An industrial challenge

摘要

Never trust a monetarist.Such people would have you believe that inflation only occurs because central banks print too much money.It has nothing to do with structural constraints or shortages in the real economy,they say.Monetarist logic is widespread and has even infiltrated oil market thinking.It has been commonly argued this year that hedge funds have pushed up oil prices by pumping money into futures.As in the wider economy,more money means higher prices.It is an attractive myth,because it reduces a complex physical system to a simple concept.But monetarism is a false doctrine precisely because it is so dismissive of structural complexity.