WHY CAN’T WE HAVE HIGHER INFLATION? “One question I have is simply whether inflation would really be that great. It would solve some of the problems we have, but it would produce others. There’s a great temptation in policy circles to think that whenever you are plagued by a given problem, its exact opposite would be much more desirable. If we did stimulus and the economy isn’t great, then austerity must be better. If we have low inflation producing an assortment of known problems, then we’d be happier if there were much higher inflation. I’m not saying that either of these propositions are wrong. I’m only reminding myself that we can see the problems with very low inflation here and now.”