Just last month, the country came close to a major uprising followed by a severe crackdown. Iran isn’t central to the global oil industry, but had the revolution succeeded, we could have seen a funny coincidence.
Re-reading Thucydides persuades me that history does repeat, as the historian insisted, because "human nature never changes," using the Rex Warner translation. We go down a path long used by hegemons, thinking or hoping we know the results of our audacity. And because we learn almost nothing from past adventures, history repeats.
Is some interesting data, but as you mentioned, if you search hard and long enough, you will achieve a result that appears to rhyme. Just my humble opinion.
Interesting that it's 44 years - within the 40-60 year cycle of violence found by Turchin & Nefedov in Secular cycles, in the disintegrative phase of the overall secular cycle. They attribute this to a "Father-and-Son" cycle - first hand experience of violence scars the participants and their children who hear the stories, but by the third generation, the memory has faded and the grandchildren are ready to fight again. Arguably we are in a disintegrative phase, so that fits well enough. This isn't a cycle of violence though, so it can't be exactly the same mechanism, but it might be worth considering whether some kind of similar cycle of forgetfulness might be at work with policy-makers re aversion to inflation. After a bought of high inflation, policy makers and their immediate students are willing to maintain the discipline to keep inflation down, but the next generation has forgotten the pain are more willing to indulge in inflationary policies
My guess would be more direct - supervisor-and-grad student cycle feeding through into central bankers. The first generation experiences high inflation and battles through it, their immediate students train under someone obsessed with stopping inflation, but the generation after is studying it historically. 44 years seems about right for the generation time - 20 years from being a PhD student to getting far enough along in your career to be an influential supervisor.
This is crazy! As the good professor states, it’s easy to find spurious correlations in any data sets and time offers many, but to come across one so long from the ‘same’ (only larger) sample seems incredible. (Still spurious, but begs further scratching).
I would not be surprised to see a big jump in inflation. 1. Trump tariffs, paid not by China et al. but by American consumers. 2. Data center electricity demand while supply takes years to commission. 3. The BBB blowout of the federal debt.
Plotting the CPIAUCSL percentage change from one year ago data in an x-y chart, with CPIAUCSL 1/66 - 1/83 on the abscissa and 11/13 - 11/25 on the ordinate in Microsoft Excel, a fitted polynomial regression line of order 2 yields a coefficient of determination of 0.8798 and regression parameters of a₀ = - 0.0383, a₁ = 0.2064, and a₂ = 0.0427 for the regression model yᵢ = a₀ + a₁ xᵢ + a₂ xᵢ² + εᵢ .
As there is no possible connexion of the one time series (1/66 - 1/83) to the other times series (11/13 - 11/25), the true coefficient of determination is identically zero, almost surely.
--- Unless one believes in 'deus ex machina' effects.
Makes perfect sense - let's work backwards from coming 2027 inflation peak @11% on graph
1) Berkshire Hathaway has its highest percentage of cash ever - over $380 billion - Why? Buffet can't find anything to buy. Always a sign of a major top. Prior cash % high marks - 1999 and 2006
2) The Stock market is at an extreme valuation right now.
3) Stocks crater/crash and The Fed, Trump and Congress throw $trillions at restoring growth
4) Massive inflation follows and gold silver blow off top just like January 1980 when gold peaked at $850 from its $40 low when Nixon ended the gold standard in 1971
Looks very logical to me - of course you can always bet against Warren Buffet if you like.
The inflation which crept into the economy in the mid-1960s was caused by an economy operating at peak performance -- full productive capacity -- which then had to deal with the addition of the buildup in military forces in Vietnam AND the initiation of Great Society programs. So it was a Demand-Pull phenomenon at that point; AND, the economy is no longer operating at Peak Performance, it is continuing to increase, but at a decreasing rate of growth. As you get into the period around 1972-1973 the inflationary conditions become more of a Cost-Push phenomenon.
The period around 2013 has an economy that is no where near Peak Performance. The inflation is due to other factors.
Just last month, the country came close to a major uprising followed by a severe crackdown. Iran isn’t central to the global oil industry, but had the revolution succeeded, we could have seen a funny coincidence.
Re-reading Thucydides persuades me that history does repeat, as the historian insisted, because "human nature never changes," using the Rex Warner translation. We go down a path long used by hegemons, thinking or hoping we know the results of our audacity. And because we learn almost nothing from past adventures, history repeats.
History won’t change until mankind sprouts a couple of more arms, or we extinguish ourselves…
History rhymes with mystery.
Were Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie mysterions?
Is some interesting data, but as you mentioned, if you search hard and long enough, you will achieve a result that appears to rhyme. Just my humble opinion.
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
I got a random correlation between the number of movies Margot Robbie appeared in and the number of firefighters in South Dakota.
Thanks for sharing the link! I got a good laugh from it.
Interesting that it's 44 years - within the 40-60 year cycle of violence found by Turchin & Nefedov in Secular cycles, in the disintegrative phase of the overall secular cycle. They attribute this to a "Father-and-Son" cycle - first hand experience of violence scars the participants and their children who hear the stories, but by the third generation, the memory has faded and the grandchildren are ready to fight again. Arguably we are in a disintegrative phase, so that fits well enough. This isn't a cycle of violence though, so it can't be exactly the same mechanism, but it might be worth considering whether some kind of similar cycle of forgetfulness might be at work with policy-makers re aversion to inflation. After a bought of high inflation, policy makers and their immediate students are willing to maintain the discipline to keep inflation down, but the next generation has forgotten the pain are more willing to indulge in inflationary policies
Maybe some sort of populace level of a father-and-son cycle? This is intriguing, thanks for sharing this theory.
My guess would be more direct - supervisor-and-grad student cycle feeding through into central bankers. The first generation experiences high inflation and battles through it, their immediate students train under someone obsessed with stopping inflation, but the generation after is studying it historically. 44 years seems about right for the generation time - 20 years from being a PhD student to getting far enough along in your career to be an influential supervisor.
This is crazy! As the good professor states, it’s easy to find spurious correlations in any data sets and time offers many, but to come across one so long from the ‘same’ (only larger) sample seems incredible. (Still spurious, but begs further scratching).
To fill the graphic an Arthur Burns' Fed style will be perfect
Graph is not courtesy of Niall Ferguson but comes from here:
https://x.com/florianederer/status/2026713778579001586
I've been updating this graph regularly for the last year or so:
https://x.com/florianederer/status/1908247621853917539
TY, keep on updatin'
I would not be surprised to see a big jump in inflation. 1. Trump tariffs, paid not by China et al. but by American consumers. 2. Data center electricity demand while supply takes years to commission. 3. The BBB blowout of the federal debt.
Plotting the CPIAUCSL percentage change from one year ago data in an x-y chart, with CPIAUCSL 1/66 - 1/83 on the abscissa and 11/13 - 11/25 on the ordinate in Microsoft Excel, a fitted polynomial regression line of order 2 yields a coefficient of determination of 0.8798 and regression parameters of a₀ = - 0.0383, a₁ = 0.2064, and a₂ = 0.0427 for the regression model yᵢ = a₀ + a₁ xᵢ + a₂ xᵢ² + εᵢ .
As there is no possible connexion of the one time series (1/66 - 1/83) to the other times series (11/13 - 11/25), the true coefficient of determination is identically zero, almost surely.
--- Unless one believes in 'deus ex machina' effects.
Makes perfect sense - let's work backwards from coming 2027 inflation peak @11% on graph
1) Berkshire Hathaway has its highest percentage of cash ever - over $380 billion - Why? Buffet can't find anything to buy. Always a sign of a major top. Prior cash % high marks - 1999 and 2006
2) The Stock market is at an extreme valuation right now.
3) Stocks crater/crash and The Fed, Trump and Congress throw $trillions at restoring growth
4) Massive inflation follows and gold silver blow off top just like January 1980 when gold peaked at $850 from its $40 low when Nixon ended the gold standard in 1971
Looks very logical to me - of course you can always bet against Warren Buffet if you like.
How do you explain then why 5% inflation in the 70s equates to 2% inflation now?
Economic policy can.
History rhyming is not historical causation.
The inflation which crept into the economy in the mid-1960s was caused by an economy operating at peak performance -- full productive capacity -- which then had to deal with the addition of the buildup in military forces in Vietnam AND the initiation of Great Society programs. So it was a Demand-Pull phenomenon at that point; AND, the economy is no longer operating at Peak Performance, it is continuing to increase, but at a decreasing rate of growth. As you get into the period around 1972-1973 the inflationary conditions become more of a Cost-Push phenomenon.
The period around 2013 has an economy that is no where near Peak Performance. The inflation is due to other factors.
"And everything is calm in Iran."
That aged well. XD
So . . .