This may help you to understand where Mish is coming from:
"The Austrian economists claim that the only cause of inflation is the increase of the money supply relative to the output of the economy.1 These economists outright reject the theories behind cost push inflation, wage push inflation and other common theories of inflation. From their perspective, the correct policy is not based on the total quantity of money, but to set a particular quality of money, a relationship between the MZM, that is "Money to Zero Maturity" and the growth of the economy. Because controlling the available immediately spendable currency is crucial to price stability in this view, economists who subscribe to this idea often advocate the return to a gold standard."
The same source goes on to say:
"Criticism of monetary policy
Some free market economists, especially those belonging to the Austrian School criticise the very idea of monetary policy, believing that it distorts investment. In the free market interest rates will be set by saver's time preference. If there is a high time preference this means that savers will have a strong preference for consuming goods now rather than saving for them. Thus interest rates will rise due to the low supply of savings. With low time preference interest rates will fall. The interest rates send signals to businessmen as to what is worth investing in, low interest rates will mean that more capital is invested.
Monetary policy means that the interest rates no longer represent consumer time preferences and so investments are made by businessmen with the wrong signals. Lower than market interest rates will therefore mean a higher investment than the economy desires. This will mean that there will be capital goods that have been over invested, and will need to be liquidated. This liquidation is the cause of the depression that makes for the business cycle."
reference.com
And one last point:
"In economics, inflation is an increase in the general level of prices of a given kind. General inflation is a fall in the market value or purchasing power of money within an economy, as compared to currency devaluation which is the fall of the market value of a currency between economies. General inflation is referred to as a rise in the general level of prices. The former applies to the value of the currency within the national region of use, whereas the latter applies to the external value on international markets. The extent to which these two phenomena are related is open to economic debate.
Inflation is the opposite of deflation. Zero or very low positive inflation is called price stability.
In some contexts the word "inflation" is used to mean an increase in the money supply, which is sometimes seen as the cause of price increases. Some economists (of the Austrian school) still prefer this meaning of the term, rather than to mean the price increases themselves. Thus, for example, some observers of the 1920s in the United States refer to "inflation" even though prices were not increasing at the time. Below, the word "inflation" will be used to refer to a general increase in prices unless otherwise specified." |
