Crackpot Economics Is Back

The crackpot economics I predicted in 2008 (with a sighting last year) is continuing to gain popularity. The latest example is in a comment by koshandeh on The Incredible Shrinking Sugar Bag:

The problem, Megan, is not that it prevents the consumer from shifting their buying behavior, but that it disguises a looming food shortage. Between climate change killing the agriculture sector in many countries and speculators moving their money into food (from mortgages) real food prices have been inflating rapidly for two years, and it's only getting worse.

It's another case of before and after.

• Before: Printing up funny money won't cause inflation. We've beaten inflation for good.

• After: The inflation was inevitable in a capitalist system.

If you want a description of the same phenomenon in the last inflationary era, there's the classic article “Phyletic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars.” If you want a crackpot explanation of inflation from the same era, there was Gar Alperovitz's explanation.