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Archive 1 |
Good start, and good references so far. The article is ripe for expansion. But I don't think the title is accurate. "Crisis" seems overblown and dramatic, and I find only two or three articles referring to it that way. It's true that Biden himself said "I think it's the peak of the crisis," but most sources - including the articles currently cited in the article - are not calling it that. How about "2021 worldwide inflation"? -- MelanieN ( talk) 23:37, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
I suggest the first chart be moved down in the article, the second chart include gasoline rather than M2, and the second and third chart be scaled to 10 years, rather than 40-60, like this [1] soibangla ( talk) 10:12, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
While there is no unanimous agreement by economists as to the exact cause of the inflation surge, there are several theories.
No, there was debate about whether inflation was transitory or persistent, but the cause was always clear: high demand, low supply.
Additionally, some economists cite the unprecedented level of spending from the passage of COVID-19 relief programs by the US Congress as a key factor for the inflation surge.
The provided source talks about Republicans, not economists. This is a political argument.
At this point the lead seems adequate with a rather weak Background section, so I am removing the later until/unless someone can do a better job with it. soibangla ( talk) 10:18, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to add this table just below the first chart in the article. I've exhausted my patience finding an "align right" parameter in H:TABLE. Does anyone know how to do that? Thank you.
Country/Region | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
World | 1.9% | 3.4% |
Europe/Central Asia | 1.2% | 3.1% |
Latin America/Caribbean | 1.4% | 4.3% |
Brazil | 3.2% | 8.3% |
South Asia | 5.7% | 5.5% |
Australia | 0.8% | 2.9% |
South Korea | 0.5% | 2.5% |
Japan | 0.0% | -0.2% |
China | 2.4% | 1.0% |
Canada | 0.7% | 3.4% |
United Kingdom | 1.0% | 2.5% |
United States | 1.2% | 4.7% |
soibangla ( talk) 14:21, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
References
I have placed the "Globalize" tag on this article. I have two suggestions as possible remedies: move this page to 2021-2022 United States inflation surge or expand this to include other country's issues with inflation. CaffeinAddict ( talk) 04:46, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
The COVID-19 pandemic should have its own section for this article because it served as a major contributor to the ongoing inflation surge, citing massive economic support packages. 9March2019 ( talk) 13:51, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
folks, with the official US GDP report confirming that the US is in fact actively in a recession, it's time to create a new article which is linked heavily to this called '2022 Recession' StarkGaryen ( talk) 05:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
The opening line is, "In early 2021, a worldwide increase in inflation began." It immediately attributes this in part to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an entire year later. I get the point, that the invasion significantly worsened the increase, but to someone with very little knowledge of the topic, it might make less sense. 104.128.175.120 ( talk) 19:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
How can there be a BLP violation in quoting Krugman's own article in which he says he was previously wrong?
And So It (
talk) 13:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Nowhere in this article is there mention that too much money printing (i.e. QE and Treasury Issuance) was a primary driver of the inflation. See WSJ article Jerome Powell Is Wrong. Printing Money Causes Inflation.. There are many more high quality RS from quality experts who hold this as the primary cause (and the driver of the 2022-2021 increase in demand that further impacted the supply chain crisis). 78.18.244.36 ( talk) 10:44, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi SPECIFICO. I hope you don't mind me addressing you directly, but you seem to have edited out a lot of what I previously added and will be putting back in shortly. Here are some of the reasons I added back a lot of what was edited out (if you happen to catch this within the day, please keep in mind that I'm posting this ahead of making the edits in the page, so I apologize if some of these items have not occurred yet):
I hope this finds you well,
Fephisto ( talk) 00:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
@ Fephisto: this edit] introduces WP:SYNTH and WP:OR commentary to the article text. If you believe that this content is relevant to the 2021-2022 surge, the article would need sources that explicitly make that comparison within a single source. Introducing a general comment about money and inflation, regardless of whether it represents a significant viewpoint related to the subject of a different article page, is SYNTH, and the content in this sentence is your commentary on the 2021-22 surge rather than a connection made by any Reliable Source. Please self revert and give a careful look at the two links to our No Original Research policy that I provided. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 17:13, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
"Monetarism" is not currently a dominant mainstream view among economists. PaulT2022 ( talk) 07:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
some economists... have argued that the money supply... determines the level of prices and inflation in the long run.—
Over recent decades, however, the relationships between various measures of the money supply and variables such as GDP growth and inflation in the United States have been quite unstable. As a result, the importance of the money supply as a guide for the conduct of monetary policy in the United States has diminished over time. Not by persuasive writing. PaulT2022 ( talk) 19:35, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
The title “2021-22” inflation surge indicates the inflation has passed. Wouldn’t a more appropriate title be “ongoing” inflation surge or “2021-Present” Refsjjehhgshh ( talk) 11:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I would like to revisit this again since inflation is continuing, “ongoing” seems most appropriate Refsjjehhgshh ( talk) 06:53, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
The source for the articles statement about Russias plan for a puppet government in Ukraine is based on a political and non neutral source.
I'm not denying this might be their plans, but there has to be a better source. Kepsalom ( talk) 23:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
(Reply to the @ SPECIFICO's post at WP:NPOV/N) I doubt that strong sourcing can be found as of now. Inflation is a nation-/currency-wide phenomenon by definition; to the best of my understanding, there are no references in the article that would describe "worldwide increase in inflation", as the lead puts it. There's no such thing, because each currency supply is independent. I'd expect publications describing the global inflation in 2021-2022 to appear at some point, but it seems that they're not there yet. I've only been able to find a single opinion piece: https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/return-global-inflation In other words, it's a notability / original research issue (no sources are directly related to worldwide inflation growth - they're all about national inflation growth) rather than a question of balanced editing. -- PaulT2022 ( talk) 00:13, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
|
Collapsed my argument that is now mostly out-of-date as sources about global inflation began to appear. PaulT2022 ( talk) 19:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
@ SPECIFICO, your comment "Sourcing that details the views and statements of Summers and El Erian would be fine." in this deletion confused me. Why the referenced Fortune article is an inappropriate source for their views? Seems to be a reasonable secondary coverage linking to their op-eds in primary sources.
Also, why are you alleging that the part about non-US central banks would "elevate a hedge fund guy's opinion"? The opinion was presented in multiple sources without implying that it's controversial. Do you have a better source that would talk about this is a global sense without focusing solely on US Fed? PaulT2022 ( talk) 19:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I haven't proposed a vote before nor really even an article name change, but I will say that inflation is an ongoing issue globally and I don't think it is wise to break from a roughly established tradition of keeping things as "to present" in name if something is not yet resolved or greatly diminished. This article's title--if going by tradition as to how other chronologically-important articles are titled--would indicate a resolution of inflation surge in 2022. This is not necessarily established as the case and inflationary pressures could continue to be well in effect and advancing into 2023 or beyond. An example of an article that is of chronological importance that uses the "to present" titling format is "2021 - present global energy crisis": /info/en/?search=2021%E2%80%93present_global_energy_crisis
Thus, I propose a renaming of this article to "2021 - present inflation surge". I welcome a vote and thoughts about this. Marsbound2024 ( talk) 06:58, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
The OPEC cuts are simple fact. If you think part of that paragraph is inappropriate, you should remove the part with the problem, not the entire paragraph. That's how articles are improved. Please reinstate at least the simple opening fact. The reactions in the second part of the paragraph are not presented as fact. It is appropriate and common throughout Wikipedia to present -- with attribution -- the opinions or analysis of competent experts, as is done in the second part of the paragraph you have twice reverted, apparently based on a misunderstanding of policy. SPECIFICO talk 01:47, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
opinions or analysis of competent expertsexist, included and clearly attributed as such in the article text. I removed the entire paragraph as they weren't mentioned, and I couldn't find them in referenced sources.
May need a reference. I do not believe my interpretation of chronology is controversial. Jondvdsn1 ( talk) 12:46, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
Price gouging has it own section on the page. Some commentary on this is likely useful and required in the lead.
The only direct opinion we have is of one economist. There are other sources in that section that state that some economists believe price gouging is happening.
When I first made the change to state that price gouging was a factor, it was immediatley reverted. Fine.
I opened up a discussion on the user page of the person who removed it, no response. I then again mention price gouging, this time with a qualifying statement ("according to some experts"), immediately reverted again by the same user, @ Avatar317
I am now opening up the discussion here because nothing I restated in the lead is different than what is stated in the body of the article, and in two weeks they haven't resonded to my post on their talk page. My latest proposed sentence/change is posted below for reference.
It has been attributed to various causes, including
pandemic-related economic dislocation, the
fiscal and monetary
stimuli provided in 2020 and 2021 by governments and
central banks around the world in response to the pandemic, and according to some experts, price gouging.
71.11.5.2 (
talk) 15:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Avatar317, I find your addition to the lead to be a bit excessive and in my view most of it belongs in the body. In particular, the Wolfers/Furman comment is, in my view, somewhat ambiguous or an offhand quip, thus contestable, and so I'm not convinced the price gouging argument should hinge on it. I think a better approach would be a brief mention of price gouging in the lead, as I added earlier, with the current elaboration in the body. Beyond that, most of your addition should be relegated to the body, in my view. soibangla ( talk) 05:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
they all say that economists state that the "price gouging" argument is garbagesoibangla ( talk) 21:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Looks like there's a lot of back-and-forth editing going on here, which is mostly healthy. But please do be careful with edits so that references are not damaged. This article is transcluded by a couple of articles, and that structure must be managed; and the articles own references shouldn't be partially deleted when they're still in use. -- Mikeblas ( talk) 02:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
As one who is formally educated in economics, I consider myself an economics "purist" who eschews political influence, and I object to the lengthy competing political narratives in the lead by two editors. At most, keep it in the body, please. soibangla ( talk) 07:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Work is kicking my ass this week, so someone else should add this: Hannon, Paul (May 2, 2023). "Why Is Inflation So Sticky? It Could Be Corporate Profits". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2023-05-03. Sans paywall: https://archive.is/LzSfV
Also, why not show corporate profits and inflation in the same graph, i.e. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=134V3 ? Sandizer ( talk) 02:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
NOTE: The WSJ article you linked never uses the words "price gouging". I wonder whether that is due to differing OPINIONS as to what is "reasonable and fair" - per Price gouging "Price gouging is the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock."
Maybe people who like/agree with Capitalism consider this normal capitalism, (Wall Street Journal) and thereby do not label it as unreasonable, whereas those who dislike/disagree with Capitalism's tenets label any price increase above costs to be "unreasonable"..?
@ Soibangla: You stated you are trained in economics...is this a term normally used by economists, (it doesn't seem that way to me) or is it a generally derogatory term used by opponents of this behavior? (Your addition did fairly summarize the source, thanks!) --- Avatar317 (talk) 02:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
@ Avatar317: recently you have repeatedly ( [2], [3], [4]) deleted these sources:
We show that markup growth likely contributed more than 50 percent to inflation in 2021, a substantially higher contribution than during the preceding decade.
... the US COVID-19 inflation is predominantly a sellers' inflation that derives from microeconomic origins, namely the ability of firms with market power to hike prices.
We find that higher corporate profits drive higher prices (greed-inflation) only in the latest ten quarters.
You have also removed this source from Paul Donovan (economist) and its central idea from the third paragraph of the introduction:
...consumers seem to be buying stories that seem to justify price increases, but which really serve as cover for profit margin expansion.
You claim that mass media sources quoting celebrity economist sound bites are superior to those independent professional government, corporate and academic practicing economists, because the newspaper and radio interviews are "secondary." However, WP:NEWSORG says that "Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics."
Each time you've reverted, you've been changing the third paragraph of the introduction from this:
To something like this most recent version:
There is absolutely no evidence that accusations of price gouging and windfall profiteering has been limited to "Democratic politicians," although it is quite true that Republican congresspeople have been uniformly taking the opposite side. The term " greedflation" is an infantilizing WP:NEOLOGISM and exceedingly rare to nonexistent compared to its synonyms profiteering (business) and price gouging, both before and after the pandemic. One of the sources you objected to and I agreed to remove, shows that the issue is international and not at all limited to US political parties.
Finally, in in each case when you've made those reversions, you've also changed the "Fiscal and monetary policy" section header to "Monetary policy" even though its section clearly discusses both, referring to pandemic stimuli occurring long before any interest rate or other monetary policy changes took place.
I believe these problems represent an unacceptable political bias as also evidenced by the issues other editors have raised about your changes on this talk page above, so I intend to revert your deletions again. Sandizer ( talk) 03:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Some quotes from:
[5]]
“The reality is companies are always ‘greedy’ and always trying to maximize profits,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “The only way they have the ability to raise prices, and therefore profits, is if demand supports it.”
Robert Reich, who served as Labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, says that legislative moves can be worthwhile even if companies aren’t the main problem. “Nobody believes that price gouging is the main cause of inflation,” said Reich, who’s now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “The question really is whether corporate pricing power is aggravating the situation. And there’s a great deal of evidence it is.”
Note that is
Robert Reich, who is very strongly on the political left.---
Avatar317
(talk) 01:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
"...suggesting that markups could account for more than half of 2021 inflation. However, the timing and cross-industry patterns of markup growth are more consistent with firms raising prices in anticipation of future cost increases, rather than an increase in monopoly power or higher demand."
@ Avatar317: regarding [6]: (1) what source(s) if any support the idea that price gouging was not a cause of the 2021-3 inflation? (2) why do you claim that increasing profits in anticipation of future cost increases is not price gouging? Sandizer ( talk) 09:16, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
@ Soibangla: This section already has a 2023 SUB heading, and the rest of the sources in that paragraph you added the new content to are from 2022, May and June and to November. How does it make any sense to throw this NEW = 2023 information into the middle of that section? --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
There are important economic issues raised in this section. Much of this content is well-documented and explained. But we should try to use language that reflects scientific analysis of economic processes rather than the terms used in casual public speech including by politicians and the media. "Price gouging" and "greedflation" are guaranteed to be read as partisan and inflammatory. "Windfall profits" is closer to neutral when documented -- essentially to refer to sudden enjoyment of economic rents -- but I'm not sure this is what happened in the period we're addressing. Maybe in some cases, but that kind of profit is more a result than a cause of supply disruptions. SPECIFICO talk 19:29, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/business/economy/inflation-companies-profits-higher-prices.html
Sans paywall: https://archive.is/sAJf3
Sandizer ( talk) 20:03, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Fephisto, please provide examples of content that is factually disputed. Thank you. soibangla ( talk) 16:06, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
user:SPECIFICO removed, and I restored, the paragraph about Stanford and Johns Hopkins economists tying the surge to money supply. It is almost a tautology. The word "inflation" actually has two distinct meanings: monetary inflation and price inflation. To say that money supply increase is tied to monetary inflation is a first-class tautology. To claim that money supply increase is tied to price inflation is almost a tautology, given that price inflation is correlated on a delay basis with monetary inflation. I don't normally revert edits by registered users, but the removal struck me as egregious and almost a case of vandalism, though it is apparently a good faith edit. I would never double-revert (edit war), but I felt the paragraph should be maintained while we discuss here. Michaelmalak ( talk) 21:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC) Forgot to mention: the paragraph had been there for nearly a year. Michaelmalak ( talk) 21:14, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Time to wrap this up. "Monetarist" explanations of the origins of the recent inflation are not prominent in mainstream analysis and publications by notable economists. There are plenty of statements by respected figures that can be used to comment on policy issues both as to the origin and management of recent inflation. Those would be informative for our readers. They can be used to replace the current text, if anyone wishes to survey available sources. Any objections? SPECIFICO talk 15:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
The 2020-21 stimulus was not QE as in 2009.- You are simply wrong. It was fiscal AS WELL AS MONETARY. See this graph of the Fed's balance sheet. In 2018, the Fed wanted to start rolling back its QE which had been CONTINUOUS since 2008-2009 but the markets dropped and Trump pressured for them not to do that, and they didn't because they still thought the economy was not strong enough. Then in COVID they injected another ~2.5T into the markets. If you search for QE and COVID you can learn more about this. --- Avatar317 (talk) 05:24, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
user:SPECIFICO: The clause you removed "[stimulus] colloquially known as money printing" is a summary of the second paragraph of that other article. Is it your opinion that that article needs to be edited as well to remove that paragraph? Michaelmalak ( talk) 13:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Should the title be changed to 2021–2022 inflation surge? soibangla ( talk) 15:07, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
yeah I'm pretty sure the surge did not extend into 2023 and the title should be changed [7] soibangla ( talk) 03:34, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Not sure how to incorporate this, but eggs were clear outliers during the surge. Sandizer ( talk) 10:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
The Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think tank, says:
I'm looking at Figure 3.3 on p. 21 for potential inclusion but wanted to run this by here in case anyone thinks the source is unreliable or otherwise objectionable. Sandizer ( talk) 14:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
@
Soibangla: The two sources you added which talk about Trump's COVID stimuluses are irrelevant to this article, because they predate the inflation issue that this article talks about; that is what I meant by Original Research. Those aren't needed anyhow because the NYT says: Economists generally agree that those stimulus efforts — carried out by the Fed, by Mr. Biden and in trillions of dollars of pandemic spending signed by Mr. Trump in 2020 — helped push the inflation rate to its highest level in 40 years last year. But researchers disagree on how large that effect was, and over how to divide the blame between federal government stimulus and Fed stimulus.
.
The other change I made was to modify the statement to what the NYT said, supported by this NYT quote:
Asked whether federal tax and spending policies were contributing to price growth, Mr. Powell pointed to a decline in federal spending from the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “You have to look at the fiscal impulse from spending,” Mr. Powell said on Wednesday, referring to a measure of how much tax and spending policies are adding or subtracting to economic growth. “Fiscal impulse is actually not what’s driving inflation right now. It was at the beginning perhaps, but that’s not the story right now.” Instead, Mr. Powell — along with Mr. Biden and his advisers — says rapid price growth is primarily being driven by factors like snarled supply chains, an oil shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a shift among American consumers from spending money on services like travel and dining out to goods like furniture. Mr. Powell has also said the low unemployment rate was playing a role: “Some part of the high inflation that we’re experiencing is very likely related to an extremely tight labor market,” he told a House committee earlier this month.
(my bolding) ---
Avatar317
(talk) 06:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
because they predate the inflation issuewith
trillions of dollars of pandemic spending signed by Mr. Trump in 2020ending in December and
a decline in federal spending from the height of the Covid-19 pandemicwhich was in 2020.
It was at the beginning perhaps, but that’s not the story right now. We cannot assume the surge was caused strictly by concurrent events, but rather might have been precipitated by events of months earlier.
Instead, Mr. Powell...is consistent with my edit. soibangla ( talk) 06:47, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
The statement, "The healthcare industry, which has become highly consolidated over previous decades like the oil industry, and has until recently had prices continuously rising faster than inflation, has not experienced recent price inflation, whereas the oil industry has," is unencyclopedic, because it depends on arbitrary selections from time series commodity prices such as [8] which do not necessarily comport, and because of WP:NOTCRYSTAL may not necessarily comport, with the text in the future. Sandizer ( talk) 17:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
SiennaVue, I do not see there is a consensus view of this, or even that "many" economists think so soibangla ( talk) 05:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Analysis conducted by NerdWallet in October 2023 data found that prices for 92 of the 338 goods and services measured in CPI had declined from one year earlier, representing deflation for those items. Maybe I'll pull up that BLS data for an update. Naturally we don't want a pernicious general deflation spiral, but there's nothing worrisome about price declines from an elevated level. if the
added statement is correct and well supported by economists, then it should be no problem to provide sources reflecting that, which I would happily accept. but we don't have that here right now. soibangla ( talk) 06:05, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Avatar317, your recent edit confirms that current price levels remain elevated, but it does confirm they will be elevated permanently. It is literally impossible to prove it, and only a handful of analysts speculate it. Earlier here I showed an increasing percentage of CPI components are deflating, now 37%. It is WP:CRYSTALBALL for us to say in wikivoice that current price levels are permanent soibangla ( talk) 23:46, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Avatar317, your AP addition also does not support permanent. I could have reverted the "permanent" edit immediately, but I chose to discuss first. I am now inclined to revert it because the discussion has failed to support "permanent." soibangla ( talk)
SiennaVue, unless at least one source is presented to unambiguously show that many economists assert current price levels are likely permanent, I will remove your edit as unsupported WP:CRYSTALBALL. soibangla ( talk) 00:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
prices would be permanently higher nowas I don't try to predict CPI, which typically goes up but also goes down, sometimes sharply and even deflationarily. [14] we need only to look back as recently as the first three months of the pandemic to see deflation. [15] "permanent" means forever, and that's some real WP:CRYSTALBALL there. soibangla ( talk) 06:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
FYI, the PCE inflation rate, which the Fed prefers to measure inflation, was 2.5% in February.
It's getting real close to the Fed's inflation target of 2.0%, and it is below the 2.7% in March 2021 when the surge was imminent.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1jsyl soibangla ( talk) 11:02, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Good start, and good references so far. The article is ripe for expansion. But I don't think the title is accurate. "Crisis" seems overblown and dramatic, and I find only two or three articles referring to it that way. It's true that Biden himself said "I think it's the peak of the crisis," but most sources - including the articles currently cited in the article - are not calling it that. How about "2021 worldwide inflation"? -- MelanieN ( talk) 23:37, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
I suggest the first chart be moved down in the article, the second chart include gasoline rather than M2, and the second and third chart be scaled to 10 years, rather than 40-60, like this [1] soibangla ( talk) 10:12, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
While there is no unanimous agreement by economists as to the exact cause of the inflation surge, there are several theories.
No, there was debate about whether inflation was transitory or persistent, but the cause was always clear: high demand, low supply.
Additionally, some economists cite the unprecedented level of spending from the passage of COVID-19 relief programs by the US Congress as a key factor for the inflation surge.
The provided source talks about Republicans, not economists. This is a political argument.
At this point the lead seems adequate with a rather weak Background section, so I am removing the later until/unless someone can do a better job with it. soibangla ( talk) 10:18, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to add this table just below the first chart in the article. I've exhausted my patience finding an "align right" parameter in H:TABLE. Does anyone know how to do that? Thank you.
Country/Region | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
World | 1.9% | 3.4% |
Europe/Central Asia | 1.2% | 3.1% |
Latin America/Caribbean | 1.4% | 4.3% |
Brazil | 3.2% | 8.3% |
South Asia | 5.7% | 5.5% |
Australia | 0.8% | 2.9% |
South Korea | 0.5% | 2.5% |
Japan | 0.0% | -0.2% |
China | 2.4% | 1.0% |
Canada | 0.7% | 3.4% |
United Kingdom | 1.0% | 2.5% |
United States | 1.2% | 4.7% |
soibangla ( talk) 14:21, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
References
I have placed the "Globalize" tag on this article. I have two suggestions as possible remedies: move this page to 2021-2022 United States inflation surge or expand this to include other country's issues with inflation. CaffeinAddict ( talk) 04:46, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
The COVID-19 pandemic should have its own section for this article because it served as a major contributor to the ongoing inflation surge, citing massive economic support packages. 9March2019 ( talk) 13:51, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
folks, with the official US GDP report confirming that the US is in fact actively in a recession, it's time to create a new article which is linked heavily to this called '2022 Recession' StarkGaryen ( talk) 05:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
The opening line is, "In early 2021, a worldwide increase in inflation began." It immediately attributes this in part to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an entire year later. I get the point, that the invasion significantly worsened the increase, but to someone with very little knowledge of the topic, it might make less sense. 104.128.175.120 ( talk) 19:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
How can there be a BLP violation in quoting Krugman's own article in which he says he was previously wrong?
And So It (
talk) 13:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Nowhere in this article is there mention that too much money printing (i.e. QE and Treasury Issuance) was a primary driver of the inflation. See WSJ article Jerome Powell Is Wrong. Printing Money Causes Inflation.. There are many more high quality RS from quality experts who hold this as the primary cause (and the driver of the 2022-2021 increase in demand that further impacted the supply chain crisis). 78.18.244.36 ( talk) 10:44, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi SPECIFICO. I hope you don't mind me addressing you directly, but you seem to have edited out a lot of what I previously added and will be putting back in shortly. Here are some of the reasons I added back a lot of what was edited out (if you happen to catch this within the day, please keep in mind that I'm posting this ahead of making the edits in the page, so I apologize if some of these items have not occurred yet):
I hope this finds you well,
Fephisto ( talk) 00:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
@ Fephisto: this edit] introduces WP:SYNTH and WP:OR commentary to the article text. If you believe that this content is relevant to the 2021-2022 surge, the article would need sources that explicitly make that comparison within a single source. Introducing a general comment about money and inflation, regardless of whether it represents a significant viewpoint related to the subject of a different article page, is SYNTH, and the content in this sentence is your commentary on the 2021-22 surge rather than a connection made by any Reliable Source. Please self revert and give a careful look at the two links to our No Original Research policy that I provided. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 17:13, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
"Monetarism" is not currently a dominant mainstream view among economists. PaulT2022 ( talk) 07:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
some economists... have argued that the money supply... determines the level of prices and inflation in the long run.—
Over recent decades, however, the relationships between various measures of the money supply and variables such as GDP growth and inflation in the United States have been quite unstable. As a result, the importance of the money supply as a guide for the conduct of monetary policy in the United States has diminished over time. Not by persuasive writing. PaulT2022 ( talk) 19:35, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
The title “2021-22” inflation surge indicates the inflation has passed. Wouldn’t a more appropriate title be “ongoing” inflation surge or “2021-Present” Refsjjehhgshh ( talk) 11:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I would like to revisit this again since inflation is continuing, “ongoing” seems most appropriate Refsjjehhgshh ( talk) 06:53, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
The source for the articles statement about Russias plan for a puppet government in Ukraine is based on a political and non neutral source.
I'm not denying this might be their plans, but there has to be a better source. Kepsalom ( talk) 23:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
(Reply to the @ SPECIFICO's post at WP:NPOV/N) I doubt that strong sourcing can be found as of now. Inflation is a nation-/currency-wide phenomenon by definition; to the best of my understanding, there are no references in the article that would describe "worldwide increase in inflation", as the lead puts it. There's no such thing, because each currency supply is independent. I'd expect publications describing the global inflation in 2021-2022 to appear at some point, but it seems that they're not there yet. I've only been able to find a single opinion piece: https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/return-global-inflation In other words, it's a notability / original research issue (no sources are directly related to worldwide inflation growth - they're all about national inflation growth) rather than a question of balanced editing. -- PaulT2022 ( talk) 00:13, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
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Collapsed my argument that is now mostly out-of-date as sources about global inflation began to appear. PaulT2022 ( talk) 19:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
@ SPECIFICO, your comment "Sourcing that details the views and statements of Summers and El Erian would be fine." in this deletion confused me. Why the referenced Fortune article is an inappropriate source for their views? Seems to be a reasonable secondary coverage linking to their op-eds in primary sources.
Also, why are you alleging that the part about non-US central banks would "elevate a hedge fund guy's opinion"? The opinion was presented in multiple sources without implying that it's controversial. Do you have a better source that would talk about this is a global sense without focusing solely on US Fed? PaulT2022 ( talk) 19:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I haven't proposed a vote before nor really even an article name change, but I will say that inflation is an ongoing issue globally and I don't think it is wise to break from a roughly established tradition of keeping things as "to present" in name if something is not yet resolved or greatly diminished. This article's title--if going by tradition as to how other chronologically-important articles are titled--would indicate a resolution of inflation surge in 2022. This is not necessarily established as the case and inflationary pressures could continue to be well in effect and advancing into 2023 or beyond. An example of an article that is of chronological importance that uses the "to present" titling format is "2021 - present global energy crisis": /info/en/?search=2021%E2%80%93present_global_energy_crisis
Thus, I propose a renaming of this article to "2021 - present inflation surge". I welcome a vote and thoughts about this. Marsbound2024 ( talk) 06:58, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
The OPEC cuts are simple fact. If you think part of that paragraph is inappropriate, you should remove the part with the problem, not the entire paragraph. That's how articles are improved. Please reinstate at least the simple opening fact. The reactions in the second part of the paragraph are not presented as fact. It is appropriate and common throughout Wikipedia to present -- with attribution -- the opinions or analysis of competent experts, as is done in the second part of the paragraph you have twice reverted, apparently based on a misunderstanding of policy. SPECIFICO talk 01:47, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
opinions or analysis of competent expertsexist, included and clearly attributed as such in the article text. I removed the entire paragraph as they weren't mentioned, and I couldn't find them in referenced sources.
May need a reference. I do not believe my interpretation of chronology is controversial. Jondvdsn1 ( talk) 12:46, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
Price gouging has it own section on the page. Some commentary on this is likely useful and required in the lead.
The only direct opinion we have is of one economist. There are other sources in that section that state that some economists believe price gouging is happening.
When I first made the change to state that price gouging was a factor, it was immediatley reverted. Fine.
I opened up a discussion on the user page of the person who removed it, no response. I then again mention price gouging, this time with a qualifying statement ("according to some experts"), immediately reverted again by the same user, @ Avatar317
I am now opening up the discussion here because nothing I restated in the lead is different than what is stated in the body of the article, and in two weeks they haven't resonded to my post on their talk page. My latest proposed sentence/change is posted below for reference.
It has been attributed to various causes, including
pandemic-related economic dislocation, the
fiscal and monetary
stimuli provided in 2020 and 2021 by governments and
central banks around the world in response to the pandemic, and according to some experts, price gouging.
71.11.5.2 (
talk) 15:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Avatar317, I find your addition to the lead to be a bit excessive and in my view most of it belongs in the body. In particular, the Wolfers/Furman comment is, in my view, somewhat ambiguous or an offhand quip, thus contestable, and so I'm not convinced the price gouging argument should hinge on it. I think a better approach would be a brief mention of price gouging in the lead, as I added earlier, with the current elaboration in the body. Beyond that, most of your addition should be relegated to the body, in my view. soibangla ( talk) 05:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
they all say that economists state that the "price gouging" argument is garbagesoibangla ( talk) 21:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Looks like there's a lot of back-and-forth editing going on here, which is mostly healthy. But please do be careful with edits so that references are not damaged. This article is transcluded by a couple of articles, and that structure must be managed; and the articles own references shouldn't be partially deleted when they're still in use. -- Mikeblas ( talk) 02:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
As one who is formally educated in economics, I consider myself an economics "purist" who eschews political influence, and I object to the lengthy competing political narratives in the lead by two editors. At most, keep it in the body, please. soibangla ( talk) 07:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Work is kicking my ass this week, so someone else should add this: Hannon, Paul (May 2, 2023). "Why Is Inflation So Sticky? It Could Be Corporate Profits". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2023-05-03. Sans paywall: https://archive.is/LzSfV
Also, why not show corporate profits and inflation in the same graph, i.e. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=134V3 ? Sandizer ( talk) 02:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
NOTE: The WSJ article you linked never uses the words "price gouging". I wonder whether that is due to differing OPINIONS as to what is "reasonable and fair" - per Price gouging "Price gouging is the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock."
Maybe people who like/agree with Capitalism consider this normal capitalism, (Wall Street Journal) and thereby do not label it as unreasonable, whereas those who dislike/disagree with Capitalism's tenets label any price increase above costs to be "unreasonable"..?
@ Soibangla: You stated you are trained in economics...is this a term normally used by economists, (it doesn't seem that way to me) or is it a generally derogatory term used by opponents of this behavior? (Your addition did fairly summarize the source, thanks!) --- Avatar317 (talk) 02:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
@ Avatar317: recently you have repeatedly ( [2], [3], [4]) deleted these sources:
We show that markup growth likely contributed more than 50 percent to inflation in 2021, a substantially higher contribution than during the preceding decade.
... the US COVID-19 inflation is predominantly a sellers' inflation that derives from microeconomic origins, namely the ability of firms with market power to hike prices.
We find that higher corporate profits drive higher prices (greed-inflation) only in the latest ten quarters.
You have also removed this source from Paul Donovan (economist) and its central idea from the third paragraph of the introduction:
...consumers seem to be buying stories that seem to justify price increases, but which really serve as cover for profit margin expansion.
You claim that mass media sources quoting celebrity economist sound bites are superior to those independent professional government, corporate and academic practicing economists, because the newspaper and radio interviews are "secondary." However, WP:NEWSORG says that "Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics."
Each time you've reverted, you've been changing the third paragraph of the introduction from this:
To something like this most recent version:
There is absolutely no evidence that accusations of price gouging and windfall profiteering has been limited to "Democratic politicians," although it is quite true that Republican congresspeople have been uniformly taking the opposite side. The term " greedflation" is an infantilizing WP:NEOLOGISM and exceedingly rare to nonexistent compared to its synonyms profiteering (business) and price gouging, both before and after the pandemic. One of the sources you objected to and I agreed to remove, shows that the issue is international and not at all limited to US political parties.
Finally, in in each case when you've made those reversions, you've also changed the "Fiscal and monetary policy" section header to "Monetary policy" even though its section clearly discusses both, referring to pandemic stimuli occurring long before any interest rate or other monetary policy changes took place.
I believe these problems represent an unacceptable political bias as also evidenced by the issues other editors have raised about your changes on this talk page above, so I intend to revert your deletions again. Sandizer ( talk) 03:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Some quotes from:
[5]]
“The reality is companies are always ‘greedy’ and always trying to maximize profits,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “The only way they have the ability to raise prices, and therefore profits, is if demand supports it.”
Robert Reich, who served as Labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, says that legislative moves can be worthwhile even if companies aren’t the main problem. “Nobody believes that price gouging is the main cause of inflation,” said Reich, who’s now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “The question really is whether corporate pricing power is aggravating the situation. And there’s a great deal of evidence it is.”
Note that is
Robert Reich, who is very strongly on the political left.---
Avatar317
(talk) 01:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
"...suggesting that markups could account for more than half of 2021 inflation. However, the timing and cross-industry patterns of markup growth are more consistent with firms raising prices in anticipation of future cost increases, rather than an increase in monopoly power or higher demand."
@ Avatar317: regarding [6]: (1) what source(s) if any support the idea that price gouging was not a cause of the 2021-3 inflation? (2) why do you claim that increasing profits in anticipation of future cost increases is not price gouging? Sandizer ( talk) 09:16, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
@ Soibangla: This section already has a 2023 SUB heading, and the rest of the sources in that paragraph you added the new content to are from 2022, May and June and to November. How does it make any sense to throw this NEW = 2023 information into the middle of that section? --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
There are important economic issues raised in this section. Much of this content is well-documented and explained. But we should try to use language that reflects scientific analysis of economic processes rather than the terms used in casual public speech including by politicians and the media. "Price gouging" and "greedflation" are guaranteed to be read as partisan and inflammatory. "Windfall profits" is closer to neutral when documented -- essentially to refer to sudden enjoyment of economic rents -- but I'm not sure this is what happened in the period we're addressing. Maybe in some cases, but that kind of profit is more a result than a cause of supply disruptions. SPECIFICO talk 19:29, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/business/economy/inflation-companies-profits-higher-prices.html
Sans paywall: https://archive.is/sAJf3
Sandizer ( talk) 20:03, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Fephisto, please provide examples of content that is factually disputed. Thank you. soibangla ( talk) 16:06, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
user:SPECIFICO removed, and I restored, the paragraph about Stanford and Johns Hopkins economists tying the surge to money supply. It is almost a tautology. The word "inflation" actually has two distinct meanings: monetary inflation and price inflation. To say that money supply increase is tied to monetary inflation is a first-class tautology. To claim that money supply increase is tied to price inflation is almost a tautology, given that price inflation is correlated on a delay basis with monetary inflation. I don't normally revert edits by registered users, but the removal struck me as egregious and almost a case of vandalism, though it is apparently a good faith edit. I would never double-revert (edit war), but I felt the paragraph should be maintained while we discuss here. Michaelmalak ( talk) 21:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC) Forgot to mention: the paragraph had been there for nearly a year. Michaelmalak ( talk) 21:14, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Time to wrap this up. "Monetarist" explanations of the origins of the recent inflation are not prominent in mainstream analysis and publications by notable economists. There are plenty of statements by respected figures that can be used to comment on policy issues both as to the origin and management of recent inflation. Those would be informative for our readers. They can be used to replace the current text, if anyone wishes to survey available sources. Any objections? SPECIFICO talk 15:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
The 2020-21 stimulus was not QE as in 2009.- You are simply wrong. It was fiscal AS WELL AS MONETARY. See this graph of the Fed's balance sheet. In 2018, the Fed wanted to start rolling back its QE which had been CONTINUOUS since 2008-2009 but the markets dropped and Trump pressured for them not to do that, and they didn't because they still thought the economy was not strong enough. Then in COVID they injected another ~2.5T into the markets. If you search for QE and COVID you can learn more about this. --- Avatar317 (talk) 05:24, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
user:SPECIFICO: The clause you removed "[stimulus] colloquially known as money printing" is a summary of the second paragraph of that other article. Is it your opinion that that article needs to be edited as well to remove that paragraph? Michaelmalak ( talk) 13:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Should the title be changed to 2021–2022 inflation surge? soibangla ( talk) 15:07, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
yeah I'm pretty sure the surge did not extend into 2023 and the title should be changed [7] soibangla ( talk) 03:34, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Not sure how to incorporate this, but eggs were clear outliers during the surge. Sandizer ( talk) 10:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
The Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think tank, says:
I'm looking at Figure 3.3 on p. 21 for potential inclusion but wanted to run this by here in case anyone thinks the source is unreliable or otherwise objectionable. Sandizer ( talk) 14:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
@
Soibangla: The two sources you added which talk about Trump's COVID stimuluses are irrelevant to this article, because they predate the inflation issue that this article talks about; that is what I meant by Original Research. Those aren't needed anyhow because the NYT says: Economists generally agree that those stimulus efforts — carried out by the Fed, by Mr. Biden and in trillions of dollars of pandemic spending signed by Mr. Trump in 2020 — helped push the inflation rate to its highest level in 40 years last year. But researchers disagree on how large that effect was, and over how to divide the blame between federal government stimulus and Fed stimulus.
.
The other change I made was to modify the statement to what the NYT said, supported by this NYT quote:
Asked whether federal tax and spending policies were contributing to price growth, Mr. Powell pointed to a decline in federal spending from the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “You have to look at the fiscal impulse from spending,” Mr. Powell said on Wednesday, referring to a measure of how much tax and spending policies are adding or subtracting to economic growth. “Fiscal impulse is actually not what’s driving inflation right now. It was at the beginning perhaps, but that’s not the story right now.” Instead, Mr. Powell — along with Mr. Biden and his advisers — says rapid price growth is primarily being driven by factors like snarled supply chains, an oil shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a shift among American consumers from spending money on services like travel and dining out to goods like furniture. Mr. Powell has also said the low unemployment rate was playing a role: “Some part of the high inflation that we’re experiencing is very likely related to an extremely tight labor market,” he told a House committee earlier this month.
(my bolding) ---
Avatar317
(talk) 06:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
because they predate the inflation issuewith
trillions of dollars of pandemic spending signed by Mr. Trump in 2020ending in December and
a decline in federal spending from the height of the Covid-19 pandemicwhich was in 2020.
It was at the beginning perhaps, but that’s not the story right now. We cannot assume the surge was caused strictly by concurrent events, but rather might have been precipitated by events of months earlier.
Instead, Mr. Powell...is consistent with my edit. soibangla ( talk) 06:47, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
The statement, "The healthcare industry, which has become highly consolidated over previous decades like the oil industry, and has until recently had prices continuously rising faster than inflation, has not experienced recent price inflation, whereas the oil industry has," is unencyclopedic, because it depends on arbitrary selections from time series commodity prices such as [8] which do not necessarily comport, and because of WP:NOTCRYSTAL may not necessarily comport, with the text in the future. Sandizer ( talk) 17:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
SiennaVue, I do not see there is a consensus view of this, or even that "many" economists think so soibangla ( talk) 05:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Analysis conducted by NerdWallet in October 2023 data found that prices for 92 of the 338 goods and services measured in CPI had declined from one year earlier, representing deflation for those items. Maybe I'll pull up that BLS data for an update. Naturally we don't want a pernicious general deflation spiral, but there's nothing worrisome about price declines from an elevated level. if the
added statement is correct and well supported by economists, then it should be no problem to provide sources reflecting that, which I would happily accept. but we don't have that here right now. soibangla ( talk) 06:05, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Avatar317, your recent edit confirms that current price levels remain elevated, but it does confirm they will be elevated permanently. It is literally impossible to prove it, and only a handful of analysts speculate it. Earlier here I showed an increasing percentage of CPI components are deflating, now 37%. It is WP:CRYSTALBALL for us to say in wikivoice that current price levels are permanent soibangla ( talk) 23:46, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Avatar317, your AP addition also does not support permanent. I could have reverted the "permanent" edit immediately, but I chose to discuss first. I am now inclined to revert it because the discussion has failed to support "permanent." soibangla ( talk)
SiennaVue, unless at least one source is presented to unambiguously show that many economists assert current price levels are likely permanent, I will remove your edit as unsupported WP:CRYSTALBALL. soibangla ( talk) 00:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
prices would be permanently higher nowas I don't try to predict CPI, which typically goes up but also goes down, sometimes sharply and even deflationarily. [14] we need only to look back as recently as the first three months of the pandemic to see deflation. [15] "permanent" means forever, and that's some real WP:CRYSTALBALL there. soibangla ( talk) 06:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
FYI, the PCE inflation rate, which the Fed prefers to measure inflation, was 2.5% in February.
It's getting real close to the Fed's inflation target of 2.0%, and it is below the 2.7% in March 2021 when the surge was imminent.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1jsyl soibangla ( talk) 11:02, 2 April 2024 (UTC)