\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2021-10-11T18:28:49","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T18:28:49","slug":"its-me-again-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/depth\/its-me-again-inflation\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s me again. Inflation."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Once again, no one will have known afterwards. How could prices have risen after central banks had made inflation their sacred goal? No one could have possibly foreseen that<\/em>..<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more commodity prices rise, the more audible the first sounds of the usual laments. The search for the culprits is not likely to be long in coming. Something between commodity ETFs and speculators will be dug up. For once, the otherwise popular short sellers are not suitable as scapegoats during a price increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interactions are ignored<\/strong> No one wants to or can talk about the many possible interactions of artificially low interest rates in combination with countless interventions in the bond market. Yet the shift in the incentive system resulting from these actions alone would provide sufficient material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some go even further and declare plausible relationships that have been observed over centuries to be obsolete. This is always a serious warning sign. Any investor who has ever heard the phrase “this time it’s different” knows this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reversed course after three months<\/strong> “admittedly, some factors are working against an even higher price increase. But in the end, the European Central Bank faces a question of conscience: its answer hurts at least one – savers or businesses.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n There is never anything wrong with a change of heart, even if less than three months have passed between the burial and resurrection of the inflation thesis. Hopefully, this time, careful consideration was also given to whether the theory, which is now current again, will also hold up for a long time. Presumably, however, people’s behavior has simply changed fundamentally once again and the influence of new technologies has crawled back into the cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deflation looks different<\/strong>
It can’t be due to the miraculous increase in money, because it is known to be well-intentioned. This was recently proven by the chairwoman of the EU Commission, who actually said in front of running cameras that interest rates are kept low so that families can also afford home ownership. That is a remarkably one-dimensional, almost childish way of looking at things. But such simple definitions of a single variable as the decisive factor for processes in complex systems have also been found in other areas for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So much for the economist in December 2020, when he thought we were at the beginning of a “deflationary age” due to the apparently mind-blowing changes in human behavior and new technologies. Not much has happened since then, yet the old models now seem to be in demand again after all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commodity prices themselves do not care about such academic machinations. In recent months, the prices of most commodities have risen significantly. In the big picture, however, very little has happened yet. While the nominal prices of some commodities have already marked new highs, the real price of the CRB Commodity Spot Index is moving upwards from its low at the turn of the millennium, with large fluctuations. Deflation looks different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n