Jerry, what do you make much of Lester Thurow's argument that inflation has
become "an extinct volcano" (Chapter 9 in his Future of Capitalism)? And
how about Boskin's study: after all, Boskin attributed only a small
percentage of the claimed upward bias in the BLS inflation rate to the
failure to keep up with consumers as they shifted to cheaper
products.Thurow uses Boskin's revisionist study as propaganda against the
Fed's witch hunt against inflation, not for reductions in COLAS. Also,
doesn't low inflation now serve to increase real interest rates, abet the
bankruptcy of competitive capital and thus intensify the centralization of
capital, the most important mechanism by which monopoly capital staves off
the fall in the profit rate?
Rakesh