Kinsley: Inflation vs. Hyperinflation | The Atlantic Wire

I am not in favor of pain. I just don’t see any way to avoid it. Yglesias apparently believes that we can escape our fiscal dilemma without pain. I would like to know how. And if there is such a way, why have we denied ourselves for so long? Why do we ever bother to show fiscal restraint? Why have taxes at all? Why deny ourselves anything money can buy? If $15 trillion in debt can be a freebie, why not $30 trillion or $60 trillion?

via www.theatlanticwire.com

Here's an interesting debate on the threat of inflation:

• My Inflation Nightmare Michael Kinsley, The Atlantic
• Stagflation Versus Hyperinflaton Paul Krugman, The New York Times
• Kinsley's Transcendental Deduction of Hyperinflation Matthew Ygleisas, Think Progress

The more I think about this issue the more I believe Austrian-school attention to relative price adjustments provide the "missing link" between inflation and hyperinflation. Whilst (as Krugman suggests) textbook economics tends to treat the two as completely separate issues, I favour Kinsley's attempts to understand them as part of the same phenomena.