Economics
It’s Alive! Or Is It? Economists Spar on Inflation Frankenstein
- Inflationists say inflection point in overall prices is near
- Some measures of employment and wages still show slack
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Reminiscent of a scene from the 1931 film classic “Frankenstein,” a cadre of economists and investors are now shouting “It’s alive! It’s alive!” with respect to the long-dormant U.S. inflation monster.
“Labor market overheating,” Torsten Slok, the chief international economist at Deutsche Bank AG, headlined an email note after the January jobs report showed a 2.9 percent year-over-year jump in average hourly earnings, the largest since mid-2009. Paul Tudor Jones, the hedge fund manager, warned in a Feb. 2 letter to clients that inflation was going to return “with a vengeance.”