Inflation: The Media Screams, But The Market Is Unfazed

Inflation: The Media Screams, But The Market Is Unfazed

The Scream (Skrik) Tempera and pastel on wood, 1893. One of four versions of a composition, by ... [+] Norwegian Expressionist artist Edvard Munch between 1893 and 1910. The German title Munch gave these works is Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). The works show a figure with an agonized expression against a landscape with a tumultuous orange sky. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Pick up your paper carefully this week. It is screaming at you. How can anyone withstand this pandemonium? It issues, after all, not from some Twitter thread, but from the "experts" and the "authorities." The people who are supposed to know more than you do. I say: Relax. And so does the market. The media experts are wrong. This will become clear over the next few months as things settle down. Still, there is a real danger here. If inflation is caused, at least in part, by an increase in the public's expectations about inflation (a rather bizarre idea that has become mainstream thinking in monetary policy-making), well then, these headlines are certainly doing their best to push the process along. The symptoms of the media's unhingement are everywhere.