The good old days of high inflation
by digby
I think there is more than a little bit of truth to what Joe Weisenthal says here about why so many older people are obsessed with non-existent inflation:
The real reason is that worrying about inflation makes people like Chuck Grassley feel young again.
Grassley is 75 years old. The last time inflation was a real problem in the late '70s/early '80s, Grassley was in his early-to-mid 40s, a point in his life when he presumably had a lot more testosterone production, and was in much better shape.
BTW: This doesn't just go for Grassley; there's a huge crop of supply-siders who came of age under Reagan, who still go on TV all the time whining about inflation, all of whom were at their career/virility peaks during the Reagan/inflation years.
So for them, worrying about inflation is like buying a Lamborghini or marrying a young wife. It makes them feel good and young again.
I think a lot of people form a solid, unmoving "theory of everything" at some point in their lives and just never question it again. This isn't exactly the same thing as fighting the last war (which is an even more pervasive phenomenon) but it's similar.
However, there are other more important and obvious reasons why so many of these people continue to fight inflation even when it's clearly not an issue. The main reason is that it benefits the .01% as Krugman suggests --- and our worship of the .01% in this culture makes a whole lot of not so bright people assume that what they say is good for the country is actually good for the country. After all, if they weren't people of the highest moral character and intelligence, God wouldn't have allowed them to be so rich, right?
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