I read Calvin and Hobbes religiously when I was a kid. I used to memorise the storylines, and recite them at the dinner table – drove my parents nuts.
For those unfamiliar, Calvin and Hobbes was a comic strip printed between the 80s and 90s, featuring the antics of a young boy and his tiger (a toy who is brought to life by his imagination). The two characters are named after the philosophers, and the storylines humorously explore everything from politics to art to mainstream media.
“Aren’t you worried that [violence on TV] is desensitizing?” Hobbes asks.
“Nah,” replies Calvin “I’d like to shoot the idiots who think this stuff affects me.”
While I’ve forgotten many of the storylines, I was reminded of one today, upon seeing a certain headline in New York Magazine.
In this particular strip, the six-year old Calvin is trying to convince Hobbes that they should push his parent’s car out of the garage and on to their driveway to make room for a new clubhouse. Hobbes, always the wiser of the two, has reservations over whether this is a good idea.
Calvin, undeterred, exclaims “What could possibly go wrong?”
“Whenever you ask that, my tail gets all bushy.” Hobbes responds, holding a visibly fuzzier tail.
I felt like I had a lot in common with Hobbes (minus tail) when I laid my eyes on this headline from New York Mag:
I get apprehensive whenever I hear somebody use the words “cool” and “political” in the same sentence. But this one takes the biscuit.
The AOC referred to is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of the US Democratic Party, who’s swiftly risen to fame as a proficient political operator and socialist. While she’s too young to run for president (soonest would be 2028 under the current rules), she’s become something of a kingmaker – an endorsement from her is gold dust to any prospective democratic nominee.
She is also “making monetary policy cool and political again”, by arguing that the Federal Reserve, despite record low unemployment, is not stimulating the economy enough, as inflation hasn’t taken off yet. The targeted unemployment rate should be lower, she argued, as there are still people without jobs, and the high inflation the Fed predicted would occur if unemployment fell more, has not arrived.
Hobbes was right to be apprehensive. Once he and Calvin start pushing the car out the garage, it gains momentum and they lose control. It rides off into a ravine on the other side of the street, and Calvin decides they need to run away from home to avoid the telling off they’re gonna get. AOC, like all Western millennials (including myself), have been raised in an era of declining inflation, thanks to the forces of globalisation and descending interest rates.
To live in an inflationary environment is an alien prospect. As are its destructive nature and the incredible amounts of force require to crush it. Genuinely strong consumer inflation hasn’t been witnessed in the West for decades.
The end of globalisation as we know it – the collateral damage of Cold War II – will, I expect, bring a considerable amount of inflation back.
But the more monetary policy becomes “cool and political”, the sooner we will all discover its joys once again…
All the best,
Boaz Shoshan
Editor, Capital & Conflict
Category: Market updates