Inflation vs. the Money Supply

Real quick, then I must bolt.

If you increase the money supply by 5% and you produce 5% more stuff inflation will be 0%.

If you increase the money supply by 5% and produce 0% more stuff, inflation will go up by 5%

If you decrease the money supply by 5%, but produce no more stuff, you get deflation of 5%.

This is not an opinion, this is a mathematical fact. If you print off more money and produce less (like we are today) you will have inflation. It's an unavoidable law of economics.

However, economies are not simple entities nor machines that work like clocks and why you have this disagreement that more money will not trigger inflation vs. will. So allow me to explain a couple things;

1. Just because you print off money NOW doesn't mean it will IMMEDIATELY trigger inflation. The chart below shows us IN GENERAL when the M2 money supply was increasing at a higher rate we had inflation. When we stopped printing money in the 70's, inflation came back under control.

2. A person will observe that we increased the money supply rather rapidly during the dotcom bubble, which did not trigger inflation. However that inflation is measured by the "CPI" and does not include investment assets such as stock market bubbles and housing bubbles. If those were included in the CPI you would see the correlation again.

3. Obamaites will immediately point out that inflation has turned to DEflation even though we've increased the money supply again.

Don't worry my friends. Give it time to permeate. Give it time.