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Josh L. Ascough



Articles by Josh L. Ascough

Central Bankers Are Poor Archers: The Problems and Failures of Inflation Targeting and Price Stability

January 4, 2023

The famous quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is usually attributed to Albert Einstein. While intended as a parable for quantum insanity, such a quote could equally be a parable for inflation policy. With the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve seeking to maintain target rates of 2 percent, the UK inflation rate has only fallen to 10.7 percent from 11.1 percent. Considering inflation is still exceptionally high, it may be time to acknowledge the problems of inflation target policies.
The UK first began inflation targeting as a monetary policy in 1992 to maintain a predicted level of inflation for future economic planning, persistent inflation rate acknowledgment, and price stability maintenance. There

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Low Interest Rates and High Taxes Won’t Help against Inflation: The Economy Needs Savings and Real Investment

August 15, 2022

With the Consumer Price Index (CPI) hitting a forty-year high of 9.1 percent, the Bank of England has responded by raising interest rates to 1.25 percent, up by 0.25 from the previous period. This, alongside ex-chancellor and PM hopeful Rishi Sunak planning to “tackle inflation before tax cuts,” signals a poor plan for combating the rising effects of inflation.
First, inflation must be defined by its cause rather than its effect for the monetary authorities to enact a sound recovery policy.
Inflation in the truest sense is an excess increase in the money supply over the real demand for money (MS > MD). MD, which is an inverse of velocity, is measured by the quantity of nominal pounds sterling economic actors hold over a period of time in order to acquire a higher

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