(ITA -2000)The Fear Is OldThe Economy NewBy THOMAS

(ITA - 2000)

The Fear Is Old
The Economy New

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

(1) There is something perverse about reading the business news these days. Every month the Labor Department comes out with a new set of statistics about how unemployment is down and thousands of jobs are being created. But these stories always contain the same 2caveat, like the warning on a pack of cigarettes, that this news is bad for the health of the economy. The stories always go on to say that these great employment statistics triggered panic among Wall Street investors and led to a sell off of stocks and bonds.
(...)
(2) Of course there has always been a link between unemployment numbers and inflation expectations. The more people are working, the more they have the money to pay for things; the more consumer demand outstrips factory capacity, the more prices shoot up, and the more prices shoot up the more the value of bonds, with their fixed interest rates, erodes.
(3) But what has been so frustrating about the market reactions in recent months is that despite the surging economy, inflation has not been rising. It has remained flat, at around 3 percent, and 1yet Wall Street, certain that the shadow it sees is the ghost of higher inflation come to haunt the trading floors, has been clamouring to the Federal Reserve for higher rates. (...)

The New York Times Magazine.
May 22, 1994.

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