Two others associated with the hawkish camp, which is focused on continued vigilance on inflation, offered similar perspectives in separate interviews.
The risk of printing francs to intervene in currency markets is that it raises upward pressure on prices, so the lack of inflation offers the central bank room to be more aggressive in fighting the franc's surge.
Eternal inflation offers a viable alternative that is untenable in a finite universe, i.e., that a coupled system of translation and replication emerged by chance, and became the breakthrough stage from which biological evolution, centered around Darwinian selection, took off.
Financial instruments linked to infrastructure are typically hedged against inflation and offer stable returns, with low volatility and little correlation with other asset classes.
His intention was to reduce inflation and offer an alternative way to save – and, of course, they proved to be a huge success.
But German bonds are safe, and given the very weak outlook for euro-area inflation they offer a real return that, in this fallen world of rock-bottom yields, is not all that bad.
For many of us who went on strike last Thursday, the dismal below inflation pay offer was not the only reason that got us out on the picket lines (for the first time in many cases).
In the private sector, we want landlords to commit to capping their yearly rent increases at 2% above inflation and offer long-term tenancies to those who need them.
Now, I don't expect all the people who filled The Wall Street Journal's editorial page in 2008 and 2009 predicting an imminent rise in inflation to offer a mea culpa, but at some point I think the inflationphobes should at least stop saying that hyperinflation is right around the corner.
The cost of paying such benefits, which are partly linked to inflation and offer payouts to surviving spouses, is simply too high now that many retirees are surviving into their 80s.Yet most new public-sector employees in Britain and America continue to benefit from pensions linked to their salaries.
