this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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We'll be lucky if that's all. In the 70s and 80s inflation was in the double digits (peaked 14.8%). Under Carter and Reagan fed chair Volcker raised interest rates from 11.2% to over 20% for a time to combat it.
Under Volcker, unions were busted and wages flattened as a means of inducing austerity. That lemon's been juiced.
There is no pool of retail consumers who can maintain spending at double-digit inflation rates for an appreciable length of time. You'd just see consumer spending plunge
Tbf the union busting and wage flattening was Reagan. That stuff wasn't under Volcker purview. Volcker was nominated by Carter, the inflation was already there and was something the admin was voted in to do something about.
The inflation was there regardless, the interest rate is supposed to rein it in. A high interest rate does cause austerity but high inflation is unsustainable in other ways and can very easily become hyperinflation.
Carter was the moderate appeasement to Blue Dog Dems and disgusted Reps. He seems left today, but that's only because the proverbial Overton window has shifted so far right, it's not even on the home, or anywhere in proximity.
Carter deregulate the trucking industry, the airlines, the railroads, and natural gas prices. This restored profit for corporations but led to mass layoffs for the unionized workers in these industries.
The inflation began back under LBJ. He, Nixon, and Ford all experimented with regulation and subsidies and propaganda to curb the wage/price feedback loop.
Carter was the first to try "degrowth" through a lending squeeze. And it worked... by decoupling wages from GDP.
Inflation was a function of the rebuild of Europe and the post war expansion of the USSR and the Global South.
Americans were no longer getting foreign imported raw materials at a pittance. Nor were they the only consumers of those foreign imports.
We still get them at a pittance and the global South, East pays dearly for it.
We still get them at a pittance and the global South, East pays dearly for it.
The rich want this and will spend.
You can only sell a single person a limited number of toasters.