Stock futures are moving sharply lower after hours based on reports such as this: US Calls Radiation 'Extremely High' and Urges Deeper Caution.
The emphasis was clearly on the risk in Japan today. The Middle East situation continues to deteriorate.
The PPI and import prices are rising at a rate that suggests inflation, and continuing sluggish growth in GDP suggest stagflation is developing.
Stagflation, when not caused by an exogenous event such as occurred in the 1970s with the oil embargo, is the result of an obvious policy error in fiscal, public, and monetary decisions.
It takes an unusual set of circumstances to create stagflation. Before the 1970's economists used to say it was not possible.
Therefore it is a tribute to Obama's Wilsonian dithering, Bernanke's general spinelessness, and the Congress' rapacious venality that they will preside over stagflation's resurgence, without the scapegoat of an oil embargo to blame. They are presiding over the wholesale looting of a generation, and abetting the tranfer of that money and the future prosperity of the public to a wealthy few, their real constituency, in the manner of an oligarchy or crony capitalism.
