Omicron and inflation
Covid is not through with us. It continues to be more aggressive than our efforts to fight it. Please, get vaccinated, mask, and educate. And leaders must lead. Our lives and livelihoods depend on it.
To this day, an interview in early fall 2020 haunts me.
The journalist asked about my outlook on the economy. I said I was increasingly optimistic after a summer of solid job gains and consumers getting back to the stores. I paused and said, “of course, it depends on Covid. The worst-case scenario is it comes back with a vengeance.” About a month later it did. Last winter was crushing.
Fast forward to today. Our news is awash in Omicron.
There’s so much we don’t know, and I am an economist. I know to stay in my lane. So, I leave Covid education to the health experts.
Experts on Covid. Listen.
Here are some of the many I follow:
Here are more: @theresa_chapple, @oni_blackstock, @drtomori, @asosin, @gregggonsalves, @uche_blackstock, @kevinpurcell, @DrAliSKhan, @angie_rasmussen.
One common theme is we don’t know yet what we need to know about Omicron. Even so, we know how to fight Covid—access to vaccines and boosters (worldwide), public health education, ventilation, masks, social distancing. We must do better.
Another theme—one that I recognized in the spring of 2020—is many of my macroeconomist peers are doing a shitty job with Covid. Every single one who talks about inflation should talk about Covid. I do. Most don’t.
Politics over people.
Well before Omicron, sometime during delta, I lost hope in our fight against Covid. We will get there but will lose many more loved ones. Unnecessary and cruel. Our leadership at the White Houses from the start of the pandemic to now is one unforced policy error after another. The cold calculus of ‘the next election’ is killing people.
What are we doing here? Dems lose Congress in the mid-terms. Biden loses the next election? So what? About a thousand Americans are dying every day, nearly two years in. And as with economic policy, we have politicals running the show on Covid.
So, here we are. Macroeconomists of the world unite. And fight about inflation. About labor shortages. About excess savings. Huh? Fight about everything but the actual thing that needs fighting. Covid.
Inflation. It’s always inflation.
I have done several hundred interviews about inflation, tweeted, made charts, and written posts. Here is a chart I made to prep for a BBC World interview last week.
My work feels truly pointless but keeps me from blowing up (any more than I do).
Here’s a lively sampling of my thoughts on inflation and macroeconomics: (shortened version) interview with Briahna Joy Gray about inflation.
Here is her Patreon to subscribe to for my full interview and many others.
I talked with Joy a few days after the last Consumer Price Index release. I was exhausted and angry. And it shows in the video. More emotions than normal in interviews. Enough is enough, people.
Most importantly, please take care and stay safe. If you are in a position of authority, please do everything you can to help others to take Covid precautions. We are all in this together. We can do it, but we must try harder.
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It is odd that COVID is not a more obvious factor in any conversation about inflation. The main push seems to be get the workers back in offices and ignore the rest.