I see that Larry Summers has caught up to the state of the art in galaxy-brain thinking:

The brief stagflation of the ’70s produced a hysteria out of all proportion to its oil-fueled origins. The real lesson of that era is that central banks can crush inflation whenever they want. It’s not easy or painless, but it can be done. Conversely, the lesson of the present era is that producing inflation out of thin air is hard. This means that inflation is an asymmetric threat: we know what to do about high inflation but we don’t know what to do about low inflation. This in turn means we should be less worried about inflation than we are.

But as in so many other areas, the ghost of the ’70s lingers even half a century later. It’s a decade that deserves far more attention than it gets. It is the fountainhead of so much that’s gone wrong with the world since, and we’re still nowhere near over it.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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