Inflation Quotations

Similar questions were posed to Allende as to me. Allende was told that he blamed everything on a conspiracy, on the economic crisis, that he blamed the high inflation that sabotaged him on the United States, and that he was frequently accusing the little lambs of Nixon and Kissinger of a coup. But everything became known later.

We will not play with inflation. We are living a delicate moment. President Obama spoke to me today about the high unemployment affecting the United States. In this crisis period, when the developed nations are not recovering, it's prudent to maintain the established inflation target.

You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn't devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career... So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised.

Currently a level of unemployment of 7 percent or more seems to be required to keep inflation from accelerating, a level quite unacceptable as a permanent situation.

Inflation outstripped real wages for people who work for pay from others.

Inflation was driven by higher labor costs, not higher goods costs. Frankly, I'd love to see a little bit of that. Because I'd love to pay people more. I'd love to see rising wages for everybody.

In the 40 years I've been working as an economist and investor, I have never seen such a disconnect between the asset market and the economic reality... Asset markets are in the sky, and the economy of the ordinary people is in the dumps, where their real incomes adjusted for inflation are going down and asset markets are going up.

Less is always more. The best language is silence. We live in a time of a terrible inflation of words, and it is worse than the inflation of money.

You could not buy a house in those days without just assuming that the house was not only a place to live, but it was a good investment, because it was going to keep up with inflation or get ahead of inflation, and it was just - that was America.

Entitlements seem to grow with prosperity; not only because they are indexed to inflation or GDP, but also because a prosperous country tells itself it can afford more benefits.

It was the biggest inflation and the most sustained inflation that the United States had ever had.

I would say to my colleague that the misery index, inflation and unemployment, when added together is the lowest it has been in the last series of Presidents, even going back to Jimmy Carter. So I think the Bush administration is doing a good job.

If we have wealth, it will be protected from inflation and possibly even enhanced in value.

The reason I am so negative about the Federal Reserve's policies is that they only target core inflation and argue that they can't identify bubbles, but when each bubble bursts, they flood the system with liquidity that brings about unintended consequences.

Foreign trade clearly has been a reason why inflation has been low.

The reason inflation was brought down to manageable levels, by the time of Ronald Reagan's re-election, was directly attributable to Jimmy Carter's very courageous act, hiring a Federal Reserve chair, with the charge to induce a recession. That recession was probably the reason he didn't win a second term.

We pay some price when necessary to bring down inflation but that price is temporary and is not large relative to the permanent gain from reduced inflation.

A weaker currency is a national tariff. After we get a weaker currency, we have to take advantage of that. Or else, we will waste it once more in inflation and in the inability to raise competitiveness.

We know that inflation distorts economic behavior. In the 1970s, a combination of high tax rates and inflation prompted investors to flee production in favor of protection.

If you want to slow medical inflation in the private sector, it makes sense to expand the government's investment in private health care.

It has been said that the Fed's job is to take the punch bowl away just as the party gets going, raising interest rates when the economy is growing too fast and inflation threatens.

People concerned about inflation today tend to buy big houses and nice cars.

The perception was allowed to develop that a drop in inflation was not just a huge concern. Was that intentional or not? Is it a concern again now? And will this be a consistent story?

The only clear picture we have from the job cut numbers this year is that employers appear to be confused about the direction this economy is taking, ... Companies are experiencing increased business, but they are also seeing their costs soar due to higher fuel prices, inflation in supplier prices and a weaker dollar, which makes it more expensive to buy foreign parts.

We believe that the Fed will require both consistent solid hiring and a rise in inflation before it begins to lift rates.

There are some fears about inflation but people are even more concerned about what's happening in the corporate credit market.

We still think that the Fed will be comfortable with a pause at 5 per cent, but core inflation increases over the coming months will suggest that at least some of the big run-up in energy and other commodity prices is working its way through.

We still think inflation will be contained. The reality is the economy is going to slow sharply over the next three to six months, and that should keep the Fed from hiking beyond May.

We still need to keep the inflation pressures from building or there will be a problem in the future.

We're insulated a little bit from the recession because of our cost structure, but our business is to some extent cyclical, ... With pressure on network TV, rising (interest) rates against inflation and lower, declining audiences, clearly clients are looking at alternatives.

We're in a market that is clearly in a little short-term decision box. It's the debate whether core inflation remains low, which allows the Fed to stop raising rates, or whether core inflation is not able to be contained. We'll get a progression of data and numbers that will help resolve this somewhat, but until then, we're in the box.

When you've got inflation rising above the bank's target it reinforces the view that we don't need more rate cuts this year.

There is no question that the State of the Union message last night was very strong and very positive. Obviously the economy continues to do very well. Inflation is low and interest rates are still very low.

What we're seeing happening is the best of all worlds. The economy is strong yet inflation remains quiescent. The earnings outlook remains reasonably good. Given those things, the money continues to flow into the market from both domestic and foreign sources.

What all this tells us and is certainly telling the Fed is that maybe we need to examine what the sustainable growth rate really is. The risk is that we have an economy that is growing at a pace that historically suggests we should see inflation pressures, but we're not seeing that yet.

What he's shown is that you can have full employment and low inflation at the same time. The Keynesian school didn't believe that, but Greenspan showed that it could be done.

We're going to have high energy prices, a little bit more inflation. Underlying inflation is going to be a little bit higher, but not seriously higher and I still feel good about the overall economy.

Unless or until the revival in the housing market translates into higher consumer demand, it is the weakness of the latter that is of greater relevance to the inflation outlook -- and hence the policy decision.

Unfortunately, I think they tried to fight the inflation dragon a little too long, and rejected the counsel of the markets which urged them to cut rates as early as November that year.

We're more trading off of earnings. Investors will be able to tolerate continued moderate inflation as long as earnings continue to accelerate.

With the lineup tonight, and with the way they wrestled at 133 and 157 with the two pins, that's point inflation and it's going to blow the score out of reach.

We feel that the ECB should take inflation by the scruff of the neck and raise rates by a half percentage point,

We're in uncharted waters. This deflation is not cyclical. Our forecasts do not anticipate any major increase in retail price inflation ever again.

We're basking in the glow of negative inflation in the month of November.

With the price of oil moving up and the tension in the Middle East would suggest that the possibilities of a recession are increasing in terms of inflation, ... The Fed's number one target is to keep inflation under control. If energy prices continue to accelerate then the Fed doesn't need to raise interest rates because the economy is going to slow anyway.

With wage inflation still surprisingly muted and an ongoing squeeze on households' disposable incomes from higher energy costs, second-round inflation is likely to remain largely absent, allowing some further modest policy easing.

Ultimately, if you err on the side of being dovish it will only come with more pain from slower growth. The hit to growth would be more substantial from higher inflation than from interest rate hikes.

Worries about rising U.S. inflation and what that will mean for Fed rates may hurt consumer spending. Those concerns are negative for shares.

Worldwide, inflation is going to be the big story next year. For Japan, that's going to be a big positive.

Worker productivity generally creates a scenario where employees realize they can begin to demand more for what they do. While the year-over-year productivity gains are still quite good, there is some evidence that wage inflation may be starting to creep in. The Fed won't like this.

We're seeing inflationary pressure continue to ease in China, largely on the back of food prices, and I think the discussion going forward is that we would see a low inflation environment and maybe a hint of deflation as well.

We're seeing a tickling of inflation in the pipeline but it's not going to be passed on to the consumer.

We're seeing a little bit of upward pressure on inflation but it's not yet enough to spark a big concern in the market.

We're right where they want us to be -- between 2 and 2.5 percent increases in the core CPI. But last year there was more inflation than they were anticipating at the beginning of the year, and the concern you hear being expressed is that they don't want that to happen again.

Whenever you have a situation where inflation is not a material risk and the economy is underperforming, you should be thinking about a rate cut. There's a potential reward and not much risk.

Production is the only answer to inflation.

I've learned about the inflation range situation. Obviously with our footballs being inflated to the 12.5-pound range, any deflation would then take us under that specification limit. Knowing that now, in the future we will certainly inflate the footballs above that low level to account for any possible change during the game.

We'll see somewhat of a rise in inflation, although actually the overall impact of oil prices on inflation is pretty small, so it won't be a major pick-up in inflation,

The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on depressions will be scientifically created.

This will not alter Greenspan from his tightening course. As long as consumer demand remains healthy, he will be vigilant on the inflation front.

I'm just opposed to a pure inflation-only mandate in which the only thing a central bank cares about is inflation and not employment.

There is a risk that energy could break out into a bigger inflation problem. We have gotten through Katrina and oil prices have backed off a bit, but there is a risk that if we have a harsh winter, energy prices will rise again.

There is a possibility the Fed may raise rates three more times to 4.5 percent before pausing, to keep inflation under control.

We really don't think its necessary for the Fed to take action, ... If there's inflation in the economy, we really don't see it.

We're 11 months through the year and any measure of core inflation hasn't captured a filtering down of higher commodity or energy prices. That's why we continue to see the 10-year yield under 4.5 percent.

Yes, I think it's going to be a fantastic buy. I think we're going to pack the whole year's Super Bowl rate-of-gain, which tend to average 16 percent during the last 18 years, compound annual growth of the S&P 500, 16 percent a year. We've had zero so far and the outlook is improving very, very significantly for the worst worry that people have had. And that is the Fed rate-hiking. It really looks like the probability is increasing dramatically that the Fed rate hikes are over and inflation pressure is in check. And as that continues to happen through year-end, we can get a fantastic rally, 15 to 20 percent on the S&P 500 in three months.

We've seen in a whole host of reports ... inflation has essentially vanished from this economy.

We've seen higher inflation in the course of this year than perhaps was anticipated last year when wage deals were negotiated, ... Consequently that's eroded household purchasing power, and we've actually seen very sluggish consumer demand - which has been a big surprise.

The expectations of inflation in the coming year are very high.

The CPI report was very tame. It sort of reflects the comments by Alan Greenspan that even though monetary policy is way too expansive right now, inflation is sufficiently a non-event, a non-problem, so the Fed obviously can wait at this point,

The CPI report continues to be encouraging. These numbers are stimulating consumer spending by giving consumers more spending power. At the same time, lower inflation will also encourage the central bank to do whatever they need to do.

The CPI report continues to be encouraging, ... These numbers are stimulating consumer spending by giving consumers more spending power. At the same time, lower inflation will also encourage the central bank to do whatever they need to do.

The problem with the Fed's focus on inflation is that it's really a lagging indicator. What you need to do is gauge what demand will be like down the road in order to determine future prices. And the bond market is focused on slowing growth.

The problem with inflation targeting is that it carries with it a risk of less flexibility at times, and that could be problematical. But it also makes policy less of a black box, so policy is likely to be more transparent.

There are a lot of features behind this market that are very favorable. Inflation news recently for August was very positive. Rates dropping have been a positive for this market and earnings still look good.

There is certainly nothing from the core inflation numbers to egg the Fed on to keep tightening.

There is no doubt in my mind that inflation is low and heading lower. I think the patient hand should be willing to accumulate bond positions here.

The productivity number is key toward determining whether the economy can show some stabilization. We've seen weakening numbers, which hasn't helped, but there is no inflation story to talk about here.

The outlook for inflation seems very positive to me for some time to come, and therefore, I doubt that there will be a need to fight inflation for quite a while, ... Indeed, I believe that further disinflation is more likely over the next year or so than a resurgence of inflation.

What we can do is take the core rate of PPI and combine it with last week's 5 cent-an-hour jump in average hourly wages and say that inflation looks like it is a concern, maybe not a problem yet, but a concern. And the Federal Reserve was justified in raising rates and may be justified in raising rates again in the May or July meeting.

There are very early signs of (a manufacturing slowdown), but I don't think they're conclusive enough to halt the Fed from tightening policy further, ... But I think, ultimately, with the economy running hot and inflation on a clear upswing, we see headline inflation moving towards and perhaps even surpassing 3 percent as we head into next year.

There are upside risks to inflation given the levels of oil prices and pressures from higher taxes.

Inflation is not all bad. After all, it has allowed every American to live in a more expensive neighborhood without moving.

When the Medicare drug benefit was passed, AARP issued a challenge to the drug industry to keep increases at least to the rate of inflation until people had better coverage. By and large, that's not happening, ... Prices are going up more than twice the rate of inflation.

The prices paid is still way up there, inflation is still running a little hot, enough that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates.

Let's assume inflation averages 1 to 2 percent. Then you could see maybe the natural funds rate would be -- I don't know -- 3.5 percent, something like that,

Make no mistake about it. Inflation is building in the pipeline. It is no longer a matter of if, but when, those price pressures will start to affect the general price level.

Maintaining inflation stability is the central responsibility of the central bank. But we don't want to be in the situation of over-reacting and driving the economy down,

Low interest rates have really been powering these markets. The ECB is worried it is signaling inflation further down the line, but in the U.K. you have had very strong house-price rises, and no real pickup in general price inflation.

Low inflation is bullish for bonds in Hungary and therefore for the forint. We could see some gains in the currency on anticipation of a lower-than expected inflation figure.

Low inflation contributes to the solid performance in Canada's bond market. It is certainly something bond investors always want to see.

Low inflation buys the Bank of Korea some time before the next rate hike.

Lowering inflation to 3-4% annually should be a priority, a major instrument of economic policy, and we have the means to lower inflation to this level.

Lower inflation at the start of the year suggests that South Africa will be able to take geopolitical risks in its stride. At this point, even the rise in oil is not a huge concern.

Seventeen-year highs are impressive, with the bond market showing us that inflation will be returning with a vengeance.

Setting interest rates is not just about one thing. You don't say, the peso is strong. So, in a sense, imported inflation can be managed. That's just one part of the story.

Seattle has not adjusted the tax threshold since 1994, ... The raised threshold offsets the effect of inflation since that time.

So far the inflation side has performed well, but we know there are lags between capacity pressures and inflation, so we have to worry about that.

So many clients are telling us that we are just plain wrong and there is inflation everywhere. But ... the bulk of these complaints come from folks who have kids in college ... Prices set according to supply and demand are flat or falling for the most part.

Some modest further increase in the policy interest rate would be required to keep aggregate supply and demand in balance and inflation on target.