Money-supply growth rose year over year in April, marking the ninth month of growth in a row. As of April, the money supply appears to be continuing into a period of solid monetary growth coming out of a period of historically large swings in monetary trends from early 2020 to mid-2024. Although some critics of Jerome Powell and the Fed have claimed that the Fed is implementing excessively tight monetary policy, the money supply has grown by more than $600 billion since mid-2023. 

A new record: the monetary inflation starting in the US as far back as 2009/10 is still under way more than 15 years later. There has been no episode of serious monetary disinflation such as would create a meaningful intermission before the next monetary inflation. Under the fiat or hybrid fiat money regimes since 1914 the previous joint record for longest monetary inflation without break was 10/11 years, as in 1938–48, 1962–73 and 1995–2006. Typically, unbroken spells of monetary inflation have been shorter—including 1921–8, 1933–6, 1950–56, 1976–80, 1985–9, 1991–4.

It’s a weekend in Pittsburgh and lots of people here and elsewhere around the country are waiting for a money-losing service called government transit.

In his various writings, the leader of the monetarist school of thought, Milton Friedman, argued that there is a variable time lag between changes in money supply and its effect on real output and prices. Thus, according to Friedman, 

In the short run, which may be as much as five or ten years, monetary changes affect primarily output. Over decades, on the other hand, the rate of monetary growth affects primarily prices.

Ayn Rand was once asked if she could explain her philosophy while standing on one foot. She did. Could you? Could you explain in everyday language the central idea of free market economics in one breath, between floors in an elevator, or with one foot letting the other do all the work?