Inflation Is Here

Published by Barron’s.

Randall W. Forsyth (“Flood of Liquidity Is Sweetening Retirement for Stock Owners and Home Sellers,” Up & Down Wall Street, April 30) points out the rapid first-quarter growth in gross domestic product, final sales, and personal income, but oddly fails to mention that the consumer price index increased from December to March at an annualized rate of 6.8%. Inflation isn’t coming; it’s here.

It is intensely here in house prices, as he says, up in double digits (about 12%). Forsyth writes forthrightly: “The Fed keeps inflating that bubble by buying $40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities…every month.” Yup. But why is the Federal Reserve still buying? Why is the Fed still monetizing mortgages when house prices are in runaway inflation? The answer is simple: It needs to stop.