New Inflation Era

Some more discussion on inflation, this time from Wall Street guru James Grant in his interview with Consuelo Mack on this week's edition of the PBS program WealthTrack.  Hope everyone had a nice weekend.  

September 15, 2022

Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,

How times have changed. It wasn’t many months ago that the entire financial world was singing the praises of inflation. The greatest fear among Wall Streeters and other financial lights was lower prices that might actually decline more and turn into that monster known as deflation. The thought conjured up nightmarish scenes of bread lines and bank runs. 

Ever since the global financial crisis of 2008 and especially since the Covid pandemic, central banks and governments around the world have pulled out all stops to prevent such an occurrence. And guess what? It finally worked. After declining since the early 1980s inflation has roared back to life, recently hitting 40-year highs.  

But no one is celebrating. In fact, now central banks around the world have declared war on inflation and Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell is leading the charge. The Fed has dramatically raised the federal funds rate several times this year with more action to come.  

This week’s guest has long been an avowed enemy of inflation and outspoken critic of the Fed’s inflation-boosting policies. How is he feeling now? He is financial thought leader James Grant, the Founder and Editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal he launched in 1983. It’s about a multitude of interest rate-related policies and investments, with a thought-provoking recommendation or two in each issue. Grant’s is considered a must-read by professional investors at leading hedge funds, private equity and investment firms. 

Grant is also the author of 9 books. Several are financial histories including the prize-winning The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself.

In this weekend’s interview Grant will discuss the Fed’s about-face on inflation, the battle it faces to bring it under control, the implications for financial markets and two investment ideas for this new investment era.    

We also have an exclusive EXTRA feature with Grant who will give us a preview of his newest book project, a biography of three friends who influenced some of the revolutionary events of the eighteenth century.  

If you miss the show on public television, you can watch it on our website over the weekend, along with all of our past programs and our guests’ One Investment recommendations.  You can also find the WEALTHTRACK podcast on Stitcher and SoundCloud as well as iTunes and Spotify.

Have a super weekend and make the week ahead a healthy, profitable and productive one!

Best regards,

Consuelo