https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/stagflation-todays-market
Two big
reasons why '70s-style stagflation appears less likely today are energy and
labor. In the 1970s, the US was an oil importer and the economy was still based
on energy-intensive manufacturing work performed by unionized workers. That
left the US acutely vulnerable to higher oil prices after the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut off shipments to the US during the
1973 war between Israel and its neighbors. Meanwhile, powerful private-sector
unions won cost of living increases for their members, driving wage inflation.
More than 40 years later, the US can produce as much oil as it needs. While the
price of oil has been volatile over the past year, the chance of a 1970s-style
oil shock appears minimal according to Fidelity's Asset Allocation Research
Team, despite the federal government's warning of sharply higher heating costs
this winter.
(沒錯! 美國目前經濟生產結構跟1970年代不同, 但這次2021嚴重供給面阻塞, 會讓物價短期急遽漲, 像急性盲腸炎, 1970s像慢性糖尿病)
Private
sector unions and manufacturing also play a far smaller role in the US economy.
Instead of unionized labor, work is increasingly being done by robots and
software, which are disinflationary or even deflationary. Indeed, widespread
wage stagnation since the 1980s has been a major reason for both low inflation
and a widening income gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the
population
( 好的 ~ 這目前唯一有說服力論點, 難怪Howard Marks 說新科技讓高通膨難以產生, 我們就拭目以待 )
Beware policy error
While energy and labor costs are unlikely to brew a new batch of stagflation, there is another factor to consider: the potential that policymakers' decisions could have unintended consequences.
In the early
1970s, the economy was beginning to feel the inflationary effects of massive
increases in federal government spending on the Vietnam War and the Great
Society social programs of President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson's successor,
Richard Nixon, who once said of economic policymakers, "we're all
Keynesians now," sought to tame that inflation with interventionist
policies including controls on wages and prices. Those policies were
counterproductive, says Pineault, and on top of the oil price shock and the
devaluation of the dollar helped create a vicious cycle of slowing growth and
rising prices. Since 1982, when Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker defeated
stagflation by raising interest rates to double-digit levels, even at the cost
of a severe recession, the Fed has focused on controlling inflation. If the Fed
were to choose instead to keep monetary policy loose and fiscal policies were
to introduce inflationary pressures into the economy, it's not impossible that
the return of inflation could prove less temporary than hoped for.
In fact, the 1970s and the current situation are opposites in important ways, Boivin said. The stagflation of half a century ago came as growth and activity exceeded the global economy’s productive capacity. Now, the economy is running up against supply-chain bottlenecks, which isn’t the same thing. In fact, the economy is still operating below its productive capacity, he said.
That means supply will eventually rise to meet demand, he said, instead of the 1970s experience of demand going down to meet supply.
And while both episodes share soaring oil prices, the story in the 1970s was one in which the oil supply shutdowns by producers slowed the economy and eroded its operating capacity. Energy prices are jumping now because the economy has restarted, “and there’s no way to restart without energy,” Boivin said. “The causality runs the other way.”
嚴格來說 從2019 - 2022 這段期間 Fed用貨幣量化和財政政策雙管齊下
The best way to cut costs and boost productivity is with technological innovations. Companies that can innovate on a regular basis ahead of their competitors can cut their prices, gain market share, and be sustainably more profitable than their competitors. Firms that do so gain a competitive advantage that allows them to have a higher profit margin for a while
The technology industry is itself prone to deflationary pressures because it is so competitive. Tech companies spend enormous sums of money on research and
development, so they must sell as many units of their new products as possible before the next “new, new thing” inevitably comes along. The industry is so competitive that it must eat its young to survive. The result is that tech companies tend to offer more fire
power at lower prices with the introduction of each new generation of their offerings. In other words, the technology industry provides the perfect example of what economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.”
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas hosted a conference on May 22–23, 2019, on “Technology-Enabled Disruption:
Implications for Business, Labor Markets and Monetary Policy.” The topics covered all the obvious bases, focusing on how technological innovation is disrupting business models, keeping a lid on price inflation, impacting the labor market, and stimulating merger-and-acquisition activity. The overview description of the conference succinctly summarized the disinflationary impact of technology as follows: Technology-enabled disruption means that workers are increasingly being replaced by technology. It also means that existing business models are being supplanted by new models, often technology-enabled, that bring more efficiency to the sale or distribution of goods and services. As part of this phenomenon, consumers are increasingly able to use technology to shop for goods and services at lower prices with greater convenience—which has the impact of reducing the pricing power of businesses.
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