Stagflation

Stagflation is the worry of the moment. Talk about a ’70s flashback. The term refers to the combination of high inflation, high unemployment and weak growth — trends that weren’t supposed to go together. As Robert Samuelson has pointed out, the current troubles likely won’t be a repeat of the disco age, unless the Fed overreacts. Recessions are natural economic phenomena and sometimes trying to avoid them can make the eventual reckoning worse.

But we shouldn’t stop thinking there. As long as the popular conversation is on stagflation and the 1970s, it’s a chance to follow those themes to some provocative and disturbing questions.