Many or all of you bashers have been highly critical of brinker for his belief that high oil prices would not have a severe negative effect on core inflation, and would instead act as a tax.
You all seem to think you know more about economics than bob knows, which is ridiculous, imo. You have cited Ben Bernanke's comments as some sort of proof that you are right and brinker is wrong.
I have maintained that I don't really know who is right, because even the world's greatest economists often disagree on important points. How can you (plural) and I possibly know?
Well, today I was reading a quarterly newsletter from mutual fund manager Ron Muhlenkamp. I don't know if he is a bonafide economist, but I DO know that his mutual fund (thru 3/31) was up 14.61 annually since inception (Nov. 1, 1988), compared with 11.59 for the S&P.
Anyway, I had to chuckle today when I read the following in his newsletter:
"The fact that the price of oil goes up does not mean that inflation goes up. It means that the money you spend on oil doesn't get spent someplace else."
He also said: "What causes inflation is government printing money faster than the economy is growing. Today we're not printing money faster than the economy is growing."
This man, like brinker, has usually been right over the years, but he (Muhlenkamp) is quite a bit more transparent than brinker.
Every quarterly newsletter he has ever written can be read on his website, www.muhlenkamp.com. Anyone can peruse those and see how often he has been right or wrong over the years.
IMO, there is a LOT of wisdom on that website. |
