Economy Haunted by ‘Ghost of Inflation Past’

rickackerman.com / By Rick Ackerman / February 11, 2013

[Fifty years of inflation has been tough on households, but for millions of college grads unable to find work paying more than $10 an hour, it can be defeating. In the guest essay below, Rick’s Picks forum regular John Skerencack (aka John Jay) explains how an  economic tragedy that has trapped young people took shape without anyone much noticing. Until now. RA]

A good way to work a scam is to put a microscope on a short-term trend and pretend it is a reversal of the main trend. “Global Warming,” for example. About 15,000 years ago there was a sheet of ice 5,000 feet thick over New England. As the ice age ended it melted away, and as a result sea levels rose about 390 feet. So you can say with confidence, the long-term trend is melting ice, and rising sea levels. All this happened without any human input at all — a mile of ice melts, sea levels rise 390 feet. Now, in the past 140 years, more ice has melted, and sea levels have risen about a foot.

OMG! Quick, let’s create a global tax expressed through carbon credits to stop it before it gets out of hand and we all drown! Al Gore and the CME have a plan to save us! Cue the one minute chart of sea level rise! You get the picture? There is no new trend of rising sea levels, just the last gasp of the main trend, most likely.

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