16/10/2014: Stating the Obvious, yet the Un-mentionable

With all the talk about 'inflation is too low' in Europe, let me put it to you succinctly: It is not the inflation, stupid! It is income, aka consumers capacity to sustain demand...

In real terms, and with illicit drugs and prostitution factored in, whilst counting in addition bogus R&D reclassifications and other 'bells and whistles' of national accounts, only TWO of the Euro Area 12 'rich' economies have managed to regain their pre-crisis real GDP per capita peak: Germany and Austria. One of them - Germany - has no demographic driver for increased demand. So go figure: price inflation is low because incomes are low! Not because monetary authorities are not doing something. Nor because Germany is dragging Europe down. May be, because, in part, fiscal authorities have taxed the daylights out of people. And may be because banks have shoved so much credit into households prior to the crisis than few can borrow much more to sustain unsustainable (judging by income growth) consumption growth.

So again: It is not the inflation that is too low, stupid! It is income, aka consumers capacity to sustain demand, that is too low...