QOTD: Paul Singer
by digby
Matt O’Brien writes about an inflation truther:
Paul Singer [is] the hedge fund billionaire who’s made his fortune buying bonds from countries on the edge of default, and then suing them to get paid in full. (This hasn’t worked as well with Argentina). Well, it turns out that he has some very idiosyncratic ideas about what inflation actually looks like. His latest investor letter recycles all these ideas, inveighing against the Fed’s “fake prices,” “fake money,” and “fake jobs,” before zeroing in on where inflation is really showing up — his wallet:
Check out London, Manhattan, Aspen and East Hampton real estate prices, as well as high-end art prices, to see what the leading edge of hyperinflation could look like.
That’s right: Paul Singer thinks Weimar-style inflation might be coming because he has to pay more for his posh vacation homes and art pieces.
Now, it’s true, if you’re a billionaire who’s interested in decorating your high-end real estate with high-end art, then, yes, your personal inflation rate is higher than others. But tough luck. (I’m pretty sure you’ll manage). The Fed, you see, isn’t worried about the Billionaire Price Index. It’s worried about the Consumer Price Index. And that, despite zero interest rates, is still below the Fed’s 2 percent target. That’s not going to change anytime soon, either. Indeed, just because the super-rich are bidding up the prices of houses in the Hamptons doesn’t mean that middle-class people, whose wages are flat, are going to bid up the price of, well, anything.
Well surely you can see the problem. The rising wages of all those dead artists are driving up the prices. Or something.
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